Army Generals tried to topple Museveni in April
By George Murumba
27th June 2011:
Did some of his Generals try to topple him?
A strong NRM party stalwart who was recently appointed Minister of State in the new government has revealed that President Museveni unearthed a plan by two senior army Generals to “overthrow” the government in order to stop it falling into opposition leader Dr. Besigye’s hands during the ‘walk-to-work’ protests in April.
The State Minister, a controversial and wealthy businessman from the Lango Sub-Region who has in the past been linked to dodgy mineral deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC], said the President revealed the plan to him during a meeting he and the President had at State House.
The two Generals, both decorated veterans of Museveni’s 1981-86 NRA war in the jungles of Luwero, were apparently worried that the ‘walk-to-walk’ protests over the high fuel and food had propelled FDC President Dr. Kizza Besigye into an unprecedented level of popularity which could have emboldened him to call millions of his supporters to the streets to demand Museveni’s immediate resignation.
To stop the government falling into Besigye’s hands, the Generals therefore thought it would be better to get rid of President Museveni immediately in a bloodless coup and thereafter declare what Uganda Correspondent understands was supposed to be a spell of “…temporary military rule to prepare for peaceful retirement”.
Power struggle: Old guard Vs Muhoozi generation
The second reason, our source said, was that the two “old guard” Generals felt that President Museveni, as Commander-in-Chief of the army, was incrementally handing over the most influential positions in the army to the young generation of army officers who never fought in the NRA’s armed struggle that brought Museveni to power.
In particular, the Generals had Museveni’s son Lt. Col. Muhoozi Keinerugaba and Brigadiers James Mugira and Moses Rwakitarate in mind. Muhoozi is easily the most powerful soldier in the country today; largely because he is the overall commander of the semi-autonomous Special Forces Group, an elite unit of the army that is well trained, well armed, and better facilitated compared to the poor old foot soldiers who live in squalid conditions at army establishments across the country.
During the ‘walk-to-work’ protests in April, Lt. Col. Muhoozi’s Special Forces took full charge of the most brutal crackdown on peaceful protests that Uganda had ever seen. Indeed at the time, the overall Coordinator of Intelligence and Security Agencies Gen. David Tinyefunza and Army Commander General Aronda Nyakairima condemned the crackdown.
In a statement that barely concealed his resentment of the way the inexperienced “Muhoozi generation” was handling sensitive security operations, Gen. Tinyefunza, a veteran of the NRA war, was reported in the media at the time to have said that if he was in charge of the operation to arrest FDC President Dr. Kizza Besigye on 28th April, he would “…have done things differently”. He said he may have simply towed Besigye’s vehicle away instead of smashing its windows to bits to effect arrest.
How Museveni nipped the coup plot in the bud
According to the newly appointed State Minister from Lango, President Museveni, upon learning of the “friendly” coup plot against his government, moved quickly and nipped it in the bud. The Minister said the President ordered that the two ‘suspect’ Generals be immediately kept under virtual house arrest.
It is particularly instructive that round about the same time, the grapevine had it that Generals Salim Saleh and David Tinyefunza had been put under house arrest. Last week, General Salim Saleh openly said that he thinks his big brother President Museveni should leave power in 2016.
One NRM diehard from Western Uganda who claims to be closer to the President however dismissed the Lango Minister’s allegations as fanciful. “…That is fanciful. Some of the new Ministers are trying to show their gullible friends that they are powerful. Good luck to them”, the official said before hanging up. END. Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
