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War, Life, Love, Betrayal, Marriage Failure, Pain, and Regrets: An Ex – Major General’s Account of Life’s Highs and Lows


FIB Tanzanian special forces during training, Sake, the 17th of July 2013. © MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti

"I did all I could to keep my family together. I used to settle marital disputes in other marriages, but I failed miserably in mine"

Kennedy Mmari, additions by Michael Mallya

It’s the afternoon of January 12th, 2022, and we’re sitting beneath a mango tree in a magnificent one-story structure surrounded by a lush garden, on a vast 14-acre plot in an area located approximately 30 kilometres from downtown Dar es Salaam. We went for inputs about a book we have been commissioned to write for a former Major General who served in Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF).

In order to get down to the serious business of writing a book for his fellow former serviceman, my two colleagues at Serengeti Bytes; Michael Mallya, Lello Mmassy and I are establishing a rapport with an informed and highly knowledgable retired serviceman (name withheld). There were a lot of tales and a lot of laughs. Some tales are heartbreaking, while others are remarkable, such as those from the Kagera (Tanzania-Uganda) war and his military duty.

He is an almost 80-year-old senior citizen (let us call him Damian — not his real name), and we were all shocked by his stamina and physical strength. We were astonished to be greeted by him alone when we arrived. We met numerous other retired troops, all of whom were surrounded by aides, relatives and family.

We had a three-hour talk with him, listening to his narrative, his life and times, and how he knew his fellow serviceman for whom we are preparing a book. His suggestions were quite useful. His personality, storytelling aptitudes, and breadth of knowledge concerning Tanzania’s national security were outstanding.

Our discussion spilt over after I finished chronicling his tale for the book. Even though we didn’t ask, he was kind enough to tell us more about himself, including his family.

Looking up, he ferries us back to 1978, during the horrific war between Tanzania and Uganda, when he commanded a battalion against the Ugandan aggressors steered by the late Iddi Amin ‘Dada.’ After successfully clearing his portion, he found himself in Kampala, where he spent the next three years keeping the peace and restoring order. He met a wonderful Ugandan lady, and they were ‘blessed’ with twins.
“I did all I could to keep my family together. I used to settle marital disputes in other marriages, but I failed miserably in mine”
‘Damian’ returned to Tanzania at the conclusion of his deployment to continue his duty to the country and family. In Dar es Salaam, he and his wife had three children. Like the majority of men who have extramarital children, he never told his wife of the children he had in Uganda, and everything was OK. This is something that can be anticipated and perhaps comprehensible. He chose to come out in 2008 when he told his family about the stepchildren, who were still in Uganda at the time.

It was never the same again. The family split up. “I did all I could to keep my family together. I used to settle marital disputes in other marriages, but I failed miserably in mine,” he recollects.

“My wife shut me off from communication. I tried everything, I went to visit elders, bishops, pastors, and anybody else I could think of, but she had made up her mind”,
he recounts.

“There was nothing I could do about it,” he narrated as he turned aside, obviously reminiscing on the events that, according to him, had robbed him of the joy he had worked for his whole life.

‘Damian’ was unable to repair his marriage or keep his family together. His wife fled with all three of their children, who were all adults at the time. 
“I was already in a decent position in my career when I married her from the village. I gave her all I had”, he says. “My wife and children each compensated me with a token of sorrow. This is something I have struggled to grasp until now,”
he adds.

“She hasn’t known what dust is since the day she married me; I bought her a car and covered her tuition till she graduated from university. I adored that woman”, 
he recounts the trauma as he rubs his head, plainly unhappy.

His children had already finished with a bachelor’s degree in Tanzania universities at the time, and according to his remarks, he had sent one to seek a master’s degree in the United Kingdom and another to pursue a master’s degree in the Netherlands. They returned to Tanzania and found congenial employment opportunities.

He recounts that once his marriage broke, neither his children nor their mother visited him for the next 13 years, since 2008, despite the fact that they do not reside far from where he lives. “I’ve been here for a long time. My children would stop over to see their in-laws and mother who lives not far from here, but they would never come to see me,” he says.

He recalls that it was last year when he became ill and mistook COVID-19 for the flu, his three affluent children came to see him and say hello.

“They came here empty-handed. They brought nothing, not even a packet of salt, a kilogram of sugar, or any fruits, despite the fact that I was indisposed. When they were about to leave, my aide approached them and inquired why they hadn’t brought even a tiny tribute for their father, and they felt guilty. It was after they had gone and returned with one crate of Coca-Cola — all sodas in it were cocacola. “Think about it!” he exclaims, his gaze fixed on us. We couldn’t say anything as the magnitude of his slash seeped into our heads.

“I hate women, I hate women, I hate women,” he repeats three times, reflecting on how things went wrong. “This is why I haven’t remarried,” he says, adding, “even though it’s been almost 15 years since I divorced my wife.”

You’ve undoubtedly heard the statement “there’s a fine line between love and hatred.” Love and hatred seem to be diametrically opposed. Few people ever experience this sense when it comes to love, especially romantic love, and when they do, it seems magical. There are people you are drawn to, people you like, but there are just a few individuals you love. Hatred, on the other hand, is the polar opposite. Because it is such a powerful term, few individuals prefer to express they hate someone.

There may be people you dislike, people you don’t care for, but people you hate? It is just for the worst of the worst. Some people feel that you should not hate anybody, after all. Despite the fact that these two feelings seem to be poles apart, some may claim that they are not. The border between the two universes may be thin, and it may be possible to switch between them in a single little occurrence.

‘Damian’s story reminds us that the line between loving and hating someone might be a bit hazier than many would want to acknowledge.

As Marie Corelli, the author of ‘Love and The Philosopher’ noted in her book about the study of sentiment — love is the most agreeable sensation of all. Bigger than patriotism, conscience, respect, friendship and honour. Love can blind and engulf anyone regardless of their titles and positions in society. 

As dubious as it may sound, it is rather concerning how love can turn the tables and turn the victims’ life upside down. Consider the case of a retired noble serviceman who spent most of his life serving the country as a military and national security planner and strategist. According to his own words, he was a vigorous, loving family man who had just two sentiments: love for his nation and love for his beloved wife and children.

We were all left with so many questions while attempting to empathize with the veteran soldier, who seemed to have moved on from his matrimonial cataclysm. Some of the queries that ran through our brains were, 
“How come the family that had lived wonderfully and blissfully for many decades couldn’t avoid the price of marital division?”
What compelled the three children to side with their mother while ignoring their responsible and loving male parent? What were the true core and immediate causes of this one-sided saga?

Without necessarily saying it explicitly, the retired Major general ‘Damian’ had us believe that the ulterior motive behind the split was matrimonial benefits. While counting his fingers in incredulity, he told us that after he was sure that her once-beloved wife and three children were eagerly determined to grab their matrimonial shares, he went to court and requested three things; legal separation from his wife, division of matrimonial properties and dissolution of the matrimony. And thus the once-happily-ever-after marriage unveiled to be neither lovely nor ever — after all.

It is as if the disbelief was contagious, we all couldn’t help but make sure we don’t let the old military mastermind lose his guard. He was also quick to notice that the air had been filled with precipitation of emotions and as an experienced strategist, he jumped from his chair as strong as a young boy and ran to the inside of his one-floor house and came back with a fresh mango juice. The flavorful juice squeezed from mangos, coming from trees he planted all over his land let us wash the painful sentiments of love, hatred and marriage down our parched throats and stomachs.

The juice break was an excellent cause for us to end the three-hour conversation; we were happy with the elderly noble serviceman’s stories, and, of course, we persuaded him to write down his priceless service and experience of national security and life in general. We said him farewell and pledged to contact him again anytime we needed to fill our minds with the rich history of our beloved nation.

The ghost of his marriage accounts, on the other hand, continued in haunting us, compelling us to share the story with the world, and we were obliged to write and share it with you without further ado.

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