By Andrew M. Mwenda
Aug 27 - Sept 3, 2003
LEIDEN, The Netherlands — Last month, the Ministry of Defense announced they had formed a commission of inquiry to investigate the existence of ghost soldiers on the army register.
The members of the commission include: the Minister of Defense Amama Mbabazi, the presidential advisor on defense, also Member of Parliament representing the army, Lt. Gen. David Tinyefuza, and the Chief of Military Intelligence and also army MP, Col. Noble Mayombo, among others. Later the commission asked members of the public with information on ghost soldiers on the army register to come forward. Telephone numbers to call were also provided. On the face of it, this inquiry looks like a good attempt to end an endemic problem in the military. However, looking at it from an institutional point of view, it is the height of absurdity. Anyone with the most basic knowledge of military issues can tell that the Ugandan military is in a pathetic state, and the ministry of defence is publicising this before the world. In fact, the problem of ghosts on the army register began as early as 1989. That it has not been resolved 14 years later is testimony to the kind of institutional nightmare Uganda’s army has become, and an indicator that the problem won’t go away anyway. Let us begin with the basic organisation of any military, but specifically the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces. The army has a Directorate of Records, under the Chieftaincy of Personnel and Let us assume this department is mal-functional. The army has CMI, its intelligence arm. CMI is supposed to gather internal and external intelligence. Among its duties regarding internal intelligence is to look out for subversive elements within the army, enemy spies, internal corruption, and army strength etc. CMI has an entire hierarchy at its disposal to achieve this objective. Here is the breakdown. Military intelligence has a head called a “chief” with a host of directors responsible for different duties. Then CMI also has intelligence officers at every sub unit of the army – a division intelligence officer, a brigade intelligence officer and a battalion intelligence officers. Apparently, in most army structures, every company also has an intelligence sergeant, and every platoon has an intelligence corporal. This chain of command is supposed to traffic information about different aspects within the military up the pyramid. Therefore, if anyone puts a ghost soldier on the register, or retains another who deserted, or died, or retired, the respective platoon intelligence corporal, company intelligence sergeant, the battalion intelligence officer etc upwards is expected to immediately tell the anomaly and report it. For UPDF to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate the “existence of ghost soldiers” on the army register means that CMI has failed in its duty and all its staff, should have been sacked first before instituting that commission. In fact, the entire army command, should have been sacked first. How would platoon, company, battalion, brigade and division commanders be commanding armies whose strength they do not know? Every battalion in UPDF has an administrative officer and records’ clerks to oversee strength. Apparently, it means that all of them conspired to over-declare their strength. There are many dysfunctional forces at work within the UPDF, and this commission should serve as a pointer to the warlordism that has captured the army. An army’s first line of defence is its intelligence, a principle first stated by the legendary Chinese general, Sun Zhu in about 600 BC in his famous military treatise, The Art of War. The work of military intelligence is to gather information about the enemy. This information would be on aspects like the strength of the enemy: how many soldiers does the enemy have? What is their level of training? How equipped are they in terms of weaponry and other logistics? Where and how is the enemy positioned? How does the terrain help or impede their agility to fight? To know enemy strength requires intelligence to infiltrate deep inside the enemy using spies, and it is an expensive function because all this information is classified. Armies keep their strength to their chest as a defensive weapon. If UPDF does not know its own strength, if CMI cannot gather the most basic intelligence available for free in its own army records, and by head counts within the divisions, brigades, battalions, companies, platoons and sections, how can it know about the strength of the enemy? Does it not explain why UPDF was routed by the Rwandan army three times in Kisangani? Does it not explain why Joseph Kony with his poorly trained, ill-equipped army of abductees can roam from Nebbi to Soroti, killing people, abducting children, burning huts and laying ambushes? Secondly, as pointed out above, army strength is a closely guarded secret. To access it requires someone to infiltrate the army. Tinyefuza’s sound bite is run every evening on Andrew Mwenda Live on 93.3 Monitor FM saying: “infiltration of the army is an enemy action, and when convicted, you are shot.” Now that a commission on which the general sits is calling upon the public to provide information to the minister of defence and his generals on the most secretive aspects of the army – its strength – is the army suggesting that its secrets are on the streets? Is UPDF suggesting that infiltration of the army by the public is an accepted practice? If there are ghost soldiers on the army register, and they have passed through the close eye of CMI, or DOR, of section, platoon, battalion, brigade and division commanders, what does this mean for the security of the country? If the army does not know its own strength, how can it expect the public to know? Army strength is an internal matter, not a public one. If UPDF does not know its strength, it means that sometimes it deploys a brigade into battle with the strength of a battalion. What would anyone expect from such dysfunction? Since it does not know its own strength, we can directly infer that it also does not know the strength of the enemy. So on what criterion does UPDF say, “we will finish Kony off in Teso region within two weeks?” On what basis did former Army Commander, Maj. Gen. James Kazini promise to finish LRA during Operation Iron Fist? If UPDF does not know the number of officers, men and women under its control, then certainly it does not know the number of guns in its armouries. In view of such dysfunction, can UPDF legitimately deny allegations by some people that its own troops are the ones who sell guns to the Karimojong cattle wrestlers and even to LRA? I have turned over this issue and failed to find a reasonable ground how an army can remain ignorant of its strength for over 15 years and the Commander-in-Chief sees it a simple problem. These dysfunctional trends in the army are important to explain the overall institutional character of the state in Uganda. When the NRM/A came into government in 1986, it called for a revolutionary change in the military, promised to establish a productive army, saying previous armies were parasitic on the country. Accordingly, the NRA established the National Enterprises Corporation as the productive arm of the army – running ranches, a bakery, a mattress factory, a pharmaceutical plant, an arms manufacturing plant etc. Over time, NEC was ruthlessly cannibalised, its assets liquidated, others looted by senior officers in broad daylight and became the institutional nightmare the rest of Uganda has become. Instead of a productive military, the NRA/UPDF became a springboard for private profiteers who planted ghost soldiers on the register, supplied the army with junk equipment, expired food rations, under seize uniforms, plundered neighbouring countries, and turned armed conflict into an enterprise. It is this institutional legacy that explains why Kony has not been (and will not be) defeated. These predatory practices have fractured the UPDF, as many of its officers abhor its institutional capture by warlords. Yet, President Yoweri Museveni seems to have found strength in such fragmentation and divisions – as different factions of the army pull in opposite directions, the military lacks the coherence to co-ordinate a coup against him. The political instrumentalisation of disorder as articulated by Patrick Chabal and Dalouz in their book Africa Works has come to fruition in Uganda. |
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
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