INTERVIEW: 40-year Moshi lessons for younger Ugandans

Moshi teaches us that anybody with a simple gun must never be allowed to take over power when they have no idea on how to use it – Kabwegyere

Prof. Tarsis Kabwegyere was the convener of the Moshi conference held in March 1979 in Moshi, Tanzania . Its agenda was to remove then-Ugandan President Idi Amin from power. Kabwegyere spoke to Ian Katusiime about the 40^th anniversary of the conference.

We are marking 40 years since the Moshi conference. What does this mean for Uganda politically?

I believe that the removal of Amin was very significant at that time and even today because Amin really did so much damage to Uganda incomparably.

That is when you compare him with the British in colonial times and with Milton Obote just before him. There is no part of Uganda that was not affected by Amin’s rule, or I should say there is no part in Uganda which did not lose a person to his murderous agents. So I believe our coming together in Moshi was such a beginning of a review of our history.

I recall that after we had put together the commissions it turns out that there were so many Acholi in the committees. We were not concerned with ethnic identity of the person but their possible role in reorganising Uganda. We had people like Semei Nyanzi, Martin Aliker, Akena p’Ojok; it did not matter because each had a role to play. The intervention of Tanzania shows even today that Mwalimu Nyerere was more than a leader for Tanzania; he was a leader that had the whole continent at heart. He hosted a liberation committee, he played roles in Zambia, Angola, Guinea Bissau, South Africa.

The removal of Amin lifted a huge burden lying on Uganda’s neck. Possibilities were opened up. No wonder challenges were undertaken and transformation of politics and the understanding of where we were going took place. Those efforts that were being made now had a context because they were home. That is why we have had 33 years of continuity which is not anywhere in our past history.

As the convener of this historic conference, what was the process like? Whom did you call, and how did you become convener?

The damage by Amin was so much that so many had left Uganda. I recall that we had been sent out by Makerere University, we were as many as 27, to do a PhD programme in universities across the world.

And we had come back having finished but nearly all of us fled because of Amin. Everywhere in Uganda where Ugandans were, they were all organising on how to come back. Bishop of Church of Uganda Festo Kivengere who was praying for us at the conference said, he was praying to God that Amin makes a mistake. So by attacking Tanzania that was a Godsend. We gathered from all corners and we had all been in touch, if you travelled abroad you met Ugandans. In East Africa, Kenya was a big centre for us and so was Tanzania. There was a wedding of Steven Tindyebwa, a businessman who had fled Uganda, which took place in Nairobi in December 1978 after Tanzania had been attacked and we all gathered there. That is when this idea of a meeting in Dar-es-Salaam and eventually Moshi was conceived. I was assigned the chairmanship of the organising committee. We tried to be as representative as possible on the committee. Members included Edward Rurangaranga, Okot Nyoromoi, Dr. Peter Sinabulya, a dentist based in Nairobi who was the secretary of our committee.

We had long established contact with Tanzanian authorities because Save Uganda Movement was already based there. So it was not difficult after the committee was formed. The Tanzanian internal security knew us. I used to be an external examiner at University of Dar-es-Salaam, where I would meet people like the current president (Yoweri Museveni), Prof. Dan Nabudeere, and a few others so it was not as difficult as it appears. The contacts were there. Messages went and I recall spending about Kshs6000- 8000 on calls. So we were enabled.