The UNC was the pioneer of Uganda’s independence
The people of Uganda, on October 9, proudly celebrated 48 years of independence from Britain, which we achieved after a bitter struggle which was spearheaded by Uganda National Congress.
Uganda National Congress, the party which spread the gospel of nationalism and fought for Uganda’s independence was founded by six men; I.K. Musaazi, Abubakar Kakyama Mayanja (Buganda) Stefano Abwangoto (Bugisu), Okweredde (Teso), Yekosofati Engur (Lango) and S.B. Katembo (Toro).
I.K. Musaazi was the founding President General and Abubakar Mayanja was the founding Secretary General, the other four automatically became chairmen in their respective areas and the gospel of nationalism spread like wildfire.
The other big guns in the Uganda National Congress were the late J. W. Kiwanuka, who was the Chairman, Dr B.N. Kununka who was the Secretary General, Dr. Milton Obote who was Vice President, Mr Balaki Kirya from Bukedi, and Mr George Magezi from Bunyoro, Mr Oola Peter and Mr Otema Alimadi both from Acholi and the Youth league was led by Jenkins Kiwanuka and J. M. Kavuma Kaggwa.
The late John Kale (The father of the current Inspector General of Police General Kale Kayihura) was the Chief Representative of UNC in Cairo and he did a wonderful job of mobilising support from many countries for the Liberation movements in Africa at that time.
I would describe John Kale as a brave freedom fighter who had “a lion heart,” like Jomo Kenyatta. We were together in Katwe at the UNC headquarters and at the same time he was a fiery student at Makerere. Katwe was a centre of all political activities in Uganda.
He attended an anti-colonialism conference in one of the Eastern Europe countries which had a communist system and that was the cause of his expulsion from the university.
After Makerere in 1957 he bravely trekked through Northern Uganda and Sudan, and landed in Cairo Egypt where he opened up a UNC office and quickly established a solid political relationship with the late President Gamel Abdel Nasser.
It was in Cairo where he did the most wonderful work to liberate Africa. He was the chief coordinator for all the liberation movements in Africa.
On behalf of UNC he, together with Abu Mayanja, negotiated for UK Pounds Sterling 500,000 and a modern printing press from the People’s Republic of China for Uganda National Congress. At that time both Chairman Mao Tse Tung and Prime Minister Chou en-lai were the leaders of China and they helped a great deal in the liberation of Africa.
This assistance from China greatly boosted the activities of UNC in 1958/1959 and early 1960 before the party split due to internal disagreements over that money. The printing press was installed on Jinja road in a building which now accommodates the Hot Loaf Bakery.
John Kale was with the late Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Tom Mboya of Kenya and Abu Mayanja of Uganda and they organised the historic First All-Africa Conference in Accra in 1958. Tom Mboya was the Chairman of the Conference and Abu Mayanja was the Secretary assisted by John Kale.
At this Conference Kwame Nkrumah declared that the Independence of Ghana was meaningless without the liberation of the entire African Continent. The Conference passed a strong resolution to liberate the whole of Africa and for Ghana to assist materially all the liberation movements in Africa including UNC.
It was terribly sad for us that John Kale died in 1960 before we achieved Independence for which he had struggled so much. John Kale died in an air crash in the former Soviet Union on August 17, 1960.
The accident occurred while the group was flying back to Cairo after attending the trial in Moscow of Garry Francis Powers who was the Pilot of the US spy plane U2, which had been shot down by the Soviet Union while on a reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union.
I have to wholeheartedly thank President Museveni, Minister Kirunda Kivejinja who was one of us the young freedom fighters in UNC, and the Government of Uganda, for at last recognising the great work and struggle done by John Kale and other freedom fighters on October 7 at the Pan African Freedom Square in Kampala.
The mistake they made was to leave out one of Africa’s great freedom fighters, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, whom they never mentioned at all; even President Museveni never mentioned Jomo Kenyatta in his speech. I hope Kenyatta will be remembered next year.
Mr Kaggwa is an elder from Kyaggwe in Mukono District
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[From the Daily Monitor: http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/-/689364/1030676/-/13uop3pz/-/i...