Mazima: A soldier-turned French teacher

By Conan Businge

AS the sun rays cut through the forest in Mityana, central Uganda, gun-fire rocked the area. The National Resistance Army (NRA) rebels were fighting Government forces, forcing them to flee.

Little did the Seventh Battalion of bombers in which Lt. Col. Sylver Mazima (RO5226) was, know that the Government forces were retreating. They staged a heavy fight against the retreating forces. But like a wild lion fleeing for life, the forces aggressively broke through the rebels’ front-line, leaving both the hunter and hunted with several casualties.

Mazima was just one of them. He lost his left leg to one of the grenades which was thrown at him as he was being briefed by his commanding officer.

Today, Mazima, who is a decorated hero, still serves in the forces.

If darkness had hidden government forces from the rebels, dawn exposed them. Mazima believes that the horrors they inflicted could have been avoided if they had left them to retreat without resistance. But he has no regrets.

“We were doing our job, and indeed we later won and liberated the country,” he explains.

Peculiar about Mazima from all other soldiers who were injured, he decided to go back for further studies, eventually obtaining a master of arts degree in French.


Joing NRA

Mazima joined the NRA in 1985, after abandoning his course at the then National Teachers College in Kyambogo. At the same time, he had a year to go, before becoming a priest at the seminary and had wanted to add a post-graduate diploma to his set vocation.

Mazima says he was being harassed by the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), since he was a Democratic Party youth winger. He realised that the only way he could oust the Obote government was to join the liberators.
Unlike most of the former NRA soldiers who lost their limbs and are today confined in Mubende Rehabilitation Unit (Tiger Barracks), Mazima resorted to staying active in the force and doing part-time jobs. But he had to first go back for studies.

For many years, Mazima had been training for the priesthood, a vocation that was cut short with only one year to ordination, shortly before he joined the bush war.


Back to school

His desire to progress in academics kept him interested in completing his diploma course at Kyambogo.

After the war, he returned to Kyambogo and completed his diploma in 1992. He went back in 1998 for a Bachelor of Education degree, which he finished in 2001.

Mazima later got a French scholarship to study a Masters of Arts in French and later went to France ,where he obtained a post graduate diploma in French.

He first taught French at Makerere University Business School from 2003 to 2009, while lecturing at Kyambogo University, then known as Uganda Polytechnic Kyambogo. Since 2005, he has also been teaching French to UPDF soldiers going for foreign missions.

“I am 90% disabled according the military medical board and since I was not fully working, I decided to join teaching to keep myself busy,” he says.

Mazima says he finds solace in teaching. “However, if I am called to do military work, I can gladly take it on, much as I would like to keep teaching,” Mazima says.

In the Military

Mazima had been a Captain since 1999, before his promotion on March 30, last year, to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

He reflects the life of a harmonious family man and soldier, committed to his family and country, standing proudly and silently as a stable pillar in Nabbingo; where he has lived for years.

“I met the President in Kitabi Seminary in 2003, as I was about to finish my masters degree. But, if I met him again, I know he would be pleased that I did not waste my life after the war, ” he observes. His injury at the end of the war became a source of intellectual energy and ambition.Mazima is a man of strong opinions. He lives a low profile and prefers to use public means of transport.Although he has one leg, the disability has not deterred him from being a good soldier.