Sir Edward Muteesa’s struggle to survive in the UK:

Beyond the controversy surrounding his death, little is known or written about Sir Edward Muteesa’s struggle to survive in the UK from 1966 to 1969. This piece is written in memory of one of Uganda’s most unsung heroes - born on November 19, 1924 and died on November 24, 1969. It uncovers the treachery, intrigue and the diplomatic scandals surrounding what the British bureaucrats called the “Muteesa problem”. It ponders the lessons from Obote’s attack on the Lubiri and Muteesa’s defiance of political blackmail and oppression.

When Sir Edward Muteesa (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) and Uganda’s first Commander-in-Chief and President), jumped over the wall of the Lubiri and walked hundreds of miles to escape Obote’s killers, he did not know what lay in store for him. A new insight, based on historical documents and accounts from family and friends, portrays another dimension on his life in exile in the UK - a life that was as wretched as it was inspirational.

The struggle to settle in England
Far from the grandeur of his palaces and the splendour of the State House, Muteesa, together with his guards Maj. Katende and George Malo, had to settle for a very small one-bedroom flat in Bermondsey in a neighborhood called Rotherhithe. This was kindly offered by a friend - as they had no money at all to rent a better shelter. Other friends, like Major Richard Carr-Gomm, Lord Boyd of Merton, Captain Ronnie Owen and his Solicitor Martin Flegg, set up a small trust of about £789 for his upkeep. Once this fund run out, he had to apply to Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) for unemployment benefits (the dole). He got £ 8.1s a week while his guard, Mr. Katende, got £7. 6s a week. On this, they survived from hand to mouth and sometimes on a diet of tea and biscuits. Some Baganda individuals like one Mr. Iga occasionally supported. Many were scared to be associated with Muteesa for fear of what Obote would do.

To maintain the benefits from HMG, Muteesa and his guards were required to declare any gifts donated by friends including birthday presents. Muteesa relied on the kindness of his friends to pay school fees for his children. Employment in the army, where he was a Lt. Colonel with the Grenadier Guards, was declined or frustrated by the British Government. His pension from the civil contingency fund was not paid. According to the UK Ministry of Social Security no “suitable” employment was available.

Living in exile takes its toll
The British bureaucrats felt that the only possibility for employment was “if he undertook agricultural or forestry training”.

In the early days of exile, his movements were mostly restricted to his flat – for fear of being abducted by Obote’s men. So bleak was his condition that, at a meeting with the Secretary of State on May 10, 1968, Lord Boyd said that Sir Edward had had a mental break down and was suffering from delusions. Lord Boyd described his plight as “pathetic”. Of course, his mental state was not always like that. On many occasions he was jolly, notwithstanding his new circumstances.

Almost overnight, Muteesa had become a diplomatic nightmare and a thorn in HMG’s side. On top of their troubles with Ian D. smith in Rhodesia, Julius K. Nyerere in Tanzania, and Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia, the British Government was keen not to annoy Obote and his new Government. Yet at the same time, it was also under considerable pressure from Muteesa’s influential British friends to take good care of him. In the event, HMG chose to abandon Muteesa and support Obote.

It thus accepted Muteesa as a private citizen and not a political refugee. It refused to have any official dealing with him. This was regardless of the fact that Obote had violently abrogated Uganda’s independence Constitution and had the blood of many Ugandans on his hands following the attack on Muteesa’s palace on the cold night of May 24, 1966.

A memo from 10 Downing Street dated February 6, 1967 shows that the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, agreed with the Commonwealth Secretary that “any overt grant to the Kabaka could be politically embarrassing”. And, while the Prime Minister pondered discreet support from “secret funds”, this was rejected because his bureaucrats felt that “HMG had no moral or legal obligation to assist Muteesa”. Also, because they felt that “while the risks of detection would be slight, there was just a possibility that the Ugandans might guess the truth and this would seriously damage our relations with them”.

Thus HMG gave Muteesa no more financial assistance than it would to any other “destitute resident”.

How HMG felt about the king
HMG’s position on Muteesa is best captured in a memo of June 24, 1968, authored by R. G. Tallboys of the Commonwealth Office (East Africa Department) to Mr Scott. It stated that -
“If we are ever going to be rid of the Muteesa problem, other than simply waiting for him to go away, there are two lines of approach we should adopt. One is to use his friends and sympathisers in this country as a channel for putting heavier pressure on Muteesa to accept the Uganda conditions, rather than having these friends serve as their main purpose to channel to us tales of woe about Muteesa’s circumstances. The situation is :- (a) His family have been generously treated by the Uganda Government. (b) He has been given assistance by HMG in the form of social benefits. (c) he has assets in Uganda that can be sold. (d) He can almost certainly obtain access to the proceeds, or some of the proceeds, of these assets if he accepts the reality of political conditions in Uganda. (e) There is no case whatever for HMG to do more for him than has and is being done. The second thing is, without waiting for Mutesa to agree to the Uganda conditions, to encourage the realisation of his land in Uganda...I am writing to Peter Foster suggesting that Muteesa’s land should be sold without waiting for prior approval to the effect that the proceeds can be transferred...Once there is cash in the bank it may be easier to get both Muteesa’s agreement to Obote’s conditions and/or to get Obote to agree to remission of some of the money – even if only interest earned. Muteesa is not a destitute in the sense that he has no assets – his financial difficulties here are no more than the cost of his personal vanity and pride.”

The position of Uganda’s government on Muteesa - and that of Obote, in particular, was always clear. In his autobiography entitled The Desecration of My Kingdom, Muteesa wrote that by 1966 “Obote has already put me as President squarely in his sights and having obtained the range by mere pointing out at me publicly, he is now pressing firmly at the trigger”.

The hate and venom poured on Buganda and Muteesa by Obote and his UPC colleagues in the post-1966 period is available for all to see in the Hansards of the National Assembly.

In short, for Obote and his friends, Muteesa needed to be cut down to size. Now that he had escaped with his life, Muteesa needed to be starved of funds so that he could succumb – either privately or publically – to acknowledge the established state of affairs in Uganda.

Somehow, the British played along and pressured Muteesa to accept these conditions in total disregard of their (il)legality, morality or even implications on the long standing relationship they had with the kingdom and people of Buganda since 1894.

The Baganda were able to see through this although they could do little because of the fear instilled in them by the emergency laws and Obote’s brutal terror machine in Buganda. But in a brave open-letter to the British Prime Minister dated May 21, 1968, some six Baganda students, including Y. Nsambu, Joseph Male, M. Nansamba, and S. Nansamba, protested the actions of Obote and HMG government.

They stated that “the British Government has now joined hands with the Uganda authorities in holding the Kabaka as a hostage until His Highness surrenders”.

How the kingdom came to be abolished
Sam Odaka, Uganda’s Minister for foreign Affairs at the time, set the conditions for the amelioration of Muteesa’s plight.

He declared that the Government of Uganda was prepared to consider any proposal to remit funds from Muteesa’s assets in Uganda to England, but that such consideration was dependant on Muteesa giving “definite and unequivocal proof that he accepts the changes that have taken place in Uganda, the 1967 Constitution and the authority of the present government”.

Obote was not content with Muteesa’s dreadful life in exile. So, to complete his subjugation and the humiliation of the Baganda, he, by a stroke of a pen, “abolished” the 600-year old Kingdom of Buganda.

He then confiscated all the Kingdom’s land and assets and handed them to the State. As if that weren’t enough, he converted the Kabaka’s palace at Mengo into an army barracks. He took over the former Lukiiko (Buganda’s Parliament) and made it his new army headquarters.

The palace grounds were later to become one of Uganda’s most notorious torture chambers and killing fields.

Many people including Abu Mayanja, Mayanja Nkangi, David Ssimbwa and others were detained without trial. Many others were killed. Little surprise that, during those difficult days, the saying that “a good Muganda is a dead one” gained popularity in the corridors of power.

Milton Obote left nothing to chance - in ensuring that Muteesa was rendered a destitute. He personally oversaw that Muteesa had no access to funds from Uganda. According to a memo from the British High Commission in Uganda dated January 4, 1967, Obote himself actively pursued the question of Muteesa’s finances. On one occasion, he summoned a Standard Bank official and asked him if he could shed light on the possibility of funds being passed from Uganda to Muteesa.

The discussion, at which Obote was said to be pleasant and amiable, lasted two hours but the official explained that he was unable to help the President on this question. On another occasion, Obote twice summoned the local Barclays Bank Manager, Mr. Woodcock, and interrogated him at length to establish that the Kabaka had no funds. The Bank official confirmed that there was no money available to Muteesa. In the mean time, Sam Odaka discussed with the British High Commissioner the possibility for Mutesa’s land and property to be sold by his sister Princess Victoria Mpologoma.

But, as the High Commissioner saw it, even if the land was sold there was “no reason to think that the Uganda Government will allow Muteesa to receive these moneys without paying the political price” or “eating a full measure of humble pie”. Alongside the Ugandan Government, the British maintained an intense search for Muteesa’s assets in Uganda so that they be sold and, hopefully, the proceeds would go to Muteesa to “keep the wolves away from his door for at least a few months” if one may use the language of the High Commissioner.

While HMG’s agenda on Muteesa was more obscure than Obote’s, it was equally uncharitable. In spite of his plight, some senior officials felt that HMG was handling Muteesa with “kid gloves”. The Commonwealth Office for example pressed the Supplementary Benefits Commission to work with Muteesa’s solicitors to obtain “a more precise statement of Muteesa’s assets and how they can be realised, than Muteesa is prepared to make”.

The Commonwealth Office’s primary aim was “to help the Supplementary Benefits Commission to relieve themselves of the burden of Mutesa” by arranging “so far as we can, for his assets to be made available in some way or the other”, in other words, by hook or crook.

The wolves were not only at Muteesa’s door, they were also on Princess Victoria Mpologoma’s door. Indeed, according to the Daily Telegraph of February 18, 1969, she together with 15 others were arrested and detained under emergency laws. She was to be charged with high treason. It was believed by Basil Bataringaya, the Minister of Internal Affairs, that she supplied money for an abortive army mutiny in an attempt to overthrow the Ugandan government and secure the return of the Kabaka.

British government declines to help
When Muteesa’s friends asked the British government to intercede in Princess Victoria Mpologoma’s long detention without trial, HMG’s response was that it could “do nothing about the detention of Victoria since she is a Ugandan citizen. To them, her detention was “a matter for the Uganda Government and any approach by HMG would be taken by President Obote as interference in the internal affairs of Uganda”.

On the matter, a senior British official stressed that “President Obote is extremely sensitive to the question of Sir Edward Muteesa and his family” adding that “we have had to be very careful in the past to avoid any action which could conceivably be construed as support for Sir E Muteesa by HMG”. Mr P.M. Forster, the British High Commissioner in Uganda wrote that on matters concerning Muteesa, Obote’s “emotions are strongly engaged and his behaviour tends to be irrational.”

At home Muteesa’s assets were left to the vultures. Nobody was in charge. Taifa Empya reported cases of some senior Baganda lawyers and politicians scrambling for his personal property. It is said that Obote, like Governor Andrew Cohen before him, cajoled the Baganda to forget Muteesa and install another prince as their Kabaka. But, like Cohen, his plans were met with dismal failure.

Muteesa was worried about his family. Naturally. In particular, he was concerned about the wellbeing of his sister Victoria and Sarah Kisosonkole. Through his solicitors, he asked HMG for information about them. HMG was reluctant to provide this information fearing what Obote may think or suspect.

Because of the fear to insult Obote, HMG also declined a request made by Muteesa who wanted to send his son Ronnie (the reigning Kabaka) to his mother in Kenya for Christmas in 1969. The mother feared that the young prince may be kidnapped. HMG’s view was that it was a difficult matter and did not think that it “could offer any view” as “it was for the boy’s parents to make their own judgement”. The British bureaucrats believed that if their advice “came to the ears of President Obote, which it easily could, we should have insulted him”.

Kabaka refuses to accept Obote’s demands
However, and in spite of the blackmail and torment that Muteesa suffered at the hands of his British hosts and Obote’s regime, he did not relent. He never gave up. And, in an interview with officials from the Supplementary Benefits Commission on his financial affairs, it was perfectly clear that Muteesa was “not prepared at present, either publically or privately, to make the declaration which would enable the Uganda government to permit the transfer of some of his assets to this country”.

Much to their chagrin. It is not difficult to imagine what would have followed if Muteesa had yielded to Obote’s conditions. According to HMG, Muteesa did not seem to be especially concerned about his own plight and gave them the impression that he was “lethargic and complacent”. This must have infuriated Obote and his cronies even more.

In The Desecration of My Kingdom, Muteesa writes that Obote was “behaving much as the British did when they exiled me, and making the same mistakes, though he has added violence and chaos. The army rules... but just as I was supported by my faith in the loyalty of my people in the dark years of exile, now I believe utterly that the Baganda will show their devotion, though it demands great courage and perseverance. In the end I shall return to the land of my fathers and to my people”. Indeed Muteesa returned to the land of his forefathers. But as a dead man.

Unclear circumstances of the king’s death
It is said Muteesa died of alcohol poisoning in his London flat in November 1969. The British police claimed that he committed suicide. Other accounts say that he was poisoned by Obote’s assassins. Others claim he was grossly neglected by his minders – who failed to deliver him to hospital in good time. But a British journalist John Simpson, interviewed him in his flat only a few hours before his death.



He found that Muteesa was sober and in good spirits. And, although Simpson reported this to the police the following day, this line of inquiry was not pursued. Simpson says he that he “tried to tell the British police my story and even though I was the last person to see him they didn’t seem to want to interview me, which I have always found very strange and rather disturbing.” HMG has never offered an explanation for this. It seems therefore, that we shall never know what or who killed Muteesa. What we know though is Obote’s regime made Muteesa’s final years hell on earth.

In fact he refused Muteesa’s body to be returned to Uganda for burial. We know that, when it mattered most, the British establishment did little or nothing to help Muteesa or his family. To them he was a burden and an object of scorn and ridicule. One wonders why, once he had fallen, HMG had Muteesa’s casket draped with the Union Jack and let the Grenadier Guards carry it in full ceremony and honour.

But, whatever or whoever killed him, we know that, in the end, Muteesa died a frustrated but firm man. He never gave up and never let us down. He kept the faith. We salute him as our true hero. His spirit endures. We shall always remember him for many things not least - standing up to British imperialism at a youthful age of 29, his heroic triumph against Governor Andrew Cohen, his grand and heroic home-coming on October 17, 1955, his role in Uganda’s Constitutional making process in Lancaster, his fight against Obote’s dictatorship; his love for his people and respect for the Lukiiko plus his charm, dignity and sense of optimism.

And, most of all we shall never forget the historic return of his body and burial at Kasubi in 1971. Of course it is ironic that it was Idi Amin, he who led the attack on Muteesa’s palace in 1966, who was showered with praises for allowing his body to return home.

So, what do we learn from this tragic story? Many lessons abound. For 27 years, Buganda Kingdom was “abolished”. But was Uganda any better off? In this sad episode of our history, Buganda lost. But Obote and, notably, Uganda did not win.

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And, although it is now almost 20 years since the colourful coronation of Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi at Nnagalabi, the wounds of 1966 have not fully healed. It hurts to see that no one has ever been tried and/or convicted for these heinous crimes. How will these wounds heal and how will Buganda and Uganda forge ahead in a united, peaceful and prosperous way? This question ought to bother our leaders yet there is little evidence that it actually does.

Fred Mpanga, Buganda’s former Attorney General and Muteesa’s old and friend, opined in 1968, that the “monarchy, where it existed in Uganda is not an anachronism. It was a vibrant political force and a stabilising factor. That is why its untimely abolition may prove the weakest link in the chain of the events that began in 1966 when Obote seized all the powers of government”.

What is the way forward?
Forty two years after Muteesa’s death, the Kingdom of Buganda remains a square peg being forced to fit in a round hole. Often, its attempts to resolve issues on land, federalism, the position and role of the Kabaka, for example, are thwarted and sometimes violently so. When shall we learn that the politics of betrayal, brinkmanship, force and violence cannot secure us a peaceful and joyful future? When shall we learn that dialogue and mutual respect is the way to go?

The challenge to us, mostly the politicians, is to resolve the Buganda question in Uganda alongside other burning national issues such as the economy, oil resources and corruption. The time is now. We cannot afford to wait any longer to lay a foundation that will guarantee our children and their children a stable future in Uganda and East Africa. And, more importantly, we can no longer afford politicians and schemes that seek to divide rather than unite; that seek to coerce rather that engage; and those that aim to destroy rather than build.

As we ponder these issues, as well as Uganda’s future, the lessons in Muteesa’s long and arduous journey – from his Palace in Mengo to a small one-bedroom flat in England where he died – dare not be lost on all of us. Therein may lie the answer.

Long live the king.

My current thoughts!!

09/11/2011-19:15
While seated watching the news on BBC News channel, a twig of concern runs through my senses. What’s going to happen? Last year on a short trip to Dublin, I noticed the situation there as not well. I passed on this information to those in my vicinity and they listened but all embraced that God will take care or as the Holy book says tomorrow will take care of its self.
Today the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi has agreed to step down due to the down turn in the Italian economy. In the USA President Obama is not as confident as when he came in. Unemployment is rife with demonstration against Wall Street as greedy and just 1% of the US population.
In my dear mother land Uganda the minister for finance joined by the governor of the Bank of Uganda warned the citizens to be ready for a tougher 2012!!!! Those there already tell us of the hard situation they are encountering with prices of commodities doubled from exactly last year prices compared. With no increment in earnings, we cannot fail to smell what’s around the corner!! I don`t mind if you consider me to be negative but may be its why I don`t take fair situations for granted!! With the oil discovery and looming exploration underway, the political climate is worsening, no one from top to bottom is “safe” from whichever angle of life one is settled in. Parents are worried about school fees and general upkeep of their livelihoods.
As I am writing this, my better half has agreed to my suggestion of recording each and every expense we incur. I suggested this so as to put in place a check on our outgoings, this time on record other than the prevailing how much we save at the end of the month as it’s no longer feasible due to becoming three thanks to Mirembe joining us. Our aim is to compare how much we spend on what and when. How we can reduce it and by what, what we need to include in our expenditure and revive our goal chasing that has given us a leading edge compared to some of our friends that would at least like to be like us.
With the world economy in turmoil, confusion in every minding soul and those responsible for planning and projecting facing uncertainty, what`s tomorrow holding for us? How am I ready for the un-predictable and projected doom around the corner? England is my adopted home where I have spent almost 10 years of my life. These 10 years are the most productive of my life so far after leaving Uganda in 2002. What can I show for these 10 years? As my former head teacher at Rubaga Boys` Primary school used to say every morning, whenever he addressed us, “If a snail leaves a mark, why not you with a bigger brain.”
Time is of the essence just as it waits for no man. We need to be first and decisive of what we aspire and dream about or else we are in for damning tomorrow where we shall say “I WISH” I had known or acted then when so and so did. Let’s not wish for changing the past for spilt milk is no good but a pivotal look and lesson for the future. Each one of us is responsible for their destiny (*s) as no one lives your life, you make your bed and lay in it. I will have to blame no one tomorrow when life starts stinking. Mirembe senior used to tell me ever since I was a boy that no one will blame my wife for the failures of my family but me, so it is my responsibility as the man in home to work, plan and dream of how we have to survive. My dears do not be alarmed but as our fore parents always advised, a word to the wise...
Till next time. Akuume.