Rodney Muhumuza, Risdel Kasasira and Moses Balagadde
14 November 2009
The military record of Maj. Gen. James Kazini, the former army commander who died on Tuesday, was as perfect as it was flawed. The fitting epithets could be many: Eager hunter of rebels. Corrupt man. Ruthless soldier. Insubordinate officer.
Now, if you consider the account of Fred Guweddeko, a noted Makerere University researcher, add this: Three-time prisoner of war.
Guweddeko, who says he fought alongside Kazini in at least two command units of the then-National Resistance Army, before Kazini became famous, has sensationally alleged that the former army commander "was captured by the enemy during battle on three occasions".
Guweddeko's account recalls the days of Alice Lakwena, whose Holy Spirit Movement rebels, he says, captured "Kazini and took his guns and shirt". "Since the Lakwena [rebels] were not killing captured enemies, they only cleansed and prayed for Kazini...," Guweddeko says. Lakwena's rebel outfit was active in the late 1980s. The Lakwena incident happened somewhere in "Bibia, near the border with Sudan," he says.
A sketch of the murder scene.
Witness account
Guweddeko walked into the Daily Monitor newsroom to volunteer the story, saying he once had been at the same rank as Kazini- junior officer 2 or JO2 - before the rebel National Resistance Army captured Kampala in January 1986.
The researcher says he witnessed two of the three occasions Kazini was taken prisoner, including when he was captured by the hostile Uganda National Liberation Army. "The worst capture was when Kazini was taken by the former UNLA, who had become Uganda People's Defence Army rebels," he says. "What saved Kazini from death was his new Algerian Desert Commando camouflage uniform. The commander of the captors desperately wanted this uniform without any blood and thus they delayed in getting him to undress...."
In that particular case, he says, "other NRA troops appeared and rescued Kazini" before something worse could happen. Guweddeko could not say where and when this happened, saying it was prudent to keep that information secret. However, he offered his perception of Kazini the soldier, saying that while other soldiers were inclined to get "charged and angry" as the shooting intensified, Kazini's usual reaction was to "cool" down.
Guweddeko says he was with Kazini in the "1st Mobile Brigade" of the NRA and, later, in the rebel outfit's "Operations Command" unit. Guweddeko, who says his last stint in the army ended in 1989, declined to provide more details of his assignments alongside Kazini, saying it would be "unprofessional" to divulge more information. It was not possible to verify Guweddeko's account.
In the days since he died, Kazini has been eulogised as a brave soldier and a great military strategist. But the more sober eulogies have considered the corruption and discipline issues that plagued his career, most notably the charge that he benefited from the creation of ghost soldiers on the army payroll. In an appeal that was before the Supreme Court, he was challenging his court-martial trial, where he had been convicted on a corruption charge and was being tried for alleged insubordination.
A soldier by training and a fighter at every chance, Kazini rose to become army commander against a background of success in battles against rebel outfits in West Nile and the Rwenzori area. In northern Uganda, where he battled the Lord's Resistance Army, he was sometimes accused of lacking empathy for civilians, and his stint in Congo left him with allegations that he plundered the country's natural resources.
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