SUMMARY
Kikosi Maalum (Special Force, sometimes Forces of National Revolt or simply National Revolt) was a Ugandan rebel group set up by Milton Obote after he had been overthrown in a coup led by Major-General Idi Amin, commander of Uganda’s Army, in January 1971. In the wake of the coup, large numbers of Amin opponents gathered in Tanzania and Kenya, attempting to set up an armed resistance to the new president. Milton Obote was the main player in this context, still considering himself the legitimate president of Uganda. He initially visited a number of African countries, searching for support or at least for continued recognition of himself as President of Uganda. After this, he proceeded to set up Kikosi Maalum as the military muscle with which he aimed to seek to re-take power in Kampala, through a conventional war.
At the time of its creation, Kikosi Maalum consisted mainly of soldiers of Acholi and Lango origin, who had fled Uganda when Obote was overthrown. The country had been trapped in a pattern of leadership manipulation of ethnic and regional differences since independence from Britain in 1962. In the wake of colonial rule, national unity was absent, and social and regional cleavages deep. Milton Obote was a Langi, from the northern part of the country, and during his first period in power, 1962 – 1971, the national armed forces had been dominated by Langi soldiers as well as by fellow-northerners from the Acholi ethnic group. After ousting Obote, Amin made sure to change the ethnic balance of the military in order to consolidate his power, recruiting heavily from his home area, the West Nile region. The army ranks were filled with Nubians in general and Amin’s own Kakwa tribe in particular. While large numbers of Acholi and Langi soldiers were massacred presumed to be supporters of the deposed Obote, many of those who succeed in fleeing to Tanzania were recruited into Kikosi Maalum.
While Obote was the founder and leader of Kikosi Maalum, militarily it was commanded by David Oyite-Ojok and Tito Okello. The size of the group changed over the years. No specific number is available for the early period; between 1000 and 1500 fighters participated in the first attempt to invade Uganda in 1972, and while a majority of them belonged to Kikosi Maalum, an unknown number fought for the embryo of fellow rebel group Fronasa, which was formally formed some months later. After the attempt failed, Kikosi Maalum’s fighters were demobilized and for the following seven years, many of them made a living as farmers and charcoal sellers around Tabora in Tanzania. However, in the wake of the 1978 interstate conflict between Tanzania and Uganda over the Kagera Salient, which had left Amin’s army in disarray, the situation appeared ripe for the exiled groups opposing Amin, and subsequently, between 600 and 950 former Kikosi Maalum fighters were remobilized. As the 1979 invasion progressed and the group entered Ugandan territory, it recruited heavily, and by late March it was reported to number at least 1500, probably more.
As has been mentioned before, there was a large opposition exiled in primarily Kenya and Tanzania. Even though the goal, at least at times, seemed to be to create a unified front against Idi Amin’s government, the various organizations that emerged were too disparate for this to materialize. There were at least two other organizations with some military capabilities, Fronasa, a left-wing group that was led by Yoweri Museveni, and SUM (Save Uganda Movement), made up of fighters who were not committed to any political leader, and neither of them agreed to rally behind Obote. As for Museveni and his Fronasa, the main stumbling block, aside from Obote’s insistence on that the resistance should be organized in his name as president, was his and Obote’s fundamentally different view on strategy; whereas Obote planned for a conventional war, counting on military backing from Tanzania, Sudan and Somalia, Museveni promoted guerilla warfare. Thus, no joint structure was created, but there was substantial military cooperation and coordination between Kikosi Maalum and Fronasa. As previously mentioned, Museveni and some of his followers that would soon go on to create Fronasa partook in Kikosi Maalum‘s failed attempt to invade Uganda, and in January 1979 the two groups carried out a joint successful invasion.
Kikosi Maalum initially received substantial backing from Tanzania, both politically and militarily. From the outset, Obote and his followers were welcomed in the country, and allowed to use its territory to plan for the ouster of Amin. However, in October 1972, Tanzania and Uganda signed the Mogadishu agreement, stipulating that the anti-Amin rebels would not be allowed to use Tanzania’s soil for aggression against Uganda. Nevertheless, Obote and Kikosi Maalum were granted permission to remain in Tanzania. After the 1978 interstate conflict between Tanzania and Uganda, the former amped up its support once again, providing the Kikosi Maluum’s fighters with weapons and a three-week crash course in how to use them, just prior to the 1979 invasion. When the 1979 invasion was launched by Kikosi Maalum and Fronasa in January 1979, Tanzanian troops played an important part. As Amin’s forces were pushed back, and the invaders advanced, Kikosi Maalum was attached to the Tanzanian forces. The Tanzanian government had also been involved in the planning of the invasion.
On 26 March 1979, Kikosi Maalum and Fronasa met with the disparate opposition in exile and agreed to set up the broad-based UNLF, with Kikosi Maalum and Fronasa serving as the new organization’s armed forces, UNLA (Uganda National Liberation Army). With that, Kikosi Maalum seized to exist as in independent entity in UCDP data.
