The Five-year fight for Peace in Uganda: A brief timeline of revealing events

The election period for many African countries seems to generate interest from diverse groups; this interest is displayed in several ways. For the more powerful groups there is a textbook methodology to it.  

In the past 10 years, however, the rule book has expanded to peg terms (buzzwords) such as human rights violation and dictatorships to regimes that these ‘powerful’ diverse groups would like to interfere with. The new favorite buzzwords have made it all the way to the powerful halls of the UN New York headquarters and Congress and Parliaments of countries in the form of skewed reports. These reports usually favor those that have been identified to deliver their schemes and denigrate those who stand in the way.

How it is done 

Foreign interest is really and mightily followed by interference. Foreign interference, according to the Australian government is when an activity carried out by, or on behalf of, a FOREIGN power, is coercive, corrupting, deceptive and contrary to Australia’s sovereignty, values and national interests.

Australia is a random example and is a sovereign nation but their definition of foreign interference can be applied to every other nation. They go on to list the areas of society that foreign interference has adverse effects on and these include; individuals, information and infrastructure of governments, industry, and academia, the media, and communities.

The European Union, as recently as May 2024, published a paper titled Foreign Interference: How Parliament is fighting the threat of EU democracy focusing on how foreign powers use disinformation and cyber-attacks to try and shape EU public opinion. The EU recognizes that with the development of social media and the rise of geopolitical tensions, the EU is facing more risks of foreign actors attempting to disrupt elections and democratic processes across the EU.

Interestingly, the EU lists the polarization of opinions strengthening the most extreme viewpoints in debate in order to silence more moderate ones and make democratic debate difficult or impossible as a disinformation technique. In short, the problems are magnified through media and the positives are undermined.

Foreign interference in any form it comes is probably meant to culminate in disruption of the status quo through civil unrest and in some cases war.

Foreign interference: Closer to Home

 In 2020, Uganda was in an election period and in respect to the constitution, candidates came from all ages and regions of Uganda. That notwithstanding, the country was faced with the biggest disinformation campaign in its history and the existence of social media exacerbated this nightmare.

Through the youthful National Unity Platform (NUP), a number of external actors went into overdrive overtly through civil society and covertly through online bots who, using a phenomenon called brigading, spread disinformation, mobilized around violent events, and tried to influence the election and cause disruption.

In November that year, sporadic riots broke out across Kampala, security forces came in and did their constitutional duty to protect lives and property. There were causalities whom the government accounted for. NUP alarmed the world with a made up figure of their supporters who supposedly went missing. The number was 478, but as the years went by, the number found itself at 11 (these were probably directly involved in burning and looting and were later subdued by security forces). Apart from the eleven, the rest are either safely in the US and Canada under false asylum claims or are phantoms with no evidence of having ever existed. 

In the same year, security intercepted consignments of weapons that had been procured for planned disruption at different times. Most of these weapons that include sophisticated catapults, bows and arrows and machetes are safely tucked away in the evidence room of the Uganda Police.

Plan to disrupt swearing-in

2021 was the swearing in year of the newly elected President after a democratic exercise. The battle for Uganda had not ceased. The famous Tajakulayira campaign was then launched with the aim to stop the swearing-in ceremony using protests and violence. A group of 30 individuals led by a one Olivia Lutaaya were mobilised by NUP and trained in the use of petrol bombs. The actual commander was a one ‘Angie’ who resides in Canada. The target was government installations and property. Government indeed lost a couple of vehicles but soon enough the group of Ms Lutaaya was tracked and security was able to curtail this operation successfully.

Attacks on police stations

A small militia called Uganda Coalition Forces of Change emerged in 2022 led by a one David Frank Ndugwa, a staunch supporter of NUP leadership who left his cab driver job in South Africa. On the onset, it looked like a small group until their activities started to manifest, the famous attacks on Police stations and the murder of officers to take their weapons are probably what the public remembers. This group, having trained in Congo, went on to set up camps in places like Busunju and Namayingo with resources whose delivery was mainly through mobile money. These funds originated from the phone numbers of a legislator whose run-ins with law enforcement are numerous. After a serious crackdown on the group, all its 23 members are in custody and stolen guns were recovered.

March to Parliament

 This year, the campaign, dubbed March to Parliament, organized by the youth to protest against corruption in parliament casually looked like a good cause to show displeasure with the Speaker Anita Among who is accused of misusing public funds. The original protesters had emphasised that it would be peaceful but along the way the cause had been hijacked by different actors. Soon enough the campaign had about 3 ‘owners’ or so it seemed.

But according to the testimonies given by some of the participants in the protests shockingly indicate there was a well-planned move to use the former Ugandan guards in Iraq and ghetto youths to cause mayhem in case the demonstrations gained traction.

Interestingly the campaign, or at least what was most visible of it, seemed to have taken place on social media platforms. Neighbouring Kenya had seen an unprecedented assault on its capital with pockets of protests outside Nairobi. Soon enough the bigger plan to disrupt the region became apparent when similar sloganeering and calls for protests started to become louder in Uganda.

A plan had been hatched  by some foreign elements working with their contacts in Uganda had been identifying Ugandans who had previously worked in Iraq and Afghanistan as trained security personnel guarding key security installations that belonged to foreigners.

At least 117 guards had already been recruited out of the 700 needed to go for a briefing in a camp in one of the Southern African countries.

This Southern African  country, despite being debt trapped, is seen as a democracy by the West and is led by the former opposition leader who contested for president five times before winning in 2021.

 “The plan was to target and disarm security personnel deployed to stop the demonstrations and turn guns against the demonstrators,” said one of the guards who had been contacted to participate in the demonstrations.

The intention of killing demonstrators would be to blame security forces for the killings and draw hate and condemnation against the government in and outside Uganda.

The well-choreographed move also targeted the ghetto youths who had been promised shs50,000 as facilitation to go the streets and cause chaos. “This was supposed to help us move to the streets. They told us Mugende Muyiiye[ you go loot and cause chaos],”

One of the tasks given to the city councilors under one of the opposition parties was to recruit 50 demonstrators from their areas they represent.

The target was to have 2,000 demonstrators organized by these councilors given that the party has over 40 councilors in the city.

Relatedly, the materials recovered from the 36 Forum for Democratic Change-Katonga Faction activists who were arrested in Kisumu in a closed door meeting shows they were being trained on how to use “violence to overthrow the regime” by 2026.

The activists are allied to former FDC president and opposition veteran Dr. Kizza Besigye under the Katonga Road faction that broke away from the faction of the party led by Patrick Amuriat and Nandala Mafabi.

The documents recovered from this group indicate the meeting was planned by FDC Secretary Foreign Relations, the National Secretary for Coordination and the Secretary for Mobilisation. These senior FDC officials were supposed to address the trainees. Their link in Kisumu ran an NGO, called Community Support Initiative for Refugees based in Mihango, Nairobi.

Not new to controversy, their Kenya connect had fled Uganda after he was released from Luzira Prisons over his involvement in the offences related to insecurity and subversion in 2013. His NGO was a conduit for funding from NGOs Uganda had closed down for irregular activities and political interference. His NGO operating in Kenya was a good cover.

 During the police interrogation, some said they were planning to break away from the Katonga Faction and create a new group for and by the youth.

The group which had a national outlook comprised professionals, engineers, peasants with influence at the grassroots, business community for mobilisation to cause regime change.

Their training was at a time when Kenya was trying to secure herself, and so when this suspicious group who had entered Kenya at different times appeared on their radar, they took no chances. The group was handed over to Ugandan security and the internal investigation began.

Britain, Bangladesh, Tripoli, Tunis, and Sudan have faced the brunt of foreign interference using social media to shape opinion and cause disruption. The manipulation and hijacking of true causes that rally everyone indiscriminately, while undermining Government intervention on the same, is the most recent tactic of disruption.

 In history, Cuba suffered the brunt of foreign interference with everything from economic sanctions to sponsored violence such as the invasion at the Bay of Pigs where 1,500 Cuban exiles were financed and directed by a foreign government. The Cuban military defeated this invasion successfully.

Uganda borrows from Sun Tzu’s Art of War that, “the quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.” The security forces of this country stop at nothing to secure its people and their property. The longevity of a peaceful nation benefits all the citizens old and young.