Former UPDF top ranking officer and 2016 presidential candidate Maj. Gen Benon Biraaro was over the weekend rushed to Kampala Hospital, Kololo in a critical condition. A family member has confirmed.
According to close friends, the former UPDF bush war Gen is currently admitted in a special isolation room and the family has restricted some of his friends and supporters from visiting him until he fully recovers.
For the last three years, Mr.Biraaro has been battling deadly cancer which has drained the good health he had during and after elections.
Weeks ago, he returned from India on specialized Cancer treatment which costed him millions of shillings. He has been on a sick rest at his Residence in Munyonyo before his health situation deteriorated all over the weekend.
Family members intimated to the Capital Times that Gen. Biraaro was rushed to Kampala hospital after developing difficulties in breathing and he’s currently admitted in a special isolation room.
Who is Maj.Gen.Biraaro?
He is a former high-ranking commander in the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF). While still in the active military, he served as the commandant of the Uganda senior command and staff College Kimaka in Jinja. In 2016, he ran for President of Uganda on behalf of his Farmers Party of Uganda
He was born on 1 March 1958 in Isingiro District. He attended Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda’s oldest and largest public university, graduating in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. Later, he attended Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, graduating with a Masters in Global Strategic Studies.
Mr.Biraaro joined the Ugandan Bush War on 7 June 1982, straight out of Makerere University. By 1984, he had risen to the position of secretary to the High Command and National Resistance Council. By 1986, he was the deputy to Yoweri Museveni’s Principal Private Secretary. He was then posted to Kitgum District, as the special district administrator from 1986 until 1987. He then was transferred to Kyankwanzi and served as deputy commandant of the National Leadership Institute. Next, he served as the commanding officer of the 97th Battalion in Uganda’s Eastern Region, which ended the insurgency in the Teso sub-region and in Tororo and Busia Districts. Following that, he served as the commander of the military police in Uganda. He was then appointed the military representative in the Office of the Inspector General of Government. He then served as a member of the Adhoc Committee on Human Rights under the chairmanship of Abu Mayanja. He then became the director of training in the UPDF.
In 1998, he commanded the Ugandan contingent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He then became the commander of the Infantry Division in the Western Region of Uganda. Following that he was appointed deputy chief of staff of the UPDF (DCOS), the fifth-highest rank in the Uganda military. Next, he served as the commandant for two in-takes at the Uganda Senior Command and Staff College at Kimaka in the Eastern Region. He then served as the chief of the Strategic Planning and Management Unit of the Peace and Security Council at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa Ethiopia.
