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Final battles

The National Resistance Movement Government came to power in 1986. In the run-up to the Liberation Day on January 26, New Vision brings you a four-part series on the battle for Kampala. 

In the second part, Joshua Kato highlights the final preparations and the beginning of the battle as areas near the Masaka frontline were overwhelmed by the National Resistance Army (NRA).

After the meeting of the NRA High Command in Masaka, there was no looking back. 
“We had been fighting for all these years and we had never come as near to success as we were,” Lt Mohammed Ssekamatte says. 

Ssekamatte, who retired in the early 1990s, is now working privately with the United Nations in Mogadishu, Somalia. 

There had not been any serious military engagement since the Uganda National Liberation Army had been defeated at Katonga, Masaka district, in early December 1985. 

Mbarara district had also surrendered at the end of December 1985. 

The order of battle was clearly drawn out in a zigzag format from Budde on the Kampala-Masaka road, Kibibi in Butambala, then to around Bujuko, Kakiri, Masulita up to Kawanda, all in central Uganda. 

During the meeting on January 15, 1986, each battalion had been given an objective to act. The guns were oiled, bullets given out, and all logistics completed. 

After the capture of most of the central region, save for Mukono district and nearly all the western parts of the country, NRA units on the move, in addition to their commanders, could not use vehicles freely. 

Some of the commanders had Land Rovers and Jeeps, while the fighters moved on trucks — including Bedford and Tata. Most of these had been captured by government forces. 

Rebel leader drives around 

So, it was not surprising when NRA commander Yoweri Museveni was openly driven in a Land Rover 110, one of the most popular military vehicles of the time, from Masaka, where he held the commanders’ meeting on January 15, 1986, to Hoima to brief a then slender and tall David Tinyefuza about his role in the final push. 

Gen. Tinyefuza was in charge of two battalions of the NRA — the 9th, under Julius Chihande, and the 19th, led by the late Brig. Peter Kerim. 

This unit was supposed to play a blocking role around Masindi town, stopping any government counter-attack from the north, via Masindi. Like a president driving in his own country, Museveni then drove from Hoima to Nakaseke, via Kiboga on January 16. 

He met another NRA battalion — the 13th — under Ivan Koreta, at Bulamba near Semuto (in what is now Nakaseke district). 

The 13th Battalion was tasked with blocking the Kampala-Bombo-Gulu road and stopping any reinforcements. 

On the same day, Museveni drove from Nakaseke, through Masulita, Kakiri, Wakiso, then southwards, joining Mityana road, to around Bujuko, then used that road up to Kibibi, Mpigi district. 

However, he had to be mindful of a big government force camped at Kabasanda, before reaching Kibibi, which had been the home of the 7th Battalion for the last month, under now Maj. Gen. Matayo Kyaligonza. 

This unit had been tasked with attacking one of the government forces units at Kabasanda. Satisfied that all was well, he drove back to Masaka and waited for D-day, January 17, 1986. 

It was a hectic time for Museveni because this had been the most active period since the war started. 

He was supposed to monitor at least 10 simultaneous operations across a 100km area. He reportedly never had time to sleep, on the night of January 16, even after two days of driving around in the war zone. 

By 4:00am, he was already seated with his radios, waiting in for the action. All attacks were set to start at 6:30am. 

Rain or bullets? 

Norah Nakimbugwe was a 20-year-old woman, residing around Lukole on the Mpigi-Kabasanda road. Lukole is about 2km from Kabasanda. 

She said: “Olunaku lwali Lwakubiri awo ngobudde bukya. Mba nzukuka bwentyo, ngend’okuwulira ng’amasaasi gayiika ng’enkuba ku mabaati.” 

(It was Tuesday at the break of dawn. I was getting up when I heard a lot of noise from bullets being fired, like that of rain hitting an iron sheet roof). What she heard were elements of the NRA’s 7th Battalion attacking Kabasanda. 

The government soldiers were occupying the hill where the sub-county headquarters sit today. The location gave them an advantage over a force that attacked from Kibibi in the east. 

The ‘rain’ went on for over two hours before it stopped. After around 30 minutes, it started again. The fighting went on intermittently throughout the day, until after midnight. 

“At night, we heard many soldiers running past our home towards Mpigi town. We learnt that those were government soldiers withdrawing,” Nakimbugwe says. 

The 7th Battalion followed the withdrawing government forces and hit them again in Mpigi and overran it on January 18. They rapidly advanced on the main road. 

By January 21, 1986, the fighters were poised just after Kyengera, near where the Entebbe Expressway crosses Masaka Road today. 

“I was in Nsangi, I think on a Tuesday, when I saw two long lines of shabbily-dressed soldiers carrying all sorts of weapons walking through the town,” Samuel Bomboka, who had taken his father’s bicycle at a repair shop, recalls. 

These were units of the 7th Battalion advancing towards Kyengera. While at first the population feared them, they soon came back and started jubilating, he says. 

“Abayekera batuuse”(the guerrillas have arrived) was the commonest phrase. 
“People gave them food and water,” Bomboka remembers. Of course, that stretch was not as populated as it is today.

Kampiringisa dispersed 

Although this village in Mpigi is better known today for holding delinquent children, it was a battlefield on the morning of January 17, 1986, as the NRA’s 5th Battalion, under Ahmed Kashillingi, attacked the government forces there. 

Since early December, a unit of the national army was stationed around the area where the children’s facility sits. 

In their strategic planning, this force was supposed to stop any NRA advances from Gomba and Kibibi. It was working with another government force at Kabasanda. 
In addition to Kampiringisa, there was another detachment at Budde, on the road to Kibibi.

“We attacked them at around 6:45am,” one of the fighters in the battalion said. However, he says the forces were well dug in and offered serious resistance. They had a couple of well-positioned 14.5mm guns, supported by several 12.5mm guns, which affected the NRA attack. 

“We fought for the whole day, but as night fell, they started withdrawing,” he says. After defeating the Kampiringisa force, the 5th Battalion rapidly moved towards Mpigi. 

“At Kasanje, we moved onto that murram road facing the lake, then detoured and ended up near Nkumba, where the express highway joins Entebbe Road. During that time in 1986, the Mpigi-Kasanje road was still a village, with a few residents living there.” 

By the night of January 22, all NRA units that were supposed to attack the city had reached their jump-off points. 

For example, the 1st, 3rd and 7th battalions were lying in defensive positions on the other side of River Lubigi at Busega, on Masaka and Mityana roads, running all the way to the Hoima Road at Namungoona. 

“It is only that river and the papyrus that separated us from the government forces,” Lt Ssekamatte remembers. 

Meanwhile, on the government side, an armed helicopter spent the whole Wednesday (January 23) and the early hours of January 24, 1986, harassing the ‘massed’ NRA forces. 

“It flew over the papyrus, firing rockets and its machine gun. We fired back at it using 14.5mm and 37mm guns,” Ssekamatte says. However, the chopper never had any significant impact on.