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As the campaigns for the 1980 general elections unfolded,
Yoweri Museveni, then the leader of the Uganda Patriotic
Movement (UPM), blurted out a daring statement.
He declared that if Dr. Apollo Milton Obote’s UPC
took power by fraud or by force, he would go to the bush
to oppose the imposed government.
Obote retorted derisively that if Museveni went to the
bush, he would follow and leave him there. He described
Museveni as a mere scout-boy in the struggle against Idi
Amin with no worthy credentials to challenge UPC’s
right to power.
The verbal exchange heralded the imminent outbreak of war
in the country. The overwhelming desire for a new political
dispensation had, contrary to Obote’s expectations,
caused the formation of the Uganda National Liberation Front
(UNLF) as an umbrella organisation that took over government
after the fall of Idi Amin. This left Obote sulking and
fuming.
When Kampala was captured by Tanzanian forces, Obote’s
small unit of exiled soldiers was rapidly recruited into
its ranks of tens of thousands of elements based on ethnicity.
The aim was to shock and awe the county into submission
to his will.
With the armed bands of Obote on the rampage, the UNLF
period was made ungovernable. The Obote soldiers overthrew
Godfrey Binaisa’s UNLF-led government and installed
the UPC protégé Paulo Muwanga in power.
At last Obote felt elated. He returned to the country by
landing in Bushenyi on May 27, 1980 in a procession of power
and triumph.
Although the ensuing campaigns were supposedly to win over
supporters by the parties, Obote relentlessly pilloried
the contending groups, questioning whether they had any
military commanders to deserve power.
The Democratic Party (DP) used to taunt UPC that it was
very popular and its next meeting with its leader Dr. Paul
Ssemogerere would be at the State House. Obote sarcastically
asked what business the DP had in imagining being in State
House. In fact, Obote offered to instruct Paulo Muwanga
to take DP leaders on a guided tour of State House gardens.
Increasingly, many Ugandans saw the seizure of power by
the UPC as a fait accompli. This is why various groups,
including the National Resistance Army (NRA), sprang up
to prepare for armed resistance.
February 6, 1981 is usually lauded as the beginning of
the NRA struggle by 27 patriots who were infuriated by the
UPC electoral fraud. What is not normally said is that the
decision to fight had been hatched before the electoral
outcome.
It is vital to understand the true cause of a phenomenon
in order to discern its exigency. Cause denotes that which
gives rise and leads to an event. Any event that results
from cause translates into its effect; cause fathers effect;
effect consummates it.
The two are intimately connected; cause generates effect,
while effect extinguishes it, becoming the new cause and
effect in endless progression.
Cause should be distinguished from the occasion in which
it takes place. As a rule, cause always precedes effect.
However, this does not imply that everything that comes
before an occurrence is its cause.
Heavy drinking of alcohol causes drunkenness. But the eating
of mchomo during the drinking cannot be added also as a
cause of the drunkenness. The mchomo feat is only an occasion
in the process of getting drunk. Occasion is also different
from pretext; the clever hide behind an occasion to justify
a pre-determined agenda.
The UPC’s flagrant rigging of the elections was not
the cause, but merely the appropriate occasion and pretext
for the insurgency.
Even if UPC had not declared itself victors in the elections,
the guerilla war was already inevitable. The UPC had armed
itself, rearing for a fight to destabilise the country unless
Obote assumed power.
Equally determined were many Ugandan groups to prevent the
riding roughshod over the country by the UPC, but each with
their own independent intentions and methodology.
This is why the eventual victory of the NRM did not limit
itself to the mechanics of 1980 rigged elections. If the
gist of NRM grievances had been just the stolen elections,
then the NRA should have confined itself simply to handing
over power to the perceived victors of the elections.
The real cause of the NRM struggle was our objection to
Obote’s determined drive for military hegemony based
on ethnic instigation to subdue our country and violate
the sacred principles by which our people aspired to be
governed as a modern African state.
We decided to overthrow the UPC regime and the complete
dismantling of its armed structure.
It was followed with the building of a truly disciplined,
detribalised national army. Even though we have created
a disciplined force in the UPDF, we are still faltering
in many other-respects.
The NRM itself is run like a private organisation. Elections
are commercialised. Abuse of authority is blood cuddling.
The existence of a strong army does not dispel the necessity
for political organisation to address social questions.
Even strong armies collapse from incompetent politics.
That was true before. It should be the lesson now.
James Magode Ikuya, The author is a member
of NEC (NRM) representing historicals. megawa@hotmail.com
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