KAMPALA – Former presidential candidate Benon Biraaro has passed away this afternoon at Kampala Hospital.
Biraaro, who ran for president in 2016 as Flag Bearer for the Farmers Party, died after a long battle with cancer.
Major Biraaro 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
Benon 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 President Yoweri Museveni’s Principal Private Secretary.
He was then posted to Kitgum District, as the special district administrator from 1986 until 1987.
He 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 before he was appointed the military representative in the Office of the Inspector General of Government.
Gen. Biraaro also served as a member of the Adhoc Committee on Human Rights under the chairmanship of Abu Mayanja becoming the director of training in the UPDF.
In 1998, he commanded the Ugandan contingent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Biraaro became the commander of the Infantry Division in the Western Region of Uganda before 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 and also 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.
