Woman saves Museveni from lynching

Had it not been for a respectable woman in the village who stood up to the irate crowd and persuaded them not to act brutally, Museveni and his two other colleagues would have been lynched instantly. And the history of the struggle to oust Idi Amin as well as the history of Uganda since 1971 would have been recorded without the mention of the name Yoweri Museveni.

As early as April 1971, following the January 25 coup that toppled president Milton Obote, the new government under president Idi Amin had received intelligence information that some youth had been travelling to Tanzania to join Obote to train for a guerrilla warfare and return to oust the new regime in Uganda.
President Amin revealed this at Parliament building in Kampala on April 15, 1971, while parading the 80 would-be-guerrillas arrested on the Uganda-Kenya border on their way to Tanzania.
The Uganda Argus of April 16, 1971, quoted Amin saying Ms Janet Akol from Lango in northern Uganda was in charge of recruiting the guerrillas. Two Tanzanians were among the 80 people arrested. They were Gosbert Kattabaro and Sam Kabalagala, both from the Bahaya tribe in Bukoba, northern Tanzania.

Kattabaro revealed to Amin before the media that he had been given Shs900 and was promised another Shs6,000 after he had successfully led them to Tanzania. Kattabaro also said Charles Mayara was his contact.
Amin told the captives that if they had been found with arms, then their fate would have been different. He warned Ugandans to desist from guerrilla activities and released the Tanzanians who he told to go back home and tell their fellow countrymen that there was no need for war between the two sister countries because of one man. Obote.
Speaking at the opening of a new paratroopers training and dropping zone in Kisoro, Kigezi sub-region, on April 30, 1971, Amin warned the guerrillas and their collaborators in Kigezi.
He said: “I must warn such politicians and other people who are working against the interests and well-being of Ugandans that my government will deal with them very severely.”

“As some of you must have heard over Radio Uganda or read in the papers, Obote who has been totally rejected by all the people in Uganda is recruiting a few misguided youth, especially from Lango District.”
“Obote will never come back as a president. My government has the full support of the people in every corner of Uganda, except few rejected politicians like Obote, who is recruiting these youths for guerrilla warfare. These guerrillas will never succeed. They are digging their own graves.”
During the International Labour Day function on May 1, 1971, which Amin presided over at Kabale stadium, he told Ugandans to be vigilant and report or arrest any strangers in their villages and take them to police.
During his working tour which started from Kigezi, Amin visited all regions in Uganda, warning of the infiltration of guerrillas from Tanzania.

Museveni survives lynching
Not knowing that the Uganda government had received intelligence information about the existence of the guerrilla’s camps in Bugisu sub-region, Museveni went to Bumbo village in Mbale.
He travelled with two other colleagues with false student identity cards and other documents allegedly from Makerere University indicating that they were students of geology on a study trip. Since the Fronasa (Front for National Salvation) rebel camps were around Mt Elgon, the documents were to cover them in case they were intercepted, especially by the authorities in the region.

But luck was not on their side and they were arrested by a local security officer in Bumbo. The reason was that the trio were strangers in the village and looked suspicious. After the arrest, it was discovered that two of the suspects (Museveni and Abwooli Malibo) could not speak Lumasaba, the local lingua. However, the third suspect, Magode Ikuya, was a Mugisu and fluent in the language.
Soon the villagers gathered. During the interrogation, Museveni accepted that he was their leader; but he could not explicitly explain the reason for traveling to the mountain. Soon the villagers started shouting “kill them, kill them. They are the guerrillas.”
Meanwhile, the trio had been ordered to sit down and were roughed up since they were suspected to be guerrillas infiltrating the country as Amin had warned.

Nandhutu (not real name) witnessed the incident. In 2001 after she and other women from Mbale District visited President Museveni at his country home in Rwakitura, Kiruhura District, Nandhutu is quoted as having told a journalist:
“Museveni and his two other friends had been arrested by the villagers as they returned from the mountain [Elgon], and people gathered to see rebels who had been arrested. They were told to sit down. Then an angry man came wielding a panga, ready to cut off Museveni’s head, who was their leader. But Museveni blocked it [the panga] with his arm. When Museveni fell down, I told the man not to kill him. I said they were students from Makerere University and that they had previously passed at my home asking for the way to the mountain and they were set free.”
Nandhutu said she later helped Museveni wrap the bleeding arm with a piece of cloth.
She further revealed: “When we were in Rwakitura, Museveni called me to greet him, I saw the scar and I touched it. The scar is still there.”
The Sunday Monitor is tracing her contact.

In his book Sowing the Mustard Seed, Museveni says they brought boys [guerrillas] into Uganda and positioned them in Mt Elgon without any arms.

While writing about establishing Fronasa rebel camps in eastern Uganda, particularly in Bugisu sub-region, Museveni’s narration of the hardships encountered somehow comes too close to Nandhutu’s version.
On page 55 of the Sowing the Mustard Seed Museveni writes: “In August 1971, we brought boys [guerrillas] into Uganda and positioned them on Mt Elgon without any arms, in hope of buying some later; but the boys were not sufficiently disciplined and soon gave themselves away.”
“A boy called Wafula went to the market in Bumbo where he was arrested and made to talk about his activities. Amin’s soldiers then arrested the rest of the group, including Raiti Omongin and took them to Makindye Maximum Security Prison in Kampala.”

“Without knowing that the Omongin group had been arrested, I came to join them in the camp. I went through Mbale to Bumbo with Magode Ikuya and Abwooli Malibo. We were, however, stopped and questioned by a Special Branch man [security officer] who suspected us of wrong doing.”
“We told him that we were students carrying out some research on the mountain. He believed our story and it was he who told us that some suspicious people had been arrested in the area a few days previously. Then we knew we were in trouble.”
“We went up and spent the night at the forest camp in order to complete our deception and came back the following day to report to the Special Branch man. Unfortunately, he was not there and we proceeded to Nabumali, where we separated. I left for Kampala and Ikuya and Malibo headed to Mbale.”

Nandhutu’s narration to the journalist somehow corresponds with Museveni’s version. For instance, she talked of Museveni having two other boys, who in Sowing the Mustard Seed were Malibo and Ikuya.
Malibo was arrested in a tea room in Kampala in January 1973 and was among the famous 11 guerrillas executed in public in February 10, 1973. He was executed in Fort-Portal, his home area together with his friend Phares Kasoro, a policeman, though not a Fronasa activist.
Kasoro’s crime? He accommodated Malibo at his home in Kampala; and hence a guerrilla collaborator, according to the military tribune that convicted Kasoro, among 10 others.
In remembrance of the duo, two roads in Fort-Portal town were named after Kasoro and Malibo.

Continues next Sunday