It has always seemed redundant to me to eulogise the dead. First of all they can’t hear all the good – never bad, things you say about them, so who are you trying to impress? Why didn’t you say those things when he/she was alive. Secondly, especially for those of high achievement, the words rarely match up.
It is an ego trip, to let people around you know you knew the deceased – they never eulogise the lowly in society.
With that out of the way, I first met Col Shaban Bantariza in the late nineties, when I was beginning to report on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. I called him seeking comment and he said since he had never met me it was only fair that we meet to size each other up.
He had an office in Mbuya barracks or at least that is where he asked me to meet him. I found him in a bare room except for a wooden table, two chairs and a bench. The table was bare except for a pistol that lay nonchalantly on his right. I never thought of it then until much later, I wondered “What was a pistol doing on the table?”
This was the beginning of a fruitful relationship, I would like to think for the both of us. He was always ready with a quote and I guess as the Reuters correspondent in Uganda I was useful to him in getting the perspective of the UPDF out into the world.
"He was not only always good for a quote, he understood – that’s the impression he gave me, at deeper level why the army did what it did and understood those actions in a larger political context....
One incident that I look back on with fondness and a degree of guilt, must have happened around the entrance of Zimbabwe into the DRC war, on the side of then president Laurent Kabila against Rwanda and Uganda.
Ugandan and Rwandan backed rebels in 1997 had swept across eastern Congo and overthrown Mobutu Sese Seko. However, Kabila’s attempts to wean himself off his allies caused some hard feelings and a second war begun between the erstwhile allies – Uganda and Rwanda versus Kabila.
However in September 1998 Zimbabwe threw its hat into the melee, siding with Kabila. I remember vividly the announcement that Harare was throwing its lot behind Kinshasa came on a Friday.
I called Banatriza to ask what this meant and he said something to the effect that Zimbabwe would leave its shirt and shoes in the jungles of Congo
The next day New Vision picked up the story and run it as a second lead in the Saturday Vision.
I got a call from Bantariza early that morning, “Busharizi, you have killed me,” were the first words out his mouth. He never really explained what he meant and did not claim I had misquoted or misrepresented him. After the call another call came in asking me whether Bantariza had really said those words, that’s when I thought he was in deep s**t.
Almost 20 years after the event I met him in his new capacity as deputy chief at the Uganda Media Center. I thought enough water had gone under the bridge to ask him about that Saturday morning those many years ago. He remembered it very vividly. He laughed his hearty laugh, “You leave that one alone.”
It was testament to the man’s character that he took responsibility for what he had done and did not try to pass the buck on the subject.
On a later occasion he made me look good in the eyes of my editors.
We had shut down the Nairobi bureau for the day and decided to go and catch a beer on our way home. Several beers later a call from London came in reporting that “the competition” – Reuterspeak for other newswire services, was reporting that the UPDF had “abducted” Fr Carlos, a Spanish priest operating in northern Uganda at the h eight of the northern insurgency.
The bureau chief said we could match the story, so we returned to the office, a few beers weighing on our heads, to try to salvage the situation. Time check 11 pm. I called Bantariza who didn’t pick the call the first time because he was nursing an injured finger. He came good on the second call and without grumbling about the time of the night, gave us the UPDF version of events. For a few days after that people at the office were in awe of me, that I could get the army’s spokesperson out of bed to comment on a story. All my attempts to give context to how that happened were waived away with the comment, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story”.
"He gave me and several other young journalists a chance. Wet around the ears, but convinced that we knew the truth, he humoured our youthful exuberance and patiently spelt out the army version of events whenever we asked. We didn’t always agree but his accessibility and coherence ensured that the UPDF voice was always heard....
My last tale about this man who has gone too soon. On the day the results of the 2001 presidential election results were announced I called Bantariza to ask his comment. He was on the way from the airport, having just landed from Liberia where he was part of a peace keeping mission.
I started our converstion with something like, “Congratulations, your candidate has won, give me a comment?” There was a pause at the other end of the line then, “Who is my candidate?”
Rest in peace Colonel Shaban Bantariza!
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