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In his Bukoba City Council clinic, Dr. Charles Timbigambirwa (53) sits silently in a chair against the wall where a large portrait of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the nation’s founding father, hangs.
“Without Mwalimu Nyerere I would not have become a doctor. I could not pay school fees because I come from a poor family.” During his tenure we enjoyed free education from primary to university level “, he recalls with tears in cheers.
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was one of the most respected senior statesmen in Africa and left a strong legacy. Its global standing for justice, equal humanity and egalitarian economic policies still stands today. Today, Tanzania turns 21 years after her death on October 14, 1999.
Since Mwalimu Nyerere died, Tanzania’s population has exploded and many young people, who make up half the population, never saw the man. Others, who are in leadership positions, also young, only reach out to people to share stories they have read about the first president of Tanzania.
Several young men, including Conrad Kato, a Mwanza city-based defender who was born in 1987, have been asking questions to get some background on the Kagera war. One of the questions was … “Why did the Tanzanian government send its troops to Uganda and why were several Ugandan soldiers buried in the Kaboya TPDF camp in Muleba district, Kagera region?”
Before the Kagera War of 1978/79 with the then dictator Idi Amin of Uganda, the people of Kagera lived in peace. They grew various commercial and food crops, such as bananas, coffee, corn, cassava, and millet on their farms. Many people were killed by Idi Amin’s forces on the Kagera.
The Uganda-Tanzania War, known in Tanzania as the Kagera War and in Uganda as the 1979 War of Liberation, was fought between Uganda and Tanzania from October 1978 to June 1979, and led to the overthrow of Idi Amin’s regime. Amin’s forces included thousands of troops sent by Libya.
In 1971, Colonel Idi Amin launched a military coup that overthrew Ugandan President Milton Obote. He installed himself as President of Uganda and ruled the country under a repressive dictatorship. Shortly after coming to power, soldiers loyal to Idi Amin kidnapped then-Kagera Regional Police (RPC) Commander Hans Poppe, who was on patrol in Missenyi Division.
The soldiers took him to Kampala, where Idi Amin mistakenly identified him as Chinese due to his complexion and accused him of training rebels in Tanzania. Later he tortured and killed him. The assassination of Hans Poppe sparked a brief exchange of military clashes between Tanzania and Idi Amin’s forces.
The matter was resolved through a 1972 diplomatic dialogue called the “Mogadishu Pact”. Uganda also contested its border with Tanzania, claiming that the Kagera Salient, a 720-square-mile stretch of land between the official border and the Kagera River, is 18 miles to the south, it was to be placed under their jurisdiction, maintaining that the river made a more logical boundary.
However, again in October 1978, Idi Amin’s forces invaded Tanzania and annexed the Kagera salient that runs from Mutukula to Kyaka (more than 60 kms). The late Mwalimu Nation Father Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who was also Commander-in-Chief of the Tanzanian Armed Forces, could not tolerate such nonsense.
He declared war on the invaders with orders to repel the enemy from Tanzanian soil. The war that followed was bitter and expensive.
Tanzanian commanders, including Major Generals Abdallah Twalipo, Silas Mayunga, Mwita Marwa, Tumainieli Kiwelu, and Brigadiers Imran Kombe and John Walden, just to name a few, did a commendable job on the front lines leading the brave Tanzanian forces. .
The task was successfully accomplished in October 1979 with Idi Amin fleeing to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Tanzanian forces received a heroes welcome at Bunazi in Missenyi district, led by Mwalimu Nyerere, from where he addressed the nation and presented commanders with medals.
The event was also witnessed by the former ruler of Uganda, Godfrey Binaisa. During his national speech, Mwl Nyerere emphasized the importance of patriotism. He congratulated all the men and women who participated in the liberation of Uganda from the Amin dictatorship.
Some 619 fallen heroes, including Tanzanians and several Ugandans who died during the war, were buried at the Kaboya TPDF camp, in the Muleba district, in the Kagera region. A white monument was erected in the cemetery and adorned with the names of the dead.
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Nyerere was one of the leading figures in Africa’s struggle for independence and in its post-colonial era. He led his country to independence from Great Britain in 1961 and served as president from 1962 to 1985, when he became one of the first postcolonial African leaders to voluntarily leave office.
His uniqueness was in his lifestyle and in the strategies he defended and put into practice as matters of principle. True to his religion, Nyerere exalted justice and peace wherever he went. He denounced the violence and called it “a confession of failure because it does not solve the basic problem of injustice or put suffering in a positive context.”
After his retirement as president, he remained one of Africa’s most respected senior statesmen, playing an important advisory role in Tanzanian and regional politics. His latest mission was to mediate talks aimed at ending a six-year civil war in neighboring Burundi.
