This Is It-How Besigye Vindicated Intelligence Agencies!

SOURCE: THE RED PEPPER,  27 MAY 2011

Besigye

They say that some men are borne great while others work their way to greatness.

And President Museveni worked his way to greatness but he has also inadvertently made Besigye great.

At least the last two months attest to this.

Col. Besigye’s hitherto dwindling political fortunes have been enhanced, thanks to the violent crackdown by the Ugandan security agencies on Besigye’s comical walk-to-work protests propelling him into a huge political figure who deserves both local and international attention.

And as we speak now Besigye is the most talked about opposition politician in African politics.

He has surpassed the profiles of great opposition African leaders like Morgan Tsivangirai of Zimbabwe, Raila Oginga Odinga of Kenya, Mohamed El-Baradei of Egypt, Etienne Tsisiekedie of Congo and others.

Yet during the campaigns en-route to the February 18, 2011 presidential elections, the now stubborn Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) leader Col. Kizza Besigye was losing political relevance at a high pace due to Museveni’s indefatigable campaigns routine.

To cut a short story even shorter, Museveni simply de-campaigned Besigye into submission.

And when elections were announced we all thought it as was game over for Besigye. No wonder his FDC comrades started questioning and challenging his continuity as the leader of the FDC party.

BESIGYE’S PLAN B

But just trust this Mukiga man from Rukungiri. He had plans A and B. He planned that if elections failed to uproot Museveni he would revert to protests as plan B.

Plan A (elections) failed but plan B (protests) have worked miracles for him.

Now Besigye has not only metamorphosed from being a mere political nuisance but he has managed to put Museveni where he wanted him to be (as a scorned African leader who has clung on to power for so long).

Surprisingly enough, President Museveni was given intelligence reports about what Besigye was planning.

But the President casually dismissed them as rubbish. At the advent of the walk-to-work riots President Museveni told the journalists at his country home in Rwakitura that his intelligence people had written reports that Besigye was planning all sorts of stuff that would bring down the government.

Museveni rubbished the reports saying that Besigye was actually planning nothing!

But the intelligence reports seemed to have been very much spot on.

I mean, Besigye almost overthrew President Museveni’s government through these comical protests.

UGANDA’S INTELLIGENCE HISTORY

There is evidence to show that Uganda’s intelligence has been the most effective military institution in all governments since independence.

The Obote 1 intelligence agency NASA fed President Milton Obote with information that the then Col. Amin Dada was plotting something funny. But Obote took the information lightly and was easily overthrown by Amin in 1971.

During Amin’s time it’s strongly believed that the most effective institution of his government was the State Research Bureau. Although many people were killed under unclear circumstances, it’s strongly believed that all those who were executed by firing squad were guilty of participating in subversive activities.

And indeed most of the people who were executed like Nkoko of Busoga and others from Kabale had been members of Museveni’s FRONASA guerilla cells.

And it’s also on record that during the post Amin era in 1980 a man called Amon Bazira who was heading Ugandan intelligence predicted that there would be genocide in Rwanda. And indeed the genocide took place in Rwanda in 1994, fifteen years after Bazira’s intelligence report.

And in the 1980s, his intelligence, NASA, was so effective that at one time they captured the entire high command of one of the rebel groups called Uganda Freedom Movement (UFM). Those captured included former minister Balaki Kirya who was shipped from Nairobi in a car boot. The UFM Chief of Staff himself called Col. Mark Kodili was also captured from the Mpigi forests by government troops.

By the way this Col. Kodili is the father of my very good friend and Red Pepper Sports Editor called Gazzaman Gazza (real names Charles Kodili). And I usually tease him on how his father, who was the whole commander, could be captured like a grasshopper!

On several occasions Obote’s intelligence managed to track the then NRA rebel Chief Yoweri Museveni, so well that they just stopped short of capturing him.

One former Obote minister told me that at one time he got information that some ragtag NRA rebels were crossing to Western Uganda. He then went and told President Obote about it.

But Obote thought that this NRA group was fleeing to Zaire and immediately telephoned his counter-part President Joseph Mobutu and told him to prepare to receive some refugees.

President Obote took no military action!

And it turned out that the group of NRA rebels was led by Commander Fred Rwigyema. I think Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, the out going Minister of Trade and Tourism was part of that Rwigyema group.

It was this group that actually brought the NRM\Museveni to power as its military exploits in Western Uganda broke the back of Obote’s government.

MUSEVENI’S INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

And during Museveni’s time, intelligence has always been ahead of other institutions in effectiveness.

At one time you recall how the late Col. Noble Mayombo appeared on a radio talk show (Andrew Mwenda live show (with Besigye on-line from South Africa) and read out how Besigye had planned an armed rebellion.

Mayombo amazed the country when he detailed every thing that Besigye was planning, whom he had met, what they had discussed, what he had been given and things like that.

It turned out that the PRA died a still birth because Ugandan intelligence knew so much about what they were planning to do.

It’s believed that Kampala survived the 1998 Al-Qaeda bombings that hit Nairobi and Dar es Salaam because of impeccable intelligence gathering.

Ugandan intelligence also easily captured those who bombed Kampala when football fans were watching World Cup in July 2010 at Kyadondo Rugby Club and Kabalagala.

This time President Museveni had indeed got reports about what Besigye was planning to do after losing the February 2011 elections.

But the President made one of the gravest mistakes in security and ignored the information; never despise intelligence information however silly it may be.