28.06.2010

UC:  How and when exactly did you get involved in the Luwero war?

Col. Ogole:  Let us first get the basic facts out of the way.  The Luwero war was Museveni’s creation.  The government I served didn’t start that war; it merely responded, as it was indeed constitutionally enjoined to do, to the threat to national security that such a war inevitably posed.  But what most people have failed to appreciate all this time is that Yoweri Kaguta Museveni did not start his war against Ugandans from Luwero in 1981.  Neither did he start it because the 1980 elections had been stolen.

UC:  So when exactly did Museveni start his war “against Ugandans” as you put?

Col. Ogole:  His Luwero massacre was conceived and planned in Tanzania but executed from 1980 when he lost the election in his own home constituency.  I recently heard the new Democratic Party President General Norbert Mao saying that “war is like a game of football.  Whoever kills the most, wins”.  That is of course a layman’s political analysis of war.  But, as someone who commanded government troops in Luwero, I can authoritatively tell Ugandans today that we came across hundreds of dead bodies of mainly UPC activists who had been massacred in cold blood by Museveni’s NRA rebels.  And there are many living ex UNLA soldiers who were under my command who can testify to this.  Prior to this of course, I think we all heard allegations within Uganda’s political rumour-mills saying that Museveni’s FRONASA group had butchered hundreds of Moslems in Mbarara as they entered Uganda during the 1979 liberation war against Amin.

But to answer your first question, let me tell you something else that most Ugandans have not known until now.  For the most part of Museveni’s terror campaign in Luwero I was not there.  From 1980 to 1982, I was a Staff Officer in the Army & Air Force Headquarters working as Deputy Director of Army and Air force Records Office and Acting Chief of Personnel and Administration.  From December 1982 – May 1983, I was Commanding Officer 11^th Battalion in West Nile.  From June 1983 to June 1984, I was a student at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, USA.  From July 84 to Sept 84 I was Commandant School of Infantry Jinja.  Those are hard naked facts that no amount of propaganda from Museveni’s dictatorship should ever distort again in your eyes as peace loving Ugandans of integrity.

Effectively, I was deployed in Luwero from October 1984 as Brigade Commander of the newly formed 50^th Brigade by which time anyone in the triangle who did not support Museveni’s NRA bandits had either ran away, were six feet deep, or rotting somewhere in the bushes of Luwero triangle having been killed by NRA.  Some of the most unfortunate victims had their skulls kept by Museveni’s NRA propaganda strategists.  We all know what they did with those skulls.  They were gathered in several heaps for Journalists to take pictures of in a wicked effort to tarnish my name and the name of the government I served.  That was one of the most dastardly and abominable acts of insult to the dead that I have ever seen in my life.  Only an evil psychopath can do something as grotesque as that; totally against the African culture!

By October 1984 it was common knowledge that Museveni controlled not only the triangle, but also blocked the main Kampala-Gulu road and no one could venture into the interior of the triangle.  Details of the Luwero war will feature in my autobiography to be published soon.

When Museveni finally took power from the Okellos in 1986, his men did not stop the butchery.  They continued to butcher people in Kitgum, Gulu, Teso [climaxing in the Mukura in train wagons massacre], Barlonyo near Lira where over 300 people were murdered in cold blood under the very noses of Museveni’s troops, recently in Kampala we all saw how his soldiers killed 24 demonstrators who were protesting Museveni’s decision to stop His Royal Highness the Kabaka of Buganda from visiting Kayunga; a constituent part of his Kingdom. 

The pictures of how Museveni’s personal bodyguards shot and killed people during the Kasubi Tombs fire are still fresh in our memories.  In the DRC, the situation wasn’t any different when Museveni’s soldiers were there in the late 1990s.  In fact, the International Court of Justice convicted Uganda for the horrible atrocities it committed there and for looting DRC’s natural resources and ordered it to pay $10billion in damages.  This is money that you and I, our children, our grandchildren, and future generations will have to pay to DRC whether we like it or not; all because of Museveni’s personal political misadventures.  These naked facts should constantly remind Ugandans and our regional neighbours who this quack “General” Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is; a “General” who to the best of my knowledge has never attended a single military course anywhere.