General David Sejusa (Tinyefuza), Uganda People’s Defence Forces co-ordinator of military intelligence. Photo/Morgan Mbabazi
What you need to know:
Analysts say Gen Sejusa’s action represents the growing discontent among the army old guard.
Sharp rifts in Uganda’s political and military establishment emerged last week with the sensational publication in the Daily Monitor of an internal memo the co-ordinator of intelligence services General David Sejusa (formerly Tinyefuza), apparently wrote to the director general of the Internal Security Organisation.
In it, Gen Sejusa appears to ask the DG ISO, Col Ronnie Balya, to investigate claims that three high-ranking army officers in cahoots with other people plotted to frame and/or assassinate other senior government officials opposed to rumoured plans by President Yoweri Museveni to have his son, Brig Muhoozi Kainerugaba, succeed him.
The targets include Gen Sejusa himself, Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, and Gen Aronda Nyakairima, the Chief of Defence Forces.
The memo touched off a flurry of denials and threats from Gen Aronda and Dr Crispus Kiyonga, the Minister of Defence, who both warned Gen Sejusa he was acting outside the law.
The warnings were immediately followed by raids on Gen Sejusa’s office. Four of his staff members were taken in for questioning over “subversive activities” — the same charges, along with spreading harmful propaganda, that he potentially faces.
The memo is only the latest in a series of events pointing to simmering unease within the army. The tell-tale sign that President Museveni is ready to sanction Gen Sejusa’s prosecution will be if he announces a military reshuffle and promotes some lieutenant generals to the exclusive club of full generals that currently has seven members.
According to the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) Act, Gen Sejusa can only be tried by an officer of his own rank or above. Although currently all the six generals ideally qualify to try him, five are tied down by engagements.
Generals Moses Ali, Salim Saleh and Jeje Odongo are retired and it is unlikely they will be recalled to this role. Gen Nyakairima is restricted by his position as Chief of Defence Forces, while President Museveni cannot take on the job, for obvious reasons.
This leaves Gen Elly Tumwine. His role in the army that he once commanded has been greatly reduced. Apart from being one of 10 officers who represent it in parliament, he is without any known serious deployment.
His public stance on the runaway corruption and the half-hearted way in which the government has responded to it and his veiled support for the restoration of term limits have in many ways cast him as a man on edge within the system.
As such, he could be deemed unequal to the task, considering that Gen Sejusa is a senior peer from the bush war and has, in principle, voiced similar concerns.
Army spokesperson Col Paddy Ankunda, however, says finding a competent person to chair a court martial would not be a problem: “If there are crimes that have been committed, they shall not be left to pass because of the absence of a competent person to chair the court [martial],” Col Ankunda told The EastAfrican. “The president as commander in chief will decide to whom to assign that responsibility.”
Analysts say Gen Sejusa’s action represents the growing discontent among the army old guard.
“The so-called bush war generals don’t understand what is happening to the army today,” Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda, a former journalist who reported extensively on the army before he became MP, told The EastAfrican. “Many senior officers have asked to be retired but their requests have not been granted. Yet they have little to do as Museveni has been transitioning from the group he came to power with to a new one built around his son.”
Gen Sejusa himself was first appointed to an office in which he has no real work since the subordinate organs — ISO and ESO — report directly to the appointing authority, then found his budget reviewed downwards.
But the tipping point, The EastAfrican has been told, came when Gen Sejusa reportedly authored a security brief to the president.
Apparently, the president is said to have instructed his son to handle it, something that didn’t go down well with the general.
“He was angered because he was thinking, ‘If I am a co-ordinator of intelligence and I write a security brief to my head of state, I should discuss it with him and not my junior’,” a source told The EastAfrican.
According to John Kazoora, a former soldier and senior official in Museveni’s government, the current situation of senior government officials engaging in public spats, is a consequence of the lack of clarity about where the country is headed.
“Gen Tinyefuza is not a fool. By the time he has come out to say this, probably he has exhausted all the channels. And he is saying, ‘Look, this country doesn’t belong to four or five generals. It belongs to all Ugandans so let me tell them what is happening and probably prepare them for whatever is about to happen’,” Mr Kazoora told The EastAfrican.
According to Simon Mulongo, the vice chairperson of the Parliamentary Defence and Internal Affairs Committee, public disagreement between people who wish President Museveni to stay on and those who wish him to leave can only grow until there is an honest conversation about a peaceful transition.
