Hordes of unemployed youths who paraded the bus and taxi parks quickly got the hang of the game. They would come to town ready to snatch bags and fun whenever possible. They would stand in little groups by the roadside and watch well-dressed women and men wobbling down the hills, blowing like cows chewing cud at the fireside. They concentrated on women who fled with high heels in their hands, burdened with vanity bags and sacks of clothing, tongues protruding out of parched mouths.
“Lady,” they would chime. “Are you a sprinter or a marathon runner?”
“She is a marathon runner.”
“How long have you been training for this race?”
“Every day, once, twice, thrice a week in bed?”
“Are you going to be the first Ugandan woman to win Olympic gold?”
“Take this, it is my lucky towel. It will help you come in first. I don’t really mind following you.”
Like many times before and after, false alarms set the games rolling. At the back of most people’s minds was the feeling that there was really nowhere to run, but that they had to keep moving. In the Triangle, people fled toward the city. In the city, people could only flee toward their homes. These panic alarms went on for a few months, till people began to question them. Mission accomplished, they finally disappeared as quietly as they had started.
It was during this time that the guerrillas were moving out of the Luwero Triangle to western Uganda, in the direction of Lake Albert. In the city, there were rumors that the guerrillas had given up and had cut a deal with the government. The army itself was confused: in the Triangle, the troops found only ghost towns and deserted villages loaded with the stench of the dead and the decay caused by aerial bombardment, mop-up operations and the elements. There was nobody to fight. The emptiness of their former hunting grounds was the last warning that they had lost both their prey and their grip on the situation. They had recurrent nightmares of getting ambushed and hit from the back. The eerie silence emphasized the fact that they had let “the bandits” escape to a place where they could hardly be reached. Already there were divisions in the army, and morale was dwindling rapidly. Many soldiers had not been paid for months and were tired of having to loot and kill in order to get money. The casualties — comrades who lay on their sickbeds knowing that somewhere in the Triangle their blown-off legs, arms, jaws, ears or balls were rotting — brought the desperation of the situation closer to those on the front line and those waiting to be dispatched to the war zone.
It was not long before the guerrillas started attacking and taking over big towns in both the west and the south. Mubende, Hoima, Masaka and Mbarara fell. The guerrillas set up a provisional government. The country was now cut in two. For some time, Aunt was left without anchor. She started brooding, wrapping her worries in few words. She was very afraid that she might never see the brigadier again, for the possibility of a protracted confrontation with government forces looked imminent. She tried to look cheerful and hide her suffering. Then one day she told me that she was going to Masaka, deep in guerrilla territory. At this time it was still possible to go and return. Ostensibly, she was going to visit Uncle Kawayida. In reality, she was going to check on the brigadier. She was gone for a week. My fear was that she might get trapped on the other side. Government roadblocks were bad, but she survived them and came back. “It is peaceful on the other side. There is no shooting in the night. People leave their doors open. There is nothing to fear,” she said very excitedly. “As a matter of fact, I am going back.”
I was both alarmed and angry. I told her that it was sheer madness. How could she push her luck like that? “I have been doing it all my life.” Off she went. This time, however, the guerrillas denied her permission to leave Masaka. They did not want their secrets betrayed to government forces, voluntarily or otherwise. They were highly suspicious of anyone coming and going. Aunt pleaded that her children needed her badly, but they countered that they badly needed her to organize women in the liberated areas. The brigadier, however, made a plan for her to escape. She went by boat and landed at a port near the city. She had picked up a fever, but she was so relieved to be back with her children that she never complained about it or the hardships on the way.
There were upheavals in the army. A leading faction of the commanders wanted to negotiate with the guerrillas, end the fighting and form a coalition government. The smallest guerrilla groups, which had remained inside the Triangle on a knife’s edge, came out and handed over some guns and signed papers. The group in the west, half a country under its control, did not budge. There was a lot of political shadowboxing and jostling for power, which I ignored as I concentrated on Boom-boom Brewery and on Jo. Money was still coming in, and I could afford to seal myself off in my little cocoon.
The war that dislodged the Obote II government and buried the remnants of the army in both northern Uganda and southern Sudan took the same route as the one that had ousted Idi Amin. The guerrillas followed Masaka Road. They pushed toward the city step by step, town by town. On many occasions, the army tried to use tanks to break through the advancing ranks and reoccupy the liberated areas, but to no avail. At best, they recaptured areas for a few weeks but were later driven out of them. Their hearts were no longer in it, and hardware alone never won a war.
Pressured by powerful army officers, the government asked for negotiations. A cease-fire was called; both government and guerrillas took turns violating it. In the meantime, more civilians were getting killed in sporadic fighting. The triangle syndrome was spreading elsewhere. With bated breath, the nation watched the negotiations. When the fighting reached Aunt Kasawo’s little town, everyone knew that it was now or never. Twenty-five kilometers from the city was as near as the guerrillas had ever come to accomplishing their goal. Weeks of negotiations and accusations and counter-accusations of cease-fire violation followed.
Finally, the agreement between the guerrillas and the government was signed. Within a matter of weeks, however, the fighting picked up steam, and the guerrillas captured Kampala on January 25, 1986. It was almost like a repeat of the 1979 show, with government soldiers fleeing both north and east and a new force in power. This time, though, the city had been captured by units with many child soldiers, little boys with uniforms too large for them. It was simply amazing to watch these often ragged units marching through the city, hard on the heels of the retreating army.
Anticipating a repeat of the 1979 bonanza, the looters came out in full force. They were mistaken. Orders had been given that there would be no looting, no duplication of the lawlessness of the seventies. Brave looters got warning shots fired in the air above their heads. Those who persisted got shot. News spread that the guerrillas meant business. Everyone got the message, and the looters returned home wondering what government takeovers had come to.