He may not have fought pitched battles but his auxiliary contribution to the war that brought NRA/M to power in 1986 is unrivalled, according to various veterans of the bush war.
There are moments when the survival of the struggle depended entirely on RO 028 Brig. Rtd. Andrew Lugobe Lutaaya. One such moment was during the National Resistance Army’s (NRA) first attack on Kabamba Military Training School on February 6, 1981 which effectively launched the five-year bush war.
Not only did he get the Mercedes Benz truck that carried the fighters, but he drove them himself and delivered the 27 guerrilla fighters at Kabamba for their first hit. The rebels used two vehicles in this attack.
Andrew Lutaaya carried 27 fighters while five others, including 2nd Lt Sam Magara, followed in a pick-up truck with rebel leader Yoweri Museveni. After a meeting at Mathew Rukikaire’s residence in Kampala, Lutaaya drove the truck all the way to Kabamba.
Near the gate, he offloaded the squad which was tasked to deal with the quarter guard. Gen. Elly Tumwine, a Monduli trained Second Lieutenant at the time, was in charge of the quarter guard hit squad.
Lutaaya then drove inside the barracks to deliver another squad commanded by Julius Chihandae whose task was to destroy the Signal Centre. Lutaaya belonged to the Chihandae squad.
Veterans say that Lutaaya bravely and daringly drove the truck for about half a kilometre inside the barracks up to the Signal Centre. However, Tumwine botched up the attack after he prematurely shot a guard at the gate – alerting the unsuspecting government soldiers in the barracks.
In the ensuing panic, Chihandae was shot, reportedly by a fellow rebel. The rebels bundled their first casualty, Chihandae, onto their truck and Lutaaya drove off towards Kiboga. In Kiboga, Lutaaya smuggled Chihandae into the district hospital to receive his first treatment, almost a day after he was shot.
Veterans tell us that it is Lutaaya and the late Jackson Mule Muwanga, who actually reconnoitered Kiboga to establish safe areas where rebels would hide after the Kabamba attack.
Lutaaya, being the son of a Ssese Island chief, had a personal car, a VW Combi minibus, which he used during the Kiboga reconnaissance.
After he safely delivered the rebels and their casualty to Kiboga, Museveni dispatched him to Kampala to inform mainly members of the Uganda Patriotic Movement, his political party, that the war had begun.
Lutaaya was present during the final preparatory meeting at Mathew Rukikaire’s residence before the rebels set off to the bush.
Lutaaya had an extra advantage of knowing his way around Lake Victoria, an important link between the rebels, their financiers, and suppliers throughout the five-year war.
In his book, Uganda’s Revolution 1979-1986: How I saw it, Brig. Pecos Kutesa underlines Lutaaya’s contribution when he writes, “There are times when the struggle hinges on just one individual. In our situation everything depended on Lutaaya’s survival instincts and ingenuity”.
The particular incident Kutesa is talking about happened in December 1981 when Museveni and his guards, who included Pecos Kutesa, were returning to the bush from Nairobi. The other Museveni guards were Arthur Kasasira and Marius Katungi, a.k.a Suicide.
In fact Lutaaya, because of his role, had been co-opted on the journey as one of the guards. Even Museveni writes about it in his autobiography, ‘Sowing the Mustard Seed’. Andrew Lutaaya was probably more important during the journey than anybody else.
Museveni left the jungles of Luwero in June 1981. It is Lutaaya who guided him all the way to Ssese Islands. On the island, Museveni and his guards were fed by a friend of Lutaaya. The following day, Lutaaya using his other friends, carried the group in a canoe across the lake to Kenya.
On arrival, he went hunting for Amama Mbabazi and Sam Katabarwa to receive the rebel leader and his guards. Museveni was needed in Nairobi to discuss a merger with Prof. Yusuf Lule and also to travel to Libya to beg for guns as well as check on his family.
Lutaaya’s role during the return journey was even more crucial six months later. The group faced difficulties when the engine of the boat developed mechanical problems. That was not scary when compared to sneaking back into the bush.
Lutaaya left Museveni, Pecos Kutesa and company at an island to go and look for a vehicle that would carry them to the bush. The rebel leader and his group panicked when he delayed to return. They feared that if Lutaaya had been arrested, they would be finished.
He eventually returned and joined them. The group was later driven to the bush in two vehicles by Hajji Moses Kigongo and Sale Male.
Because of the secrecy involved in Museveni’s movements, sometimes only two or three people would be informed. Lutaaya was one of the few who would know in advance that the rebel leader would travel from the bush to Nairobi and back. The second person was Mathew Rukikaire who headed the external wing.
Museveni, therefore, was always at Lutaaya’s mercy, according to a senior veteran.
Lutaaya continued to move between the bush and the urban areas, given his knowledge of the city and Buganda areas. Almost everybody from the bush who traveled to Kenya did so with the help of Lutaaya.
"It is him who carried both people and supplies". Brig. Matayo Kyaligonza recalls when Lutaaya sent the rebels a radio and transmitter from Nairobi. The communication equipment was received by Kyaligonza’s wife in Kampala for onward delivery to the rebels.
Kyaligonza also recalls a time when he traveled with Lutaaya from Nairobi to Liberia to beg for guns. The canoes and boats that Lutaaya mobilised to help cross the vast Lake Victoria were baptised the “NRA marine unit”. The most famous riders in these canoes who feature in both Museveni and Kutesa’s books on the war are Paddy and Busagwa.
Together with Lutaaya, the canoe boys linked the bushmen with the outside world. They would deliver both human beings and equipment to and from the bush using their canoes. This “NRA marine Unit” carried Museveni to Kenya and back on two different occasions as he traveled abroad.
Lutaaya is one of the 15 soldiers that are listed in the UPDF Act 2005 second schedule as having been senior officers when the NRA rebels captured power on January 26, 1986.
