Lt. Gen. Ivan Koreta, one of the NRM/A bush war heroes angered many viewers of NTV Uganda on Saturday when he declined to take a few questions from a journalist about the liberation struggle that brought the National Resistance Movement (NRM) to power in On January 26, 1986.
The NTV Journalist Ali Mivule had been sent to Tororo District to cover the 33rd NRM Victory Day Anniversary, presided of by President Yoweri Museveni, the Chairman of NRM.
The NTV journalist successful had brief talk with Gen. Elly Tumwiine, Minister of Health Jane Ruth Aceng and NRM Secretary General who all talked about the successes of the liberation as well as the future of the country.
But when the journalist reached out to Gen. Koreta, the decorated army send the reporter away without opening his mouth.
An NRM cadre and a retired General said when contacted to give his view on Gen. Koreta’s action said his comrade’s reaction towards the reporter indicated that he aloof of Ugandans. “NTV is a national media. What Gen. Koreta did should be condemned. But he also missed chance to talk to Ugandans about the importance of our liberation. He knows very well that we lost many comrades who contributed to the success of the liberation. At least he should have posthumously lauded them live on television.
Another top politician said what Koreta did doesn’t resonate with the liberation of the country. “If you tell Ugandans that you went to the bush to liberate them and on one side you refuse to talk to a journalist covering the live broadcast the liberation day celebrations, you are telling Ugandans that you are no better than the leaders of past regimes you blame for suffocating democracy,” he said of Koreta who is set to retire this year alongside other senior officers of Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).
He said added the general’s action defeats the suggestion that the UPDF is a pro-people army. “If a senior army at General’ Koreta’s level undermines the work of a journalist who gathers information for the people, then we cannot say UPDF is a pro-people army,” he said.
The politicians said Gen. Koreta is diplomat and legislator and should not have done what he did. “Are you not aware that he is a UPDF representative in the Parliament of Uganda; where he serves as a member of the Public Accounts Committee and the Committee on Presidential Affairs?” I am surprised that he did what he did on national television. Uganda right now does not need such leaders,” he said.
Koreta has been a member of the armed forces since 1981 and most recently served as the deputy chief of defence forces, the second-highest position in the UPDF, from 2005 to 2013. He also served from 2006 up until 2009 as the chairman of the General Court Martial, the second-highest military court in Uganda.
As a diplomat, Koreta led a Ugandan peace-keeping force to Liberia in the late 1990s.