Matek Opoko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Tumukunde sought key opposition role By Monitor Team KAMPALA — The former Chief of Military Intelligence and ex-Director General of the Internal Security Organisation, Brig. Henry Tumukunde, who was arrested Saturday evening by the army, is said to be the prime mover behind the new and little known but formally registered Progressive Alliance Party (PAP).
Tumukunde, 46, has been one of President Yoweri Museveni's closest political and military henchmen and is widely credited within NRM and UPDF as well as Reform Agenda/ FDC circles for playing a crucial role in ensuring the re-election of the President in both the 1996 and 2001 polls using military intelligence, financial and "strong-arm" methods, both covert and overt.
PAP's Acting Secretary General, Mr Bernard Kibirige and the party's Acting Publicity Secretary, Mr Tucker Mugogo, both contacted The Monitor Saturday night to deny any link between Tumukunde and PAP when the news broke that the Brigadier had been arrested.
CONFINED: Military Police lock the gate of the Officers Mess, where Brig. Tumukunde is being kept (Photo by Mike Odongkara). But impeccable sources told The Monitor that the ex-intelligence supremo is actually the leading brain, mobiliser and financier of the party.
Sources very close to Tumukunde told this newspaper that the brigadier was one of the many NRM and UPDF Historicals who supported Museveni against Col Kizza Besigye in the 2001 presidential elections only after compelling the President to state publicly on repeated basis, and also on record in his election manifesto, that 2001-2006 was his "last term."
Museveni told the National Conference of the ruling Movement at the Nile Conference Centre late in 2000 that "I am standing for this last term to achieve two important things: to professionalise the army and to put in place a process of leadership succession in the Movement."
However, almost immediately after his re-election, Museveni set in motion a campaign for the removal of presidential term limits (kisanja), leading to a major fall-out with many of his historical colleagues, including Tumukunde.
Impeccable sources quote the now-detained Brigadier as saying, at various private fora over the last three years, "Besigye mounted a highly effective challenge to Museveni and pushed him into a tight corner. We ensured Museveni's victory on the understanding this was his last term. What is the justification for this kisanja?"
Soon after the 2001 presidential election, the Chief of Military Intelligence, Col Noble Mayombo, who had succeeded Tumukunde as head of CMI, wrote a confidential report to the President, which was seen by The Monitor, advising the removal of Tumukunde from his command of the northern-based 4th Division because he had spent most of his time in Kampala, away from his duty station, at the detriment of his sensitive command post.
Much of this time had been spent in Busoga and other parts of eastern Uganda doing covert electoral mobilisation (kakuyege) for Museveni.
Tumukunde was then appointed Director General of the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) but lasted less than a year. The Brigadier apparently had no problem making his strong opposition to a third term for Museveni a non-secret while still serving in the army and heading the civil intelligence body.
The reputedly unfearing chief spy was eventually removed from his office in a dramatic showdown that necessitated the presence of various high level government and military officials, after he apparently declined to submit to presidential orders to hand over to his deputy, Col Elly Kayanja.
Museveni sent a high-powered team to ISO headquarters to oversee the handover and the exit of Tumukunde. The team comprised Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi, the former Army Commander, Lt Gen Elly Tumwine, who is the army's most senior general after Museveni, and the former Chief of Combat Operations, the no-nonsense Lt Gen David Tinyefuza, who reportedly turned up with a contingent of troops to enforce Museveni's orders.
Months earlier, national newspapers had published a letter to Tumukunde from the Commander-in-Chief, removing him from office. The State House "Special Operations Unit" was reportedly directed to enforce his physical exit.
But when the news of his sacking was published, the wily Tumukunde apparently caused Museveni to rescind his decision and the Brigadier remained at the helm of ISO a little longer. Reliable sources say his narrow survival at the time was the work of First Lady Janet Museveni.
Tumukunde is married to Stella Rubarenzya, a niece of Mrs Museveni and sister-in-law to Presidential Aide Moses Byaruhanga.
The First Lady is reportedly very unhappy with the rift between her in-law and her husband and is said, together with Byaruhanga (who denies it), to have made extensive but unsuccessful efforts to reconcile the two.
After his removal from ISO, Brig Tumukunde joined the ranks of "katebe" (undeployed army officers) but remained an army MP. Sources say he was forced to resign as an MP after his arrest on Saturday evening.
While on katebe, the controversial officer was court-martialled and charged with creating and perpetuating the existence of the army's infamous "ghost soldiers." According to an internal army report published last week by The Observer, the army lost up to Shs600 billion over the last 13 years in stolen salaries for 24,000 dead, deserted, demobilised and completely non-existent soldiers. The army's current total strength is about 63,000.
Ghosts 'belonging' to Tumukunde were valued at Shs120 million by the prosecution, leading the Brigadier and the former Army Commander, Maj Gen James Kazini, in a scandalous trade of accusations of mutual responsibility for the massive fraud.
Why Tumukunde Created the PAP
It is during his time as defendant before the court martial that Tumukunde, who is said by close friends to have applied four times to retire from the army, embarked on the formation of the Progressive Alliance Party.
Impeccable sources told The Monitor that Tumukunde has serious presidential ambitions and at one point considered joining the newly formed Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Three factors discouraged him from joining the FDC.
First, he was handicapped by the President's refusal to retire him from the army. Serving army officers are prohibited from partisan political activism (though this regulation is applied selectively, mainly to dissident officers. Serving pro-kisanja officers such as Major Kakooza Mutale are allowed free rein to politick for NRM, a double-standard that Tumukunde has pointed out).
Second, the results-oriented ex-spy is said to have assessed the FDC as "strong on the issues and having the moral high ground but too elitist, locked up in Kampala and weak in on-the-ground mobilization. They are not sure-footed in taking on Museveni, whose determination to stay in power the FDC is seriously underestimating. They lack experience in mobilisation and organisation."
The third factor was that Tumukunde knew he would not be welcomed by many FDC players with open arms, given his ruthless tactics against the party's Chairman, Col Besigye, during the 2001 elections.
The then 4th Division commander oversaw the use of vast amounts of cash and strong-arm manouvers to achieve the substantial dismantling and demobilisation of the Besigye campaign network in over 18 districts in the east (Busoga, Tororo, Busia, Palissa, Bugisu, Kapchorwa and Teso), where Besigye had gained considerable support.
During the campaigns, which were marred by much violence and intimidation of Besigye supporters by army, intelligence and Movement operatives, The Monitor reported, close to election day, that Tumukunde, then a Colonel, had addressed a public rally at Kakira, Jinja and told a crowd that "We came to power with guns, we still have our guns, and those papers you are going to put in the ballot boxes cannot overpower the guns!"
Sources told The Monitor that the shrewd Tumukunde concluded that while he needed to work with FDC to become a major player in opposition politics, it would be more viable for him to come on board not as an individual, but as a major force, with a registered, organised and on-the-ground political party behind him. He would then consider either an alliance or a merger, between the FDC and PAP.
Early this year, the ex-CMI chief set about regrouping a kakuyege (underground) campaign network of Museveni's former door-to-door mobilisers, mainly in Kampala, Buganda and Busoga, other parts of the Eastern region as well as parts of the West. These were informal networks set up by Museveni outside the formal campaign taskforce of 1996 and 2001, which was headed by Moses Kigongo and Bidandi Ssali.
During both elections, Tumukunde was one of the prime movers of this network, together with the former Director General of the External Security Organisation, David Pulkol (who has also fallen out with Museveni) and the Chief of Military Intelligence, Col Noble Mayombo. Some observers say this network delivered more for Museveni than the official campaign taskforce, particularly in 2001 when Museveni relied more on the army and intelligence organs to secure his opponent's defeat.
It is elements of this network that Tumukunde has brought back together as PAP. David Pulkol, who is a key player in FDC, has, as an ex-spy chief and Museveni loyalist, encountered major problems in winning trust and acceptance by Besigye loyalists in FDC and is reported by very reliable sources to have "one leg deep in PAP, alongside Tumukunde." Pulkol announced a few weeks ago that he might leave the FDC.
Contacted for a comment yesterday, Pulkol said he should be left out of Tumukunde's issues. He said Tumukunde himself has made it known in the media that he wanted to form his political organisation that "had more brilliant ideas than the NRM-O." He said there is a fear in the government that all Museveni's former aides who do not support kisanja would join hands to fight him politically."For me I work together with many political groups. Ours is a coalition of forces, if PAP is a formerly registered party, there is no reason why it should be left out," he said by phone. But he denied that he was working together with Tumukunde
Sources close to the embattled Brigadier told this newspaper that Tumukunde has been unable to say publicly that he is behind PAP before he is released from the army. But he is reported to have contacted various prominent people quietly over the last three months and encouraged them to join PAP.
Sources said one such person was the retired Army Commander, Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, who reportedly declined to join the party. Muntu is said to believe strongly in the FDC and a united front of the whole opposition.Muntu and Tumukunde joined Museveni's guerilla outfit, the National Resistance Army (NRA), on the same day in March 1981, only a month after Museveni had started the war.
The two Makerere students, then in their early twenties, became rebels immediately after their final university exams. They made a daring escape down a staircase and into a ground-floor shop where they posed as shopkeepers, narrowly surviving capture and almost certain death at an NRA transit apartment at Kampala's Nkrumah Road, just behind Uganda House. Obote's UNLA troops surrounded the building after receiving a tip-off that rebels were present. Both young men made it safely to Luweero and rose to high offices in the army.During the war, Muntu was shot in the chest and Tumukunde was wounded in one leg. He still walks with a limp. The two have remained good friends, with Muntu standing surety for his bush war comrade in the ghost soldiers court martial case. Tumukunde is quoted by a source saying that "Muntu is one of the finest officers produced by the NRA and one of the very few people I could support for the presidency."
The same sources did however confirm that Muntu declined to join Tumukunde's party. "Tumukunde started off wanting to keep his links with PAP quiet but seems to have decided to go public when it was clear his role was fully known by intelligence agencies, following which he acknowledged the relationship on a radio talkshow.
Sources said the recent move by his close friend David Pulkol to form a common political front with the DP's renegade mobiliser, Haji Nasser Sebaggala, was part of Tumukunde's strategy to join forces with players that are reputed to be effective in grassroots mobilisation.
PAP's Secretary General, Bernard Kibirige, admitted Saturday that he was the Brigadier's civillian Aide de Camp. "Yes, I was Tumukunde's ADC but that does not make him a member of PAP. Regarding his arrest, I have no comment."
"I've heard he has been arrested and I understand that one of the reasons is that he said on radio CBS that when he leaves the army, he will join PAP because of its brilliant ideas," said the party's Publicity Secretary, Tucker Mugogo. "But he is not a member of the party, though he is my political idol. If he has been arrested, then there is no democracy in this country."
Tumukunde also said during the CBS interview that he could consider joining the FDC but definitely not Museveni's NRM.
Acting CMI Chief, Lt Col Mugira told The Monitor on Saturday night that the maverick Brigadier - who is said by other sources to have turned down an offer of freedom from the ghost soldiers court martial in exchange for an apology and support for kisanja - had been arrested for "violation of army rules and regulations."Other security sources told The Monitor that Tumukunde's role in PAP and the interview he gave CBS radio would form a key part of new charges against him.
The maverick officer is reported to have stood his ground in "a number" of meetings with President Yoweri Museveni.
No stranger to controversy, the Brigadier was forced to declare his personal wealth to Parliament a few years ago, while still Chief of Military Intelligence. His move followed a Sunday Monitor story at the time which reported that Museveni had ordered an enquiry into the sources and value of his wealth.In a personal statement to Parliament, Tumukunde declared land, houses, farms and cattle worth over shs 700 million ($393,000). He attached a summary of his salary earnings for the period since 1986 to that date, which amounted exactly to the total value of his fixed assets.
The embattled spy chief did not account for how he had financed approximately 14 years' value of (non-fixed) assets living expenses against that income but pulled off an incredible feat - a reaction of total silence from the army leadership, the IGG, the media, Parliament and the president, thereafter. There were no further comments on the matter, from any quarter.
Tumukunde, who hails from Rubaabo County, Rukungiri District, was born February 28, 1959. He is a lawyer. When the NRA captured state power in 1986, he was posted to the Uganda High Commission in London as First Secretary and Defence Adviser, serving there until 1989.
According to his official parliamentary profile, he became Director of Planning, NRA headquarters, from 1989-96 following which he was appointed Chief of Personnel and Administration. A man with apparently good skills in civillian electioneering, he was elected Constituent Assembly Delegate for Rubaabo County in 1993. In 1998, he was appointed Chief of Military Intelligence, a position he held for three years.
Tumukunde was publicly credited by President Museveni for successfully stamping out the terrorist Allied Democratic Front's bomb-detonating operations in Kampala. He later became the army's 4th Division Commander and Director General of the Internal Security Organisation, before his spectacular fall-out with the man who has been his commander-in-chief for the last 24 years.
Perhaps not surprisingly, a key Besigye loyalist in FDC, while still smarting at the losses they suffered due to his "operations" against them in 2001, conceded that Henry Tumukunde is "a crafty operator and a smooth performer, who usually achieves high results against any goal he sets out to achieve. It's difficult to rule out working with him in future."
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