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He was born to Amos Kyatukwire and Erina Komupiira in present-day Kazo Town Council, Kiruhura district, in 1958. The family later migrated to Rutooma, Kashaari.
Below is a personal account of his exploits during the Liberation struggles after:
I have been a Movement cadre since 1974 when I started organizing with Major Katabarwa Rutaasyangabo (brother to Grace Stuart Ibingira). Two of our protégés, Capt. Arthur (Katanga) Kasaasira and Brig. Andrew Lugobe (Kaganda) Lutaaya, participated in the first attack on Kabamba barracks, February 6, 1981. Others such as poet musician Rwandare and George Rweibanda joined the NRA in its first year.
Following murder of Maj. Katabarwa in 1977, I fled to Lusaka, Zambia. There, I started political study circles among students, trade unionists and exiles liberation activists from Zambia, Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia. I co-founded the UNZA [University of Zambia] Philosophy Club which, among others, organized a monthly public lecture that attracted politicians, trade unionists, liberation movement activists and students.
Back home in 1979, I started study circles in Kampala. I attended the first meeting that led to formation of Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) at City Hall. Makerere University UPM branch appointed me to a seven-person committee to campaign in Kampala West for Godfrey Binaisa who was then in prison. I also joined campaigns in Mbarara Central (Fred Kamugira) and Mbarara North (Yoweri Museveni).
Early 1981, basing on many recommendations, the then Lt. Sam Magara sent for me to discuss my participation in the bush war launch. Because I had undergone tonsillectomy and could not manage the coldness in the bush, we agreed that I continue with overt and covert political work at Makerere University. He instructed me to keep strict disassociation with the bush fighters, allowed me to develop my own doctrines, and promised that the organizing committee would always consider me as one among the “historicals of a people’s struggle”.
Sooner than later, my political activism at Makerere, where I collaborated with lecturers such as Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, Dr Katebalirwe Amooti wa Irumba and Ijoyi Fendru, by organizing regular public debates at the university, overshadowed pro-UPC lecturers and students, and raised the political consciousness of many DP supporters and apolitical students.
I left Makerere University (1983) with a B. A. in Political Science and Philosophy. I immediately became a licensed (non-professional) secondary school teacher in various schools in Mbarara district.
I continued political education and mobilisation among students, youth, workers and peasants across the country with diverse networks – mainly using Uganda Red Cross Society, Uganda-Korea Friendship Society, faith-based youth organisations, school teachers and a publication called Forward. I formed a six-person national organizing committee (NOC) to assist me with the networking and mobilisation.
My doctrine included letting my products go at large to any political organisation of their choice. Many of them joined the bush war effort while others did progressive work under the UPC. While I remained underground organizing against a reactionary civil war, some of my cadres were active in the formation of Resistance Councils or serving under the NRM government. E.g. the late Eric Nabbala, the first LC V chairman for Tororo district, and Education state minister, David Pulkol, were cadres mentored by me.
The overt and covert networks and the national organizing committee were dissolved through a 10-day special [political and spiritual] public operation on Kampala Road in Kampala city during the presidential campaigns in April 1996. The operation also targeted and successfully neutralized a resurgent Buganda-based second Kirimuttu conspiracy movement.
In 1993, while staying in my Rutooma village, Mbarara district, the then Maj. Ondoga ori Amaza and Lt. Noble Mayombo sent then UPDF 2nd Lt. John Nuwagaba to look for me to help in the organisation of the 7th Pan-African Congress. I worked as a researcher-at-large; later appointed as Research and Documentation Officer for the Global Pan-African Movement Secretariat in 1994.
Since 1996, I have been individually active in NRM presidential and parliamentary campaigns in Ankole sub-region. (I was campaign secretary for Maj. John Bashaija Kazoora [1996 winner] and John Arimpa Kigyagi [2006 winner]. I also moved around with the 2006 presidential campaign committee for Greater Mbarara headed by Eng. John Nasasira, though I was not a member.
I am a national medalist, with the Nalubaale Medal of Honour (2012). (The Presidential Awards Committee chancery staff confided in me that my name was brought to them by UPDF officers from the Office of the Commander in Chief, Mbuya. The officers apologised for the delay of the award, and said I should expect a deserved bigger and special reward.)
In September 2020 during the Covid-19 lockdown, His Excellency the President Yoweri Museveni invited me twice to State House Entebbe. However, the president’s busy schedule failed us to meet. Though he promised to call me again soon, it didn’t happen – to date.
I have, until recently, been the Copy Editor at The Observer newspaper. I have spent the majority of the years of my adulthood purposively unemployed or underemployed due to higher commitments.
My urgent requests to the president of Uganda and chairman of the National Resistance Movement are:
(a) A financial rehabilitation package from many years in the underground and underemployment for me. I possess no land, no vehicle and no cattle; instead, I am indebted to financial institutions.
(b) A financial token of appreciation to my five (5) former National Organising Committee colleagues: Charles Ocan Emunyu (Soroti district); Dagira Suza (Pallisa/Mbale); Francis Kintu (Kyotera); John Obong (Apac/Lira); and Charles Mori Droma (Adjumani).
JOHN MUSINGUZI (KYATUKWIRE)
FOR MORE DETAILS, TEL: 0777959024
