His book titled Uganda’s Revolution 1979-1986 How I saw It reveals a lot about his character, mindset and philosophy.
Joining the bush
Firstly, much as he holds number RO 026, he only joined the NRM in April 1981 but had been a soldier since 1976. His enlisting in the army was even a personal matter after feeling the wrath of Idi Amin soldiers in 1979.
“I wanted to punish them for they had mistreated me. Initially, I went to join to learn how to use a gun. So, I also wanted to go learn how to shoot and that’s how I left to join soldiering,” he says.
Kutesa would later join the UNLA force after Amin’s ouster in 1979 but still, he felt there was no sense of belonging in the new army.
“The deployment itself shows you what was going on. When we returned from Munduli [where the cadet training took place], those who felt were not affiliated to the Kikosi Maalum were put in far-flung places so that Kampala remains occupied by their ilk so that the 1980 election goes as they wanted,” he points out.
UNLA was a combination of the two groups that fought Amin, Kikosi Maalum and Fronasa. Kikosi Maalum was the bigger group composed of the people who were in the Uganda army, who fled when Amin overthrew Obote.
“When I was in Nakasongola, Moses Ali with his group, the national army and their affiliates the Rescue Front or something like that, attacked our people in Bibia, in Yumbe West Nile and killed many of young boys who had just returned from training,” he says.
After the incident, Kutesa was given the precarious mission of laying an ambush on Nakasongola road to arrest all those who were deserting the army.
He says he was given a platoon of Tanzania soldiers. “I was one Ugandan, the rest were Tanzanians and they were telling me to arrest Ugandans. I was in an impasse, because who was I going to aim my training at? It was really precarious. Then a message was sent from the chief of staff that I be arrested.”
That was the cue for him to leave UNLA.
“In Kampala, I started doing some clandestine work with Brig Matayo Kyaligonza. We did some reckless missions here and there. We were doing things which I am sure I cannot do because then I had no responsibility. For example, we blew up one of those fuel tanks in Industrial area.”
After joining with other NRA soldiers, he became one of the top commanders during the five-year war that ended with President Museveni’s ascension to the presidency.
Post-1986
After NRM took power, Kutesa was deployed in Gulu as 4th division commander and straightaway went into battle against a succession of insurgencies from the Uganda People’s Democratic Army (UPDA) to the Holy Spirit Mobile Forces and its successor, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
On the political front, he brought together old foes Otema Allimadi, the prime minister in the second Obote regime, and Andrew Adimola, DP’s secretary general. Also, as part of his public confidence-building strategy, he had his wedding in Gulu and invited the leadership in the region.
In 1988 when the NRA leadership introduced formal ranks of general, brigadier, colonel, major, captain into the army, Kutesa says he was not so keen on the ‘high-sounding ranks.’
In my view, adopting the new ranks was tantamount to reducing our victorious army to the contemptible levels of Field Marshal Amin, General Tito Okello, Maj. Gen. Oyite-Ojok, Brig Bazilio Okello, etc whom we had outshined on the battlefield,” he reasons.
It was at this stage that he was given the rank of colonel, which he held for almost two decades.
“Of course some junior officers, many of whom never went through the baptism of fire, have overtaken me along the way and obtained higher ranks. But that is life where, as on the road, we move at different speeds to different destinations,” he says.
In 1990, he was sent to Ghana for training and upon return, he won the election to become Kabula County Constituent Assembly delegate.
He returned to the army in 1996 as Chief of Training and Recruitment until 1998 when he was granted leave to join Makerere University for a degree course in Social Work and Social Administration.
Katebe
In the book, Kutesa grudgingly points out that he was not deployed for some years.
“Unfortunately, since I completed my degree course, I have not had the opportunity to try out my intellectual skills in psychology in dealing with the day-to-day challenges in military service,” he says.
“Since I left the 4th Division in the north in 1990, I have not had the opportunity to command operational actions on the battlefield in the various military challenges facing the NRA and its successor, the UPDF. I have thus missed out on action in successive operations against our enemies, not only in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, but also in the Rwenzori Mountains and the DR Congo.
Caution
Kutesa sums up by saying that despite the shortfalls of Uganda’s revolution; the balance sheet looks very good.
“On the whole, the revolution has remained on course and its mission has been accomplished. Uganda is a much better country than it was back m 1986. But as we pat ourselves on the back and move into the future, we need to look back and take stock of where we have come from in order to map out where we are going. We had the courage and conviction to take on a sitting government that was oppressing and humiliating our people,” he says.
“As we face the future and pass on the baton to the next generation, let us not take the gains of our precious revolution for granted. Let us jealously guard them, enrich them and sustain them for the sake of a better Uganda and a promising future for our children and their offspring.”
Career
Kutesa was retired from the UPDF early this month after a stint as commander of the UPDF Centre for Doctrine Development and Synthetisation.
He is survived by wife Dora, the second secretary at Uganda’s High Commission in India, and six children. Dora also participated in the war and a decade ago donated her kidney to save his life after years of battling with alcoholism.
