In The Magazine

By The Independent Team Here, The Independent talked to Maj. Gen. Zed Maruru, former army chief-of-staff under Gen. Tito Okello’s short-lived government. Maruru is an air force pilot trained in Czechoslovakia and at Bracknell Staff College of the Royal Air Force of United Kingdom, one of the world’s most respected …

By The Independent Reporter The Independent talked to two retired military officers; one from Britain, one from the United States. Both have worked for the Special Forces of their respective countries. According to these experts, the way UPDF employed its Special Forces in the operation demonstrated a lack of understanding …

By Andrew M. Mwenda A common joke about our roads in Uganda goes like this: If you see someone driving zigzag, then you know he is sober; and if you see someone driving straight, they must be drunk. Why is the logic of driving inverted? Because we have too many …

By the Independent Team One of the key issues identified in crippling LRA is to kill its leader, Kony. This is not the first time voices in UPDF are saying this. In 2002, then Chief of Military Intelligence and Security, Brig. Noble Mayombo, began negotiations with a private security firm …

By Obed K. Katureebe In early February 2006 President Yoweri Museveni called an urgent meeting with the Sembabule district NRM leadership at State House Nakasero. High on the agenda was who should be the NRM’s official woman candidate for Sembabule district in the February 2006 parliamentary elections? Museveni, who was …

By Andrew M. Mwenda The recent Uganda Peoples‘ Defence Forces (UPDF) attack on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was certainly the right thing to do, although the assault itself was ill-timed, poorly planned and incompetently executed. Before the assault, the Uganda government …

By Patrick Kagenda On November 3, 2008, Arthur Asiimwe Kirimani 25 was on his way to Baghdad Airport to board a plane that would return him to Uganda after a 10-month service with a private American security firm  EODT. The firm that is stationed at Forward Operating Base in northern …

By Tony Okao Otoa Jr One of my favourite Shakespeare plays is the one about Julius Caesar. The thing about this play that really makes me overly amazed is the ignorance of the leaders at the time and the intrigue and backstabbing that follows at the end. However my most …

By Andrew M. Mwenda  The inside story On December 4, 2008, President Yoweri Museveni called Finance Minister Ezra Suruma and ordered him to suspend the Managing Director of National Social Security Fund (NSSF), David Chandi Jamwa and his deputy, Mondo Kagonyera. For months, Suruma had been psychologically paralysed and unable …

By Obed K. Katureebe & John Njoroge Mufti of Uganda Sheikh Ramadhan Mubajje is facing a crisis as a section of his followers are set to elect a rival mufti come February 2009. The group led by among others former Mufti, Sheikh Obed Kamulegeya, accuse him of financial impropriety when …