In an exclusive interview with Daily Monitor yesterday, Miria described her husband as a kind, loving and selfless political leader who placed the interests of Uganda above his own personal interests and those of his family.
"He wanted to build one country, one nation, one people. That is why he introduced electoral rules in 1969, where a candidate for parliament would have to run in one plus three other constituencies in each of the four regions of Uganda. Many today may not know that in the 1960s, people in this country used to think of themselves as Baganda, Batoro or Acholi. My husband made people in this country to begin to think of themselves as Ugandans first."
Miria said Obote, 80, who died of kidney failure last week, was passionate about the youth. "Milton was very fond of the youth," she said. "In the 1960s - from the early days when he was Prime Minister and later President, he opened the doors of our home to all youth from all parts of Uganda. Even when we went in exile in the 1970s in Dar es Salaam, and later in exile in Lusaka, our home remained the home of all the youths of Uganda regardless of where they came from."
Miria said Obote used to tell her that his commitment to the youth was like the Biblical parable about sowing seeds--some fell in the river, others in the bushes, others on rocks, but some fell on fertile ground and germinated.
"That should be evidence that Milton never planned to stay in power forever. Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, [Minister of Internal Affairs] should be witness to this because he is one of those whom my husband tutored to take over the leadership of both the party [Uganda Peoples' Congress - UPC] and the country."
"I was later to see how the parable of the sower was appropriate," Miria said. "Many of these young people stayed with him, some abandoned him, a few even forgot what he did for them, others even betrayed him. But till his last breath on this earth, my husband never gave up his interest in grooming young people to take positions of leadership in Uganda and Africa."
Miria said she was proud of her husband's achievements regarding the youth. "Many of these young people have been successful in life, and in positions of leadership. Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile is the governor of the central bank, Chapaa Karuhanga is a leader of a political party, Olara Otunu has been under secretary-general of the United Nations for children under armed conflict. So you can see that the youth whom Milton tutored, encouraged, groomed, trained and helped, even when they disagreed with him politically, did not fail him entirely. They have made it in life."
Miria said that even when Obote ran into exile in Zambia in 1985, he went with two student leaders - one from Bunyoro who had been president of the National Union of Students of Uganda (NUSU) at Makerere University, and another student from Buganda. She added that students had greater access to her husband than many other people.
"There are many others who came and lived with us in our house in exile in Dar es Salaam and later in Lusaka. Mutebile came from Kigezi, Chapaa Karuhanga from Ankole, Kagata Namiti came from Busoga, Olara Otunu came from Acholi. Mutebile stayed with us for nearly three months. And these are the ones I can remember now. There are many others who came from all regions of Uganda and Milton treated them as he would his own children.
"This is what surprises me when I hear people saying that my husband was a tribalist. Milton a tribalist? That is the joke of the century. In fact, most of the youth and students - and colleagues my husband was close to were not from Lango. I do not remember any student from Lango who stayed with us. Under Milton, every student regardless of his or her tribe, gender or religion that had a great brain won a scholarship to study here or abroad. Today, if you are not rich, you cannot go to university. That is why Milton used to say he was fighting poverty, ignorance and disease."
During the interview, a UPDF captain (a Muganda) dressed in full military fatigues entered the room. There was dead silence as everyone from Obote's immediate family stood up to hug him as he fell down and sobbed. Miria said the captain was Obote's personal bodyguard in the 1980s and they had not seen each other for 20 years.
Miria, who had initially refused to comment on Obote's relations with Baganda saying it is a "delicate matter" later agreed to "say something". She said, "Many people, especially Baganda, misunderstood Milton. My husband loved all Ugandans. He liked Baganda and many of his close friends, colleagues and advisers were Baganda. He also liked Mutesa and many people in Mengo. He did not have any personal problems with either Baganda or Kabaka Mutesa."
"At that time there were many forces at play," Miria said. "My husband was the leader of government. He had to bring all these forces together to move the country forward. Even if he personally did not want to attack Lubiri, as head of government, he had to listen to his advisors.
For example, it is his attorney general, Godfrey Binaisa, who advised him that the only way he could resolve the differences between the central government and Mengo was by suspending the 1962 Constitution. The admirable thing about Milton is that once he had signed on to a decision as the leader, he took personal responsibility for it."
"Secondly," Miria went on, "Mengo itself was not an innocent party in this confrontation. That is what many people forget. Kabaka Mutesa had requested the British government for massive military assistance - including arms and ammunitions. He had also placed an order for a large quantity of weapons with a company called Gailley and Roberts.
There had been intelligence reports that the Lubiri was full of arms. After the Lukiiko passed a motion that Buganda had seceded from Uganda, Mengo encouraged people in Buganda to ambush army lorries, to dig trenches in the middle of major roads in Buganda, and to attack police posts. Government had to act.
"I want to ask my fellow Baganda one question: if today the Lukiiko passed a resolution that Buganda is breaking away from the rest of Uganda, and then the Kabaka's palace began to openly encourage people to rebel, and the people responded by attacking army lorries, police posts and digging trenches in roads, creating an atmosphere of rebellion, what would President Museveni do? Would he sit in Nakasero and simply watch such events without taking any action? When the authority of the state is challenged by armed insurrection, the government has to act.
"Baganda have been mistaken to think that my husband hated them as a people. That is not true. Milton had political differences with some people in Mengo, not everyone in Mengo, but some people. Secondly, as a leader of government, he could not sit and let Buganda secede. Any leader in his position would have acted as he did, or even in worse form. So, it is not true that Obote hated Baganda. All I can say is that he had political differences with some forces at Mengo.
Miria thanked the government for allowing her husband's body to return to Uganda for burial. "Secondly, I also want to thank the government for conferring upon my late husband a state funeral," she said.
"He deserves it because he is the father of this nation; he led it to independence. He is also the founder of the Republic. And thirdly, I thank the government for meeting many of the expenses incurred during this period. Finally, I want to thank the government for giving us our house back because now at least we have a home in Kampala."
"Milton was a very quiet and kind man," Miria said. "He valued human life a lot. I get surprised when I hear people saying that he killed people in Luwero. Do you know that Milton never signed one death warrant as president? Not one. People misunderstood my husband. He was an open and honest man.
If he said yes, he meant yes. If he said no, he meant no. He was also an avid reader; he read everything - books, magazines, and newspapers. When we were together at home, we would talk about current affairs - national and international issues. When he was president, he was very busy.
But whenever he had time with us at home, we would watch television or a movie, chat or play scrabble; or he would be reading. He used to read widely, about any subject - science, politics, everything. "He loved playing scrabble when he was free. When we were in exile in Dar es Salaam, he had a lot of free time. Many Ugandan youth would come to his house and he would be very involved with them, talking and laughing with them as they played scrabble. I hope many of these people will write this testimony of him."
"I actually used to live in both places - Nairobi and Lusaka. We made this arrangement with Milton because we had learnt after our first exile that it is not good to keep all one's eggs in one basket," she said. "As political refugees, our survival depended on the friendship and stability of the government under whose care we stayed. We kept two homes in two different countries as an insurance so that in case things went wrong in one country, we would have a second option."
Miria said one time she left Lusaka and went on a visit to South Africa. On the day she was returning to Lusaka, there was an attempted coup, and Obote called her and advised her not to return to Lusaka but to fly directly to Nairobi. "He knew that if there was a coup, there was a high probability that we would be the first victims to be deported, arrested or killed," she said. "If we had not had a second home, where would I have gone?"
Miria said she would return to Lusaka after the funeral in order to "sort out a number of things." "My husband left a lot of papers and books. I need to collect all these and sort them out," she said. "I also want to personally visit Zambia leaders and thank them for all the generosity and the hospitality they extended to us as a family.
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