Rebel leader ‘an intellectual’

Press, 28 January 1986, Page 26

Rebel leader ‘an intellectual’

NZPA-AP Nairobi The Ugandan rebel leader, Yoweri Museveni, says his men had only 27 rifles when they went into the bush five years ago to wage civil war. Now the well-armed National Resistance Army has captured Uganda’s capital, Kampala, and vowed to take the third of the country still held by the teetering military regime.

The eight-day final offensive makes Museveni, who describes himself as "an intellectual, not a soldier,” Uganda’s most

powerful leader.

Little is known about what kind of Government might be formed by this balding, articulate, animated commander, who seems as comfortable at a news conference as he does with his troops in the field.

Even his biography raises unanswered questions.

He does not know how old he is, because his parents were illiterate and no one kept records.

“I was bom when African ex-soldiers of World War II were returning home,” he told

Nairobi’s "Sunday Times” last November. “So from there one could deduce I was bora in either 1944 or 1945,” he said.

Some Western diplomats in Kampala, during briefings given on condition they not be identified, have suggested a Museveni Government might have totalitarian or Marxist overtones.

One diplomat said the interim Government established by Museveni in south-west Uganda during the civil war included such posts as “political commissar” and “minister

for mass mobilisation.” Other diplomats said Mr Museveni had sought, reportedly without success, to get arms from Libya. When asked if he is Marxist or socialist he replies he is a nationalist dedicated to peace.

"Our main stand in ideological terms is nationalism, patriotism, love for country, Uganda and Africa in general,” he said.

“We don’t think that what Uganda needs is Marxism,” he said. “What - Uganda needs is development, even on a capitalistic basis,

if it benefits our people.” ? While he assailed the military Government for failing to halt atrocities by its troops, Mr Museveni’s guerrillas were credited with maintaining tight discipline and treating civi--

lians well. “The people must have a Government that respects them,” he said.

“In Uganda you have

soldiers of the regimes there stripping women naked, raping them. That’s not dignity for the African people. That’s indignity,” he said.