5^th–11^th July 2010

By Ofwono Opondo

Thank you for seeking our [NRM’s] views on the various claims, allegations, and accusations by the once notorious Lt. Col. John Martin Ogole of the defunct UNLA-UPC military fascist wing that operated and run an atrocious war in the famous Luwero Triangle.

The claims by Ogole are neither new nor different from those made by former president Milton Obote [RIP], Akena Adoko [RIP], Aggrey Awori, Mr. Sam Luwero, Yona Kanyomozi, Edward Ruraganranga, and lately Olara Otunnu.  In fact they are also similar to what some DP leaders and activists have said before.

Our response remains the same.  That-yes there was a war in Luwero; a war of political and national liberation started by the NRA/M led by Yoweri Musevei as a just war because UPC had sought to reduce our country into its fiefdom.  It rigged the 1980 [elections] using all known and unknown means including gerrymandering, prevention and physical elimination of opponents before, during and after elections.  It unilaterally changed electoral rules and results in its sole favour [and] barred courts of law from entertaining any election petitions and political grievances.

Before, during and after the elections, UPC waged a systematic tribal, ethnic and political hate campaign of elimination and discrimination in every aspect of life including denying jobs, businesses, travel and basic personal freedoms to those suspected not to support or sympathise with the young regime.  UPC officially stated that it “…would forgive but not forget the past. It would start from where it had stopped in 1971” when Idi Amin overthrew it.

UPC rejected each and every plea by DP, UPM, Ugandans and the international community for a political dialogue to settle the election grievances and it categorically said that it had “military commanders and that whoever would start a war, the UPC will follow them to the bush and leave him or them there dead”. The rest as we say is now history.

The basic facts:

• By those behaviours of UPC and its various leaders, UPC like Idi Amin earlier left no other civilised option for settling the deep political disputes. NRA and Ugandans responded appropriated with a justified military protracted peoples’ war to remove UPC and its apparatus.

• Yes people died and those who joined or supported NRA/M did so consciously knowing they could [pay] with their lives and property.  As they expected UPC/UNLA responded in a primitive, vicious and murderous manner; killing without discrimination or isolating civilians and innocents from guerrilla combatants.

• UPC then descended into wanton arson, killing, robbery and looting, and pillage; taking with them war booty from Luwero Triangle to areas where most of the UNLA soldiers came from.  From the war zones, the UNLA soldiers and NASA intelligence operatives returned with women, old household items like cookers, fridges, windows, doors and iron sheets got from people’s homes.

• They staged daylight and night roadblocks at which they looted, ransacked, robbed, beat, harassed, raped and killed people at will and the government Ogole claims had the constitutional mandate, authority and power to protect all Ugandans and the sanctity of the state failed. Instead, it was the perpetrators.

• Throughout the five years of UPC and the war, no one was prosecuted for the omissions and commissions either in Luwero Triangle or anywhere else in Uganda.  Murders, robbery and killing [were] not limited to the Luwero Triangle environs only.

While the Ogoles want to rationalise their extremes in Luwero Triangle to the presence of NRA, they keep quite [about] why they [UPC and UNLA] behaved in exactly if not worse ways in others parts of Uganda like Jinja, Kampala, Tororo, Kabarole, Mbarara, Masaka, and Bushenyi where there was no war [and] no NRA!

For the record, there is no district [except] perhaps Lango and Acholi regions where people-opposition supporters were not harassed, beaten, silenced, robbed, denied businesses, education, jobs, sacked from government jobs in parastatals, civil service, and education or killed merely because some UPC functionary decided they are unwanted.  We can give names of people in Tororo, Busoga and Bugisu who have never been seen after being arrested by UPC functionaries.  Even within UPC, there are many like Omara Arubo, Akisoferi Ogola and others who can testify that they were silenced because they did not support the powerful factions within UPC.

If indeed Ogole claims and pleads innocence, why then did he run away via Tanzania and to UK?  Perhaps then he feared the Tito Okellos could have eliminated him.  For 24years since a civilised NRM government has been ruling Uganda, the rule of law is respected, [and] courts functional; why hasn’t Ogole returned like Olara Otunnu, Aggrey Awori, Sam Luwero, Kasemba Ddumba [Director of NASA], Brig. Smith Opon Acak [RIP], Col. William Omaria, Col. Walter Ochora, Brig. Zed Maruru, and Brig. Sam Nanyumba.

As you may know Chris Rwakasis and Maj. Rurangaranga were captured, tried, and some were convicted of those crimes but have since been released or acquitted and are today free men.  Ogole is a wanted man in Uganda to answer for his alleged crimes.  He can run but not forever as Olara Otunnu or Dr Kizza Besigyes cases amply demonstrate.

ofwonopondo@gmail.com

The writer is the NRM government’s spokesperson and head of its Communication Bureau