UGANDA: THE 1985 WAR IS THE OVID-PANDEMIC CLIMAX IS REPEAT?

And yet the country was at war and this was the climax.

0th November 2020

Kampala, Uganda

1985

I met Michael at Kampala Parents school under circumstances that are not too different from today. I was a primary seven pupil at Budo Junior School (Kabinja). It was September and I was due to sit for PLE in 8 short weeks.  But my school as well as its big brother King’s, had been rudely shut down when UNLA officers who had children in the school picked them up and told the headmaster the school sat on the front line between the national army and the rebels who were advancing on the capital.

The headmaster Mr George Kaggwa reached a quick decision, called a few parents who had the privilege of home or work telephones and cars to come pick their children up. My father was in political exile and could not be reached.  My mother did not have a phone. Or a car. When all the privileged kids had been picked up, the headmaster asked those of us who could find our way home from the city to jump onto the school truck – as it was his wish to leave no one, not even the teachers in a war zone.

We boarded the truck with our belongings and started for the city. The 13 kms journey from

Buddo to Kampala road City (Constitution) Square had a roadblock every 2 or so kms.  We were stopped a minimum of 6 times but each time waved on to proceed.

The country was clearly at war and even at that tender age we knew it.

From the City Square, myself and my siblings hired a Kigaali (wooden push cart) driver to help us get to my mother’s flat at Martin road, Old Kampala. Here we would discover that things were worse.  The only difference being that the mother lion was in the house and her cubs, the seven of us were happy. It was worse because the evenings would be lit up by the fire of spirited shootings while sporadic and distant pops would keep you alert through the night. During the day we would venture out to fetch water from the Aga Khan School which required us to walk past the Old Kampala police station and barracks. The police men were mean and loud and looked menacing with their guns but none let off a shot let alone shoot dead a civilian in cold blood and in plain view of bystanders.

And yet the country was at war.

After a week of fetching water by day and hiding under the bed by night, the rebels retreated and Kampala schools reopened. Through the kindness of Mr Kasole (deceased), mum enrolled me in Kampala Parents School which stood on the site where Lohana Old Kampala stands today.  In this city school which was relatively new and small, I would be able to keep my mind fresh for the finals. I was not sure I would sit as my centre remained closed. Perhaps due to that fact, as well as that Mr Kasole was well aware of my family’s patriarch’s misfortune, my fees were waived.  The 4 weeks I was in KPS were difficult, not least because of the academics which seemed to be based on hyper loads of homework.  There was also corporal punishment for transgressions I had never heard of never mind the expected bullying of the new boy.

After 4 weeks, the rebel threat became distant and Budo Junior school reopened.  I returned to school to write my papers and then promptly went back home to start what should have been a few weeks of vac(ation) and coming of age. The year was 1985.

But on the morning of the 17th of January 1986, I was helping out mum at the shop on Luwum street when the old (and at the time only) taxi park started to look deserted. When we asked what was happening, we were told the rebels had taken Nateete and were determined to take kampala in a no-retreat-no-surrender mother of all battles. The city was gripped with feelings of melancholy and the shops buzzed with legendary talk of the gallant rebel soldiers.  UNLA soldiers were clearly agitated but apart from driving at break neck speed towards Queens way and the old Masaka road, no civilians were shot or arrested. Even as some adults jubilated in anticipation of liberation from a bad regime, no one was asked to panda-gari.

And yet the country was at war and this was the climax.

1985 was an election year. The elections did not happen because earlier in July the UNLA had overthrown the government of UPC in a bloodless coup.  We know it was bloodless because the UNLA drove into Kampala in broad day light, took position outside key government sites like BoU, Parliament and Radio Uganda and fired in the air to disperse crowds informing them there would be a curfew and they needed to get home.  No civilians were shot in cold blood, not even the surrendering guards who were on duty at the sites because they did not shoot back.

I was 12 and despite mum’s warnings, we watched the action from the top floor of the building housing the flats and from where we could see as far as the KPC and Wandegeya.  At the time the highest building between Martin road and KPC was the post office building on William street.  The Hotel Equatoria was still in its original colonial shape, there was no kisekka market, Mukwano arcade or Nabukeera plaza.  The skyline was unimpressive but not as unimpressive as the war we were witnessing.  It was more impressive learning to spell and pronounce coup détat.  For there were no dead bodies or shooting victims on the streets.  There was no blood to make our little skins crawl or bring back the fear of God.  The mutinying soldiers turned to looting shops and commandeering vehicles to move their loot but none of the bullets they used to force shops open killed any civilians.

And yet the country was at war.

Instead of elections, or choosing to crash the rebels they had been fighting for years, the military junta now in power chose to engage the rebels led by Yoweri Museveni in peace talks that went on for a couple of months.  During the peace talks I learnt that my father was one of the delegates negotiating on behalf of the rebels.  A peace agreement was signed and I became happy and proud and anticipated the family reunion that was on the cards.  I looked forward to returning to a bigger house on a farm where I was born.  I forgave and forgot all the scary nights that were the norm under the UNLA and Obote regimes. But my happiness was cut short when the rebels announced that they had no intention of honoring the peace agreement they had signed.  They would fight the animals until humanity won.

This war was not about to end. Or so I thought.

They say things get better before they get worse.  I went back to school for third term and despite the rude interruption I sat for PLE.  They also say measles gets worse before it gets better.  The UNLA soldiers became rougher and the shootings in the night became more spirited.  I quickly gave up and forgot my dreams of being reunited with my father on a sprawling farm.

On the 17th of January 1986 when reports came in that the rebels were on the western fringes of the city, my mother’s knee jerk reaction was to throw myself and another sibling who were in the shop, on a taxi that was headed east.  Mum did not come with us as she had many more kids to worry about so we travelled with a perfect stranger, in truth, a rebel collaborator.  At first I thought we were headed for my uncle’s farm in Ngogwe but then the taxi did not turn right at Kawolo (Lugazi) and instead stopped in Jinja where we spent the night before proceeding to Malaba on the 18th.    We spent a night in Eldoret and arrived in Nairobi on the 19th.  Instead of the joy of reuniting with daddy, we were simply relieved that we had escaped war and also anxious because we had no way of knowing if the family we had left behind would survive the war.

Just one week later, after nights spent dialing between BBC and VOA radios, on the 25th Kampala fell.  Daddy was named in the rebels turned liberators’ cabinet and he flew out of JKIA on the 27th. The same night, without packing any clothes or supplies, we set off for Kampala by car and arrived the next morning for the reunion on home soil that I had dreamt about and forgotten. What had seemed like a lifetime of fear and danger and terror had come to an end.

On the 23rd of June 1986, I enrolled in senior one at Kings College Budo after the longest (before 2020) school vac(ation) on record. One of the boys in my dorm was Michael who had welcomed me and looked after me at Kampala Parents. Michael is the one who taught me which bikuubo to pass through on the way to school, to avoid the many UNLA and Policemen that lived and sat, guns in hand and drunk, at every door step all over old kampala hill.  Many years later in 1997 we joined Bank of Uganda around the same time and ten years later, we each married our sweet hearts.

Fast forward to November 2020. For most of the year schools have been closed and finalists including those scheduled to sit PLE have only recently been cleared to return to prepare for the exams which have been pushed to the second quarter of 2021. Some of the schools have failed to open due to bankruptcy and inability to spend on COVID SOPs. Some pupils and students whose parents can afford it, have had to change schools while others remain at home and for all intents and purposes their education journey has come to an end.

In so many respects, it is 1985.  This country is at war but we don’t know it.

There is the global war on COVID of course but that is not what I am writing about.  Michael’s wife passed on yesterday and is to be laid to rest in Rukungiri this weekend. I have to be there and I have the means to get there but I cannot.  This is worse than 1985. Innocent bystanders have been shot dead in the street in broad daylight. I cannot venture out beyond the neighborhood food kiosk for there are no guarantees that I will make it back alive. To think that we were being liberated in 1985 from animals??!!

Am still looking for a word to describe the dark, cold and empty souls of those who gave the kill command, those who executed it and those who dare to speak in public to defend it. We were told that the UNLA regime that did not kill innocent civilians in broad day light were animals so that label is taken. Also, they cannot be animals, for animals do not kill their own.  Some of the demons (am still looking for the word) ordering, executing and justifying these killings are my age mates and school mates. Some of them are my neighbours and customers.  Some are in your community and you break bread with them every week.

The country is at war and we are blind fools, we don’t know it.

But friends, It is 1985 all over again.  Look around.  Schools are closed.  A curfew is in force by night while by day, panda gari operations abound.  The people power movement of Kyagulanyi are contesting an election some say they cannot win and the movement of Museveni has no intention of honoring.    In 1985 I was 12 and had no idea what was going on in the bush and I might be 47 today but I must admit, I still have no idea what is going on in Kamwokya.

In fact many of us middle aged parents have no idea what is going on in the country and the only thing we can do is keep the minors we are charged with away from the stray bullets.  Just like some of our parents’ generation who did not participate in the struggle back then, we are content with things remaining the way they are.  We go to work, buy food and keep our children behind secure walls and away from stray bullets. Some of us have even found schools across borders for them while others are paying for online classes.  We believe this is normal, that things won’t change and some of us secretly hope they don’t.  Boy are we foolish and blind!!

We have forgotten that history repeats itself, that lessons that are not learnt must be repeated until they are learned.  We are in denial that our countrymen, women and children have been terrorized, nay murdered in cold blood and in broad day light and we cannot bury them because COVID might send a stray bullet our way.  We cannot afford to pay for COVID tests.  We have to bribe to get our relatives into Mulago or sell real estate to maintain them at Platinum and Norvik.

It is 1985 all over again, the country is at war and my dreams are back.  My father died fifteen years ago, so no, am not dreaming of being reunited with him at our ancestral grounds in Kyaggwe.  No, not yet at least.

Maybe the elections will take place, maybe they won’t.  Maybe Kyagulanyi will win, maybe he won’t.  Maybe Museveni will not handover power, maybe he will.  Maybe the high command will not salute Kyagulanyi, maybe they won’t be around to do so.  Like I said I know nothing.  What I know is, just like 1985 gave way to 1986, 2020 will give way to 2021.  And things will change as they must and until they do, I will hold onto my dream of reuniting with Michael in safe and happier times.

By Omar Mayanja, son of  late former Deputy Premier Abu Mayanja. The Michael he refers to is Michael Kabandize.