Why Museveni and his ‘Rwitabagomi’ are inseparable

Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni loves his gun so much that he has given it a name. It is called Rwitabagomi (the one that shoots down stubborn ones).

The gun is quite often by his side. It is oiled every day by his convoy commanders and placed within arm’s reach when he rides in his official limousine.

The world got to catch sight of the Rwitabagomi on Tuesday when Mr Museveni turned up at the site of the devastating mud slide in Mbale, eastern Uganda, in full military dress and with a gun slung on his neck.

It was an unusual sight for the president of a democratic nation to be seen armed in public. The event drew wide attention, with international news agencies and TV news anchors noting the president’s “odd” decision to turn out at the scene with an “automatic rifle.”

In Kenya, the picture showing President Museveni in full battle gear provided fodder for morning radio talk-shows.

The popular satirist of Classic 105 Mwalimu King’ang’i imagined the president explaining his decision with a heavy Ugandan accent.

“A b*****d can come from any direction,” he said. “You must be ready to shoot at all times.”

His identity

Mr Museveni himself would not understand what the fuss was all about. The gun and military fatigue go to the heart of his identity as a leader.

He sees himself as a revolutionary who was forced to turn to armed resistance to topple the murderous dictators that wasted Uganda’s first few decades of independence.

He is also a reluctant democrat who has never hidden his view that most African countries are so deeply divided along ethnic lines that a multi-party form of government is the least appropriate system of governing them.

“No Ugandan is ever surprised by the sight of Mr Museveni walking around while armed,” says Tabu Butagira, a senior reporter who covers State House for Uganda’s Daily Monitor newspaper.

“Mr Museveni shot his way to power. He is a guerrilla. His carrying a gun would only come as a surprise if he had come to power by democratic means not through the barrel of a gun.”

This is a view shared by many analysts of the Ugandan presidency. In a Daily Monitor special report marking 24 years since Mr Museveni came to power, commentators said the Ugandan president still harbours the mentality of a military man.

“(He is) a ruthless man, with determination to get his way and is persistent. He knows how to wrong-foot his opponents and is a man obsessed with violence. Those used to solving problems with violence see everything as a nail,” said Norbert Mao, a former MP.

From his early years, Mr Museveni’s political career was shaped by revolutionary ideals.

After completing high school in Ntare School in western Uganda, he joined the University of Dar es Salaam where he came under the influence of radical left wing scholars of the time including Walter Rodney, author of the influential book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

Mr Museveni and others formed the University Students’ African Revolutionary Front and he led a delegation to Mozambique to support the left wing liberation force, Frelimo. It was there that he first received guerrilla training.

This training would prove useful in later years when he went to the bush to try and oust successive Ugandan leaders, including the murderous regimes of Idi Amin, Milton Obote and Tito Okello.

During these years of guerrilla activity, Mr Museveni escaped numerous assassination attempts.

One of the most dramatic efforts to kill the rebel leader occurred in Mbale village in eastern Uganda, the same area where the mud slide disaster happened last week.

Consoling villagers when he arrived at the scene, Mr Museveni told them he knows every stream in the area by name because of the time he spent fighting there.

The president did not talk about his own close shave in Mbale 35 years ago when Mr Amin’s soldiers nearly killed him. The incident is described in vivid detail in Mr Museveni’s autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed.

“I and my fellow guerrillas, Martin Mwesiga and Wukwu ‘Kazimoto’ Mpima travelled to Mbale to join (a group of guerrillas) without knowing that (our) presence had been detected.

We drove up to the house in Busiu and found it had been deserted. As we were driving away, we saw a suspicious-looking Peugeot 404 coming out of a nearby road but we continued on our way to Mbale. When we got near Mbale town, the same Peugeot pulled up alongside our car for a few seconds and then drove on.

The time was 3.00pm. (Our host) Maumbe (Mukhwana) was not at home but his wife was. She said he would arrive soon and that we should wait for him. We weighed up whether we should go straight back to Kampala and decided we should wait for Maumbe.

Time, however, was not by our side. At around 5.00pm, we saw a contingent of about 15 military policemen coming through the estate. We sent someone outside to find out what they were after. Our messenger came back saying that they were looking for a thief.

“I wanted to open fire on them because I was not convinced that they would use 15 military policemen just to look for a thief. Mwesiga, however, dissuaded me, arguing that, firstly, we had student identity cards and secondly, we had been told they were looking for a thief, and thirdly, we were in a house with women and children whom we should not endanger.

We had left all our SMGs (submachine guns) locked up in the car outside. If the assumption that they were not looking for us was incorrect, then we were in a very vulnerable position indeed. Our consultation lasted barely two minutes before Amin’s people were upon us.

“They surrounded the house in a very unprofessional manner, without cocking their guns. They only asked one question, regarding our identity. We said we were students and, straightaway, they told us to get into our vehicle and drive with them to the barracks. That convinced me, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the time to act was then.

I had the car keys and one of the soldiers, poking a rifle into my side, told me to open and enter the car. Taking them by surprise, I jumped over the hedge, hoping that my colleagues would follow my example and scatter in different directions. At that time I did not realise that they had not done so.

“I ran towards a eucalyptus forest below the housing estate. The people in the housing estate, seeing me running pursued by soldiers, thought I was a thief and tried to intercept me, but I brandished my pistol and scared them away as I ran.

Meanwhile, the soldiers following me started firing, but it is not easy to hit a moving target, especially for the incapable, badly trained soldiers of Amin’s army. (They) kept on firing at me and missing. I reached a big tree, took cover and fired on my pursuers with my pistol and scared them away as I ran.

These were soldiers accustomed to shooting at unarmed members of the public. They were not used to answering fire with fire. (Later I learnt) my two colleagues Martin Mwesiga and Wukwu ‘Kazimoto’ had been killed. (Their deaths) were a great loss for the movement and for me personally.

Martin in particular had been a close friend of mine since the age of nine. Martin had been convinced that we could pass ourselves off as students and I blamed myself for not having insisted that we could not.”

In 2005, nine years after he was sworn in as president, Mr Museveni ordered the exhumation of Mr Mwesiga’s remains and his fallen colleague was accorded a state funeral.

To this day, Mr Museveni often returns to his roots as a soldier when he is confronted with a challenge to his authority. He has been known to dress in military fatigues to meetings with people he perceives as challenging his authority such as the Kabaka of the populous Buganda kingdom.

When Major General James Kazini, an officer who had been fired from the army on Mr Museveni’s orders died allegedly after being bludgeoned with an iron bar by his mistress, Mr Museveni turned up at his funeral in full military uniform and shocked mourners by attacking Maj Gen Kazini’s conduct.

“Whenever someone dies, people like saying it is God who has called them but in Kazini’s case he has taken himself to God,” he said.

Many critics of Mr Museveni have taken issue with his decision to cling to power despite a promise he would step down after the end of his term and his tendency to evoke his military past when confronted with challenges.

“He has proved to be (just like the) African politicians he said he wanted to be different from,” said Prof Dani Wadada Nabudere, a political scientist who has known the president since Mr Museveni’s days as a student at Ntare School.

“He has used revolutionary rhetoric to obscure the monopoly power of the colonial state. He has recreated the colonial state under him. I have always told Mr Museveni that your problem is that you think the gun is the power.”

That analysis perhaps overlooks the impact incidents such as the one in Mbale had on Mr Museveni’s psyche.

Whatever his critics say, the president and his Rwitabagomi remain inseparable.

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