Fronasa: An insider’s tale of intrigue, failure Talk-back By Yoga Adhola Feb 8 - 14, 2004
The controversy over Museveni’s denunciation of Ruzindana has drawn a lot of comment. I would also like to add my version.
I am a member of the Uganda Peoples Congress, living in exile in the United States but was a member of the Central Committee of Fronasa in the early 1970s.
For some unknown reasons, President Museveni has never named the executive committee which was leading Fronasa. I would like to name them because it is important for this article.
Mkombe-Mpambara was the chairman, Museveni was in charge of defence, Jack Maumbe Mukhwana (moblisation), Eriya Kategaya (finance), and Yoga Adhola (information and publications).
This was worked out in September 1972 and our focal point was Dar es Salaam.
After announcement of the existence of Fronasa, Museveni for reasons which are not yet known to me, worked very hard to have Paulo Muwanga lead Fronasa. To this effect, he actually made several trips to Paris to plead with Muwanga to accept to lead Fronasa but Muwanga declined. (Muwanga (RIP) was then Uganda’s Ambassador in France. -Ed)
Fronasa was to get support from President Julius Nyerere and the Tanzanian government. The basis of this support was to be traced to Museveni’s days at Dar es Salaam University.
To his credit, while at the University of Dar es salaam, Museveni managed to catch President Nyerere’s eye and then maintained some kind of contact with him.
It is this contact which Museveni used after the 1971 coup. Museveni told Mwalimu that he had built a strong underground network in Uganda. That he had trained people in the districts of Mbarara, Masaka and Busoga to fight Amin and all he needed was extra material and political support.
In 1972 Tanzania launched an invasion of Uganda that turned out to be a disaster.
Nyerere had hoped that besides the Obote sympathisers and fighting men still in Uganda, Museveni’s trained men inside Uganda would join the attack on Amin. Of course that did not materialise and the rest is well-known.
Later, Nyerere asked Museveni to bring his men to Tanzania so as to be sent to the Frelimo camp at Nachingweya for further military training.
Given that the men Museveni had talked of did not actually exist, Museveni resorted to asking Jack Maumbe to go and recruit people. Maumbe then went on a crash programme to recruit. He recruited Bagisu who were working as houseboys etc in Nairobi and brought them.
Maumbe Mukhwana
Maumbe’s declaration that he will not comment on President Museveni’s statement on Ruzindana is very pregnant and prudent. If I were him I would also not comment unless I was to get involved in a lot of disinformation. Maumbe has a lot to say about Museveni. I will give but one example.
At a certain point around 1974, certain forces within the Tanzania government (as opposed to President Nyerere) decided to put an end to Fronasa. They had made several attempts which because of Mwalimu’s behind the scenes support had to fail.
They would lock up Fronasa combatants and somehow the combatants would be released.
What was happening is that whenever Fronasa combatants would be locked up, we would make contact with State House and the needful would be done.
After several frustrations, the elements in government who did not want Fronasa decided to get Museveni overthrown within Fronasa itself.
In this venture they engaged the services of Jack Maumbe. The point man doing this on the Tanzania side was a Minister of Security whose name I don’t now remember.
Nachingweya
Jack Maumbe was secretly (i.e. without the rest of us in Fronasa knowing) dispatched to Nachingweya, the Frelimo camp where most of the Fronasa combatants were at the time. His mission was to get the combatants to pass a vote of no-confidence in Museveni.
Maumbe was well suited for this mission because he is the one who recruited most of the combatants from Nairobi. The reader may recall that Museveni himself has said this about Maumbe.
When Maumbe came back from Nachingweya, he came to me. I could not believe it when he told me he had been to Nachingweya. Nachingweya at the time was a highly secured and restricted place. One could only go there with the permission of top security personnel.
I did not expect Maumbe to have the wherewithal to obtain that kind of permission. What however had happened is that a minister who was working on this project of killing Fronasa had helped him obtain the permission.
As I did not know this, I doubted it when Maumbe told me he had been to Nachingweya. I did not disclose my doubts but Maumbe knew I had doubts.
I will not go into the details of what he told me. What it meant to me was that the Tanzanians were breaking-up Fronasa. This was 1974.
The Tanzanians had every reason to break-up Fronasa. The 1972 invasion had convinced them that Museveni’s claims were bogus. They had also seen that when asked to bring people for training, Museveni had produced virtually nothing.
After my meeting with Maumbe, I left to go home for lunch. I used to live in a place called Seaview, just next to the ocean. To get home, I would board a bus and disembark near Palm Beach Hotel. From there, it was a short walk home.
As I was walking home, I saw Museveni coming from the direction of my residence. He had been home and had not found me.
When we met, he asked me if I knew where Maumbe was. Without any fuss, I told him I knew but would like to be given time to decide to do with what Maumbe had told me.
He accepted this and left.
At around 7.00 pm Museveni was at my door. I knew he had something to talk with me so we went out. It was dark.
He pleaded with me to tell him a little bit more. I reminded him that I had earlier requested him to give me time to digest the information I had got from Maumbe. He made further pleas but I refused to yield.
I did one thing, however. I advised him to stop giving intelligence reports about Maumbe to the Tanzanians. I did this because his reports were being given to Maumbe to read and this was making, not just Museveni, but the whole Fronasa look silly. As I will show later, this was not good for the organisation.
This discussion occurred sometime during the week and by the weekend I had processed the information and decided what to do with it. I called Museveni and Kategaya for a meeting at Palm Beach Hotel.
My intention was not to betray Maumbe - and I am glad Maumbe appreciates that.
It was clear to me that the Tanzanians were using Maumbe to kill Fronasa. It is in this light that I gave a detailed brief to Museveni and Kategaya.
I made it clear to them that we must stick together so as to put pressure on the Tanzanians to maintain us. I reminded them that whereas people like me had jobs, many combatants did not.
In total contradiction to this spirit, Museveni on the following day went (in the company of Kategaya) to the Regional Intelligence Officer, Dar-es-Salaam and told him what I told them, slanting it to seek to show that he still had support within Fronasa.
There is nothing that infuriates people in the intelligence community than demonstrating to them that you are better at their game than them. The Dar intelligence officer was furious.
He yelled at Museveni: “Is this how you people work?” He then proceeded to ask for my name, phone number and residential address. To Kategaya, this was a clear indication that they might detain me.
The man also interrogated Museveni on the phone calls he (Museveni) had been making to Nairobi.
Museveni tried to intimidate the man by telling him that the Director of Intelligence,
his boss who was also Nyerere’s brother-in-law and close to Museveni knew about the calls. This did not work. The man responded: “Don’t you know that even the director of intelligence can be investigated?”
He then threw Museveni and Kategaya out of his office.
When Kategaya left the intelligence office, he came straight to my residence. He feared for me. He arrived literally sweating. It was mid-afternoon and Dar-es-Salaam is humid.
When I opened the door, he wasted no time: “This man has told the Tanzanians what you told us,” he said with disgust. He looked me straight into the eye. I read fear for me in his eyes. “Eriya, it is ok,” I responded to his unspoken communication. By these words, I meant I was ready for any consequences.
Kategaya left and I also left to go back to work. Somewhere on the way, I saw Museveni coming in front of me. I crossed to the other side of the road, hoping that he had not seen me and so that I could avoid him. After a short while he also crossed and we had to meet.
He began recounting to me what had happened.
I thought the matter was very serious and decided that, however late I was for afternoon work, I should give it proper hearing. I therefore requested him that we should sit.
As we were going to sit, I reminded myself that this was very important and I should marshal all the patience I could and listen to Museveni.
Contempt
However, soon after sitting down, when he began his account, I felt revulsion seize me. I got up as I was saying: “Did you have to tell them?” and I left. From then, I have held Museveni in deepest contempt. I just loathe him.
And he has not outgrown this behaviour. Not only has he declared that Ruzindana contributed nothing to his (Museveni’s) struggle, he has recently said similar things about Kategaya too.
From what I have recounted so far, it should be clear that the Tanzanianskilled Fronasa in 1974. From that time on there was literally no Fronasa. Museveni should not deceive anybody.
Museveni knows this and for him to claim that Ruzindana abandoned the struggle in 1974 is total falsehood. I am glad Ruzindana has refused to degrade himself by debating Museveni on this.
An honourable man should do exactly what Ruzindana has done - ignore Museveni’s claims.
By refusing to debate this issue with Museveni, Ruzindana is also showing greater concern for the NRM than Museveni.
1976 Lusaka Meeting
If what I am saying that Fronansa was killed in 1974 is not true, let Museveni tell us whether he told the meeting that formed the Uganda National Movement (UNM) under the leadership of John Barigye in Lusaka in 1976 that he represented Fronasa.
He went there, as an individual and that is why they appointed him to be in charge of defence for UNM.
It is also curious that Museveni makes the claims that he used to go to Nairobi and then Kisumu to consult with people like Amama Mbabazi and Kahinda Otafiire. If this is true, where was Museveni’s loyalty? Was he serving UNM or a different organisation i.e. Fronasa?
If he was serving UNM, did he report any of these activities of his to the leadership of UNM?
When he returned to Dar-es-Salaam from the UNM meeting, Museveni came to me to sell the idea of UNM.
He did not tell me he went there as a representative of Fronasa of which both of us had been members of the Central Committee. His report had the assumption that he went there as an individual.
It is possible that what I am saying here can be treated as one man’s word against another. Should that be the case, let me disclose what I did to Museveni.
I told Museveni that his ideas from Lusaka were very good and so the best thing for him to do was call a meeting and brief us as a group. This was empty tactics, which I did not take seriously at all.
To appreciate this, it is important to take into account that I never took the Lusaka meeting seriously. There were free plane tickets to go to Lusaka, floating around town, but I saw no use in going to Lusaka.
In my view, the thing was so badly organised that Idi Amin, against whom the meeting was being organised, would also have representatives. I kept off the Lusaka meeting out of principle.
After meeting me, Museveni went and talked to Ruzindana. Ruzindana then came and told me Museveni had gone to see him.
“What did he tell you?” I asked Ruzindana.
“He told me you were enthused,” Ruzindana answered with cynicism.
Of course, I was never enthusiastic but Museveni had gotten that impression when he met me.
We later met in Ruzindana’s house in Chang’ombe, a suburb of Dar-es-salaam and gave Museveni a hearing. Some of the people who were there included Dr Mushambi, Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, Charles Beisa, of course Ruzindana, etc.
It is also significant to note that when Museveni went to sell the same ideas at the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Prof. Dani Wadada Nabudere just could not stand him. He simply threw Museveni out of his office.
Nairobi meeting
Further to that, around 1975 at the initiative of Eriya Kategaya, we met in Nairobi in the house of Charles Kalumya, a lawyer who was then working for UNHCR to explore anything we could do to continue with the struggle.
The meeting had been arranged with the strong feeling that Museveni should not be there. There were some people such as the late Nyombi from Uganda. Somehow, however, Museveni attended the meeting. While his presence was unwelcome at the time, it is very useful now.
The late George Ssekasi chaired the meeting. Present were three members of the Central Committee of Fronasa; Yoweri Museveni, Eriya Kategaya and Yoga Adhola. Three out of five should be a majority.
The curious thing is that despite this majority, no mention was made of Fronasa. The assumption was that Fronasa was very dead!! Instead, we went on to form a new organisation, which was called Peoples Liberation Party (PRP) with a military wing called Peoples Liberation Army.
I still have the minutes of the meeting somewhere in Uganda.
My argument here is: what was the necessity of forming PRP when there was a thriving organisation called Fronasa? Can Museveni answer that question?
Rait Omon’gin
Something else to note happened at this meeting. At the end of the meeting, the chairman called for the customary any other business (AOB). Museveni who was seated just next to me, on my left, raised his hand to speak.
“There is this question of the death of Rait Omon’gin.” Museveni said. “People say I killed Rait Omon’gin. Yoga here cannot defend me on this issue.........”
“No. I cannot,” I interrupted him
I had known Rait Omongin while in Uganda. He had been the leader of the UPC Youth League for sometime before the league was disbanded. When the NRM came to power Museveni posthumously awarded him some military rank.
As to who actually killed him may never be known.
There were a lot of allegations that I could not verify. At the same time, I could not dismiss them. To date I am not sure what to believe.
Commissioner Kategaya
After a short discussion, the Nairobi meeting resolved that a Commission of Inquiry should be set up. It was a one-man Commission of Inquiry and the Commissioner was none other than Eriya Kategaya. With due respect to my friend Kategaya, we have never read his report.
What I have said so far should indicate that Fronansa died in 1974, the year Museveni claims Ruzindana’s contribution ended.
Sometime after that, Kategaya and his family left for Zambia. Ruzindana got a job with the government. Museveni too went to teach at the Cooperative College in Moshi.
Later when Amin invaded Tanzania, Museveni dusted the name Fronasa and put up something. This is the basis of his claims to liberation in 1979.
Secondly, to beef up the credentials of Museveni, his hirelings have often claimed that Fronasa fought in the Mozambican war of liberation. But logic should tell us that an “army” which had been dispersed could not exist to fight wars; whether in Uganda or Mozambique.
Bayaye
In his attack on Ruzindana, President Museveni alleged that Ruzindana failed to control the combatants at Nachingweya. While in these attacks he is seeking to blame Ruzindana for the failure of the Nachingweya project, Museveni forgets that he has himself given, and in writing, another explanation of what happened in Nachingweya.
On page 85 of “The Sowing of the Mustard Seed”, President Museveni writes: “We recruited 54 boys, mostly from Bugisu, and started training them at Nachingweya.
Unfortunately, once again, these boys had not been well selected. They had mostly been working in towns such as Nairobi and had a kiyaye (lumpen proletariat) culture.
They began misbehaving in the Frelimo camp and soon after their training, the Tanzania government dispersed them.”
I would like to ask the reader: which version should we believe?
I would also like to advance another reason for the conduct of the combatants. Some of them had been recruited with promises of money, clothing etc. Others had been given promises of jobs.
Instead of these rosy promises they found themselves sent to prepare for war.
In conclusion, I would like to apologise to the reader for whetting his/her appetite.
There is a lot more to be said which I could not give in the brevity of newspaper articles. I have desire to write a full-length book on the NRM, treating it as an infantile disorder.
It is my hope to have a chapter on Fronasa. Let us hope I somehow manage to live up to that desire.
© 2004 The Monitor Publications
Mitayo Potosi
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