SUMMARY
FUNA (Former Ugandan National Army, sometimes simply UA, Ugandan Army) was a Ugandan rebel group fighting the three successive regimes ruling Uganda in 1980-81. The origin of the group was closely related to the fall of former president Idi Amin in April 1979. During Amin’s years in power 1971-79 the army had been fraught by ethnic manipulations and purges, leaving it largely made up by soldiers originating in Amin’s own home area, the West Nile District in the north-western part of the country. Subsequently, when the victorious UNLF together with troops from Tanzania entered Kampala, the former government army fled towards the West Nile and was eventually forced to retreat into Sudan and Zaire. During 1980, these remnants of Idi Amin’s army re-organized as FUNA and began making incursions into the West Nile District, with the goal to topple the new regime.
Given the chaotic situation in the West Nile during the early years of the 1980s, there was very little information on how the actual formation of the group took place, and who initiated it. However, by late 1980, when FUNA had firmly established itself in Koboko, just on the border with Zaire, it was reported that the group set up a “government” led by a Sgt. Gatonga, who had until 1979 been the Assistant District Commissioner. Col. Elly Hassan Dronyi was the group’s operations commander and Bernard Rwehururu served as Principal Staff Officer; the two both had a history in Amin’s army, the former as colonel and the latter as officer. Another prominent member was General Isaac Lumago, who had been Idi Amin’s Army chief of staff. It should be noted that some sources claim that it was in fact Lumago that was the leader of the group, and yet other sources mention other names altogether. This confusion probably reflected a commonly cited lack of coherence within FUNA, as well as an underdeveloped leadership structure.
As FUNA was mainly made up of soldiers from Idi Amin’s former army, it had its ethnic base among the two ethnic groups primarily associated with Amin’s rule, the Aringas and the Kakwas; while Amin himself was a Kakwa, his vice-president was an Aringa. The two ethnic groups inhabit neighboring areas in the West Nile, just on the border with DR Congo (at the time Zaire) and Southern Sudan (at the time Sudan), and this became FUNA’s main area of operation. In early 1981, the composition of the group changed due to a split along ethnic lines; the Aringa contingent of FUNA broke away and formed UNRF, and only the Kakwas remained. There were a number of different reasons for the split, with the most commonly cited ones being leadership squabbles and more generally tensions over defining the leadership of the group more clearly. With the split, FUNA’s area of operation shifted west, and came to be concentrated around Koboko. Eventually, following defeats in internecine fighting with the Aringa-dominated UNRF, a majority of the FUNA fighters retreated across the border into Sudan and Zaire, launching only occasional ambushes against the government army after 1981. The exact size of the group was not clear; few sources cover the rebels in the West Nile in this time-period. While estimates for the year when the group emerged, 1980, range between 5000 and 7100, it was even more difficult to find information on FUNA after the Aringa faction had left the movement. A possible number for 1981 was roughly 2000, based on an estimation of a US journalist visiting the region at the time.
FUNA received support from the government of Sudan, which granted the group access to its territory and permission to move freely along the common border. It was also possible that Libya assisted the group, as there were reports of arms shipment in favor of the West Nile rebels. However, this was in 1981, and “the West Nile rebels” may also have referred to the new group UNRF.
Following defeats against UNRF, FUNA eventually ceased operations altogether and only resurfaced in 1985, when the group joined the Military Council that briefly ruled Uganda between August 1985 and January 1986. With that, FUNA became part of the government of Uganda and ceased to exist as an independent actor in UCDP data.
