Tortured Local Politician, Geoffrey Byamukama, Were Leaked on Social Media

Uganda and the Bobi Wine Proposition

By Eriasa Sserunjogi

When Yoweri Museveni was declared winner of the January 14 election in Uganda, the situation in Kampala and other towns and townships across the country remained calm. There were no spontaneous celebrations. His party’s secretariat would hours later organise a victory procession from the spot where the declaration was made to Kololo Airstrip, the venue where Museveni will take the oath of office for the sixth time on May 12. One could clearly see that the procession, which took place under tight security, was largely made up of paid participants.

The absence of spontaneous celebrations after Museveni is declared winner is not news; it has been like this before. Museveni being declared winner and his opponents disputing the results has been a ritual that has been repeated every five years since 1996. When Museveni defeated Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere in 1996 amidst accusations of rigging, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, aka Bobi Wine, was 14 years old, too young to vote.

Much earlier – in 1980 – Museveni took part in his first presidential election as a candidate more than a year before Kyagulanyi was born. Museveni failed to win even in his own constituency on that occasion and the victory went to Milton Obote, the man who commanded the guns at the time. Museveni turned things in his favour when he started a war after that election and took control of the guns and the country’s leadership in 1986. He hasn’t looked back since.

Of course some Ugandans vote for Museveni, but perhaps they consider it too risky to openly celebrate. It is risky because many of their compatriots who vote against Museveni are angry at the establishment and do not understand how a Ugandan in full possession of their mental faculties can vote for Museveni in the year 2021. Many Ugandans have been attacked for showing support for Museveni, and when demonstrations take place, one would be well advised not to be caught wearing yellow, the colour of Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM).

Those Ugandans who don’t vote for Museveni believe that elections are habitually rigged in Museveni’s favour. And there is another group of Ugandans who have grown too despondent to participate in any election in which Museveni is a candidate. A regular commentator has over the past few months repeatedly wondered why Ugandans are keen to participate in polls whose outcome is known in advance.

The country is deeply divided and very few believe that the government is committed to democracy. An opinion poll that was conducted by Afrobarometer, whose results were released two days to the election, showed that whereas 78 per cent of Ugandans want their leaders to be chosen through periodic free and fair elections, only 36 per cent of the citizens are satisfied with how democracy works in Uganda. (Afrobarometer describes itself as an Africa-wide survey research project that measures citizen attitudes on democracy and governance, the economy, civil society, and other topics.)

That is the setting in which Kyagulanyi took on Museveni. The popstar-cum-politician whipped up emotions and motivated many – especially the youth – and ran a campaign against Museveni in particularly difficult circumstances. He had 64 days to campaign in 146 districts in what was his first ever countrywide tour as a politician. He had attempted to tour the country before the campaigns – and the law allows a presidential aspirant to conduct such a tour one year to the election – but the authorities blocked him. His music concerts were banned over three years ago when he made it clear that he harboured presidential ambitions.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to drop like manna from heaven for Museveni, and it was quickly seized upon to ensure that Kyagulanyi’s campaign activities in dozens of districts were blocked, while those in the districts he visited were over-policed and strictly controlled. To say that Kyagulanyi campaigned in the actual sense of the word would be to stretch matters.

The same thing happened to the other candidates in the race. Museveni did not personally address rallies and limited himself to fairly small meetings with leaders of his party in different areas in observance of the rules that the electoral body had put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But he has interacted with the same voters for decades and as in all previous campaigns, he again had the entire state machinery doing his bidding in every village, paid for by the taxpayer.

Like Kizza Besigye, who before him had challenged Museveni at the polls four times, Kyagulanyi ran his campaign through defiance and made it clear at the outset that he would not abide by the rules set by the electoral body ostensibly to control the spread of COVID-19; he would only abide by the electoral laws as set out in the constitution and the relevant statutes. Although Kyagulanyi acknowledged that COVID-19 is real and had sent out messages asking Ugandans to protect themselves, he also pointed out that by the time the campaigns started, Ugandans were interacting freely and such restrictions were almost nonexistent in markets and other areas, and argued that it was not logical that the government should think that people could only contract COVID-19 at political events.

In any event, he added, the government had not showed a commitment to the fight against COVID-19 and, as an example, pointed out that whereas money had been appropriated to supply all Ugandans with masks six months before the campaigns started, millions of Ugandans still hadn’t received them.

Kyagulanyi would be vindicated when after the election – and having been declared winner – Museveni drove from his country home hundreds of kilometers from the capital, making several stopovers along the way and addressing crowds of people who were not observing the preventive measures that had been strictly enforced during the campaigns. The veil was off and the lie was laid bare the moment Museveni obtained the result he was after.

Kyagulanyi disregarded the regulation to have a maximum of 200 people per meeting and called mass rallies. The authorities held their breath for a moment, hoping that the popstar would fail to draw crowds in areas away from his native Buganda region and his efforts would collapse on themselves. When the campaigns kicked off on 9 November 2020, Kyagulanyi started with a bang in an area far away from his native land. The crowds kept growing bigger and the narrative that he was only popular in his native Buganda region collapsed as quickly as it had been been constructed by regime propagandists. As the days wore on Kyagulanyi continued to pick up steam as he went through the districts and his tour of Buganda region drew closer. The regime ran out of patience.

Kyagulanyi had scheduled rallies in the east on 17 November 2020, to be followed by his first rally in Buganda the following day. He visited Masaka – the epicenter of anti-Museveni activities – on his first day in Buganda. The authorities couldn’t allow that so on the morning of 17 November, Kyagulanyi was arrested as he arrived at the venue of his scheduled rally. It took something like a garrison of the army and the police to arrest him, and after a mini scuffle the presidential candidate was whisked away like a hardcore criminal. The abduction was relayed live on social media and some of it was on television. Kyagulanyi’s supporters violently protested in Kampala, Masaka and other towns and after two days of rioting the security agencies had shot and killed at least 52 Ugandans. According to official records, two others were run over by vehicles that were caught up in the melee.

The effects of the events of 18 and 19 November are still in evidence all over Uganda. While Kyagulanyi has been under house arrest since election day and he disputes the results of the election – Museveni was declared winner with 58.64% with Kyagulanyi garnering 34.83% – his supporters have not raised their heads to protest. There are armed soldiers walking in single file every few hundred meters in Kampala and other urban centres, and Ugandans only have to look back at the events of two months ago to know that these armed men could kill them with little provocation.

President Museveni left no doubt at all whatsoever that this could when he spoke about the November protests and killings: “According to the police report, for instance, the five persons who died in Nansana were part of the rioting group. They had, apparently, “overpowered” the police. I will get the details of “over powering” the police. What actually happened? It is criminal to attack security forces by throwing stones or attempting to disarm them. Police will legitimately fire directly at the attackers if they fail to respond to the firing in the air. Many of the up-country police groups are not equipped with anti-riot equipment (shields, batons, water cannons, rubber bullets etc.) and should not be. We should not have a country of rioters. It is the duty of everybody to keep the peace.”

It is therefore back to square one. The emergence of Kyagulanyi as his principal challenger excited many and ignited hitherto apolitical constituencies to rise up against Museveni. These groups include artistes with whom Kyagulanyi has interacted for decades and young Ugandans who were excited by the prospect of having a youthful president. But the optimism that was whipped up by Kyagulanyi’s superstar status has since dimmed. He is locked up in his own home and not even the American ambassador succeeded in meeting him when she tried last week. His lawyers and party officials have been pleading to meet with him so that, they say, they may prepare a petition against Museveni’s re-election.

After the 2016 election, Besigye was where Kyagulanyi now finds himself. He was locked up in his home from the day after the voting until the eve of Museveni’s inauguration – a period of three months – when he escaped and unexpectedly showed up in the busiest area of Kampala. Besigye was then arrested and flown in a military chopper to the remotest part of the country where he was charged with treason because he had declared himself winner of the election. The treason case has not been tried for five years and the state is clearly not interested in following through.

The objective – which was achieved – was to keep Besigye out of circulation and prevent him from organising a mass uprising, which Museveni’s government seems to believe is the only thing that can remove it from power. After the 2011 election, which Besigye again disputed, the opposition leader inspired what were dubbed walk-to-work protests, bringing Kampala to a standstill for months. Museveni is keen to ensure Kyagulanyi does not inspire such protests and his government has literally banned demonstrations; whoever tries to protest is met with brute force. On the other hand, those Ugandans who would perhaps like to protest against what they call a rigged election wouldn’t dare – the events of November are still very fresh in their minds.

Museveni has thrown at Kyagulanyi every weapon that he thinks might work. In an interview with an international television channel during the campaigns, he accused Kyagulanyi of being backed by foreigners and homosexuals and has repeated these claims many times over. Museveni made the same claims against Besigye, never mind that his stranglehold over Uganda for the last 35 years has been made possible in large measure by foreign funding.

A new accusation that has cropped up against Kyagulanyi is that he is promoting tribalism and sectarianism. Kyagulanyi is an ethnic Muganda and his tribesmen have for the first time since 1996 rejected Museveni and voted for Kyagulanyi. Museveni, however, has on each occasion since 1996 been overwhelmingly voted for by the Banyankole – his kinsmen – and most of western Uganda, but this does not come up in the tribalism talk that he and his spokespeople have now ignited. The import of what is happening is simple: Kyagulanyi, just like Museveni’s every opponent before him, will be fought by all means possible.

When all other methods fail, Museveni resorts to the use of force. In a video clip that went viral, Museveni vowed to obliterate Kyagulanyi’s group. A few days later, security forces arrested dozens of Kyagulanyi’s followers, accusing them of all sorts of crimes. Some of them are locked up by the military, accused of illegal possession of military equipment. The pressure exerted on Kyagulanyi was so intense that about a week to polling day he sent his children out of the country. He cut an isolated figure going into the election, only enjoying the company of his wife at home, with whom he now remains under house arrest. You can call it a home or a barracks, whichever you choose.

In the end, all the theories about whether Kyagulanyi would be a different proposition to Museveni collapse. It was always going to come to this; the history, age, religion, tribe or whatever other characteristic of whoever challenges Museveni doesn’t matter. When everything else fails Museveni resorts to the use of force. With his military strength still visibly intact, he will perhaps keep his foot on the gas peddle for as long as he can. Or maybe he will surprise us and engineer a negotiated exit.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Uganda and the Bobi Wine Proposition

By Eriasa Sserunjogi

Thirty-six years ago, in 1982, the year Bobi Wine was born, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni was busy commanding the war that eventually led him to power. At 36, Museveni had run for president in 1980 as a rabble-rouser representing the new Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM).

His party did not even stand an outside chance of winning the election, with Milton Obote’s Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) and Paul Ssemogerere’s Democratic Party (DP) being the hot favourites. In the end, Museveni even failed to win his own parliamentary seat. During the campaigns, he had warned that he would start a war should the election be rigged, and he did indeed start a war after UPC controversially claimed the election for itself amidst claims that DP had won.

Paulo Muwanga, who was the head of the interim Military Commission government on which Museveni served as Deputy Minister for Defence, had arrogated himself the powers that were entrusted in the Electoral Commission to announce election results, returning UPC as the winner, with Obote proceeding to form a government for the second time, having been earlier deposed by Idi Amin in 1971.

Museveni had watched the intrigue and power play and how the gun had emerged as the decisive factor in Ugandan politics since 1966. He had decided early in life that his route to power would be through the barrel of the gun. His determination to employ the gun became manifest when he launched a war against Amin’s new government in the early 1970s.

Museveni’s Fronasa fighters were part of the combined force that was backed by the Tanzanian army to flush out Amin in 1979. Also among the fighting forces was a group that was loyal to Obote. Museveni’s and Obote’s forces and other groups were looking for ways to outsmart one another as they fought the war. It was a time when Bobi Wine was not yet born.

Bobi Wine (real name Robert Kyagulanyi), who has been a Member of Parliament for just a year, has followed a different path. He is one of those Ugandans who believe that Museveni should be the last Ugandan leader to access power through the barrel of the gun. He wants future leaders to work their way into the hearts of Ugandans and convince them that they can take the country forward.

Bobi Wine first rose to popularity through music. Even though the popstar is new to Ugandan politics, he has for over a decade been disseminating political messages through his songs, in which he positions himself as a poor man’s freedom fighter.

Through his music, he has criticised the government when he felt it sold the people short; he has castigated the Kampala City authorities over throwing vendors and other poor people off the streets; and he has sought to encourage Ugandans, especially the youth, to take charge of their destiny.

“When freedom of expression becomes the target of oppression,” Bobi Wine said in one of his songs, “opposition becomes our position.” That was before he joined active politics.

When he married in 2011, he made sure that the marriage was celebrated by the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in the capital. When he was incarcerated recently, there were prayers for him at Rubaga Cathedral, the seat of the Catholic Church in Uganda. Catholics are the biggest religious grouping in the country.

Bobi Wine was born in Gomba, one of the counties of Buganda, the biggest ethnic group in Uganda. He has worked his way into the Buganda king’s heart, dubbing himself “Omubanda wa Kabaka” (the King’s Rasta man).

In Uganda’s music industry, Bobi Wine and his “Fire Base Crew” rose to the very top in their category, with Bobi Wine calling himself the “Ghetto President”, whose retinue included a “Vice President”, a cabinet and other members. He also has a security detail. His chief personal bodyguard – Eddie Sebuufu, aka Eddie Mutwe – was picked up at night by suspected military operatives on August 24, 2018.

Bobi Wine has over the past decade traversed the country where he has been performing as an artiste. Then, shortly after his election to Parliament, he travelled to many places within the country to introduce himself this time as a politician. He enjoys name recognition across the country that no Ugandan politician of his age and experience can command.

Battle for the youth

Bobi Wine plays the music that many Ugandan youth want to listen to, but he also preaches the gospel of change and prosperity in a way that is attracting crowds to him. He was born in rural central Uganda but he moved into a shanty neighbourhood of Kampala early in life, struggling through what most young people in the city experience. Although he went school up to university level, he went through all the hassles that young Ugandans go through. He speaks their language.

The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) projects that at the mid-point of this year, Uganda had 39,041,200 people. Of these, only 648,000 people were projected to be 70-years-old or older. This means that Museveni, at 74 years of age, is among a lucky 1.7 per cent of Ugandans who are alive at the age of 70 or above. In fact, only 450,500 people, or 1.2 per cent of Ugandans, according to the UBOS projection, are as old as Museveni or older.

Reliable numbers on employment in Uganda are hard to come by but it is generally agreed that the country has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. Museveni’s opponents often cite his age to make the point to the youth that their future is not safe with a 74-year-old leader who has been in power for 32 years.

The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) projects that at the mid-point of this year, Uganda had 39,041,200 people. Of these, only 648,000 people were projected to be 70- years-old or older. This means that Museveni, at 74 years of age, is among a lucky 1.7 per cent of Ugandans who are alive at the age of 70 or above.

Museveni being Museveni – the Maradona of Uganda’s politics – has tried to tilt the debate on age to his advantage. He has, for instance, distinguished between “biological age” and “ideological age”, saying that many Ugandans are young biologically but very old ideologically. He has identified “ideological disorientation” as one of Uganda’s “strategic bottlenecks”, positioning his “ideological youth” as the solution. For one to be “ideologically young”, Museveni says, one needs to have the right ideas and mindset on how to transform society. He regards himself as a master in that. He says biological age is of no consequence in politics.

In his State of the Nation address last year, the Ugandan president said staying in power for long – and therefore being old – is a good thing because the leader gains immense experience along the way. In the wake of the recent arrest of Bobi Wine and 32 others who were charged with treason after allegations of stoning the president’s motorcade, Museveni wrote at least six messages on social media addressed to “fellow countrymen, countrywomen and bazzukulu (grandchildren)”. He now takes comfort in addressing many of his voters and opponents as grandchildren.

The choice of social media (especially Facebook and Twitter) as the preferred way of transmitting the president’s messages also raised debate. From July 1, social media users had a daily tax imposed on them because the president said people used the platforms for rumour-mongering. Many social media users have avoided the tax by installing virtual private networks (VPNs) on their handsets and so the “rumour-mongering” on social media continues. Since younger people spend a lot of time on social media, their septuagenarian president has decided to follow them there. Whenever he has addressed them as “grandchildren”, there have been hilarious responses in the comments section.

Beyond the debates, Museveni has in past election campaigns come up with a number of things to attract the youth, including recording something akin to a rap song in the lead-up the 2011 elections. But if it is about music, Museveni now faces Bobi Wine, a man less than half his age who has spent all his adult life as a popular musician.

Museveni’s government has tried one thing after another in an attempt to provide the jobs that young people badly need, with initiatives ranging from setting up a heavily financed, but highly ineffectual, youth fund in the ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. After the 2016 elections, in which Museveni suffered the heaviest defeat in Kampala City and its environs, he set out to dish out cash to youth groups to promote their businesses. Not much has come out of this initiative.

When he shot to power in 1986, Museveni rebuked leaders who overstayed their welcome, saying that the vice was at the root of Africa’s problems. As time went by, and with him still in power, he changed his views. He now says that he actually prefers leaders who stay in power for long periods. Museveni’s opponents latch onto such contradictions as they keep piling up.

Is it Bobi Wine’s turn?

Over the last 32 years that he has been around, Museveni has had a number of challengers and Bobi Wine is now threatening to storm the stage as the new kid on the block.

Many of the people who were in the trenches with Museveni in the earlier years and who dreamt of picking the baton of leadership from him have dropped their ambitions because age and/or other circumstances have come into play as Museveni stayed put. Former ministers who once nursed presidential ambitions, like Bidandi Ssali, Amanya Mushega, Prof George Kanyeihamba and even the younger Mike Mukula, for instance, have since retreated to private lives. Others, like Eriya Kategaya and James Wapakhabulo, have passed on.

Of the Bush War comrades who harboured ambitions of taking over from Museveni, only four-time challenger Kizza Besigye and former army commander Mugisha Muntu remain standing, with the largely silent former prime minister Amama Mbabazi thought to be lying in wait for a possible opening.

By staying in power for so long – since January 1986 – Museveni has worn out his ambitious former comrades and perhaps even ensured that the chance to rule the country passes their generation by, a reality that has made it more likely that he will face a challenger who is younger than his own children.

But Museveni will not allow this generation of youth to win. The ruling party consistently stifles the emergence of younger leaders. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, for instance, Museveni’s National Resistance Movement party saw a rare surge in activity championed by younger people. One of Museveni’s in-laws, Odrek Rwabwogo, was among them. Rwabwogo had resorted to penning a string of articles in the partly state-owned New Vision newspaper about how the ruling party’s ideology could be sharpened to take care of the new Uganda. A number of other younger leaders within the party vied for space and expressed their visions in what was interpreted by some as a jostle for a front row seat as Museveni was expected to be standing for his last term in preparation for retirement in 2021.

Then, shortly after returning to power in 2016, Museveni engineered the removal from the Constitution the 75-year cap for presidential candidates, which would make him eligible to run again for as many times as he would be physically able to handle. This was a sure sign that Museveni was not willing to hand over power to a more youthful generation.

Repression heightens

The move to remove the age limit for presidential candidates from the Constitution inevitably invited stiff opposition from those who for decades have worked towards removing Museveni from power. In September last year, army men invaded Parliament and beat up and arrested Members of Parliament who were trying to filibuster the debate and perhaps derail the introduction of the bill to remove the age limit. Two MPs were beaten to a pulp and one of them, Betty Nambooze, has been in and out of hospitals in Kampala and India over broken or dislocated discs in her back.

This unfortunate incident, however, did not stop the State from bringing charges against her when after the shooting to death in June of an MP, Ibrahim Abiriga – who was one of the keenest supporters of the removal of age limits – Nambooze made comments on social media that the State interpreted as illegal. This week she had to report to the police over the matter, but she was informed that the officers were ready to have her charged in court, where she was delivered in an ambulance. She was carted into the courtroom on a wheelchair for the charges to be read out to her before the magistrate granted her bail. She sobbed all the way and afterwards wrote on Facebook that while in court she was “crying for my country”.

Francis Zaake, the other MP who was also was beaten, had to be taken to the US for treatment. He is now being treated again and is set to be fly out of the country due to injuries he sustained during the violence in Arua in which Bobi Wine was also attacked by soldiers of the Special Forces Command that guards the president.

Bobi Wine and 32 others have since been charged with treason but Zaake hasn’t yet – though Museveni has said in one of his statements posted on social media that Zaake escaped from police custody. When he is supposed to have escaped, Zaake was unconscious and could not move or talk. He was reportedly just dropped and dumped at the hospital by unidentified people. The head of the hospital has said that Zaake is at risk of permanent disability because of the damage he suffered to his spinal cord. The authorities say they are waiting for Zaake to recuperate so that he can face charges related to the violence in Arua.

By these callous actions, Museveni has demonstrated how ruthless he can get when his power is challenged. He has referred to the injured MPs as “indisciplined” and has not extended any sympathy towards them.

Those who have dared to challenge Museveni, especially Besigye, have been here before. The new opposition politicians currently in the line of fire, including Bobi Wine, have been served with a dose of what to expect if they push Museveni hard. The decision on how far they are willing to go is now in their court.

It seems that Museveni plans to apply to Bobi Wine the script he has used on Besigye over the past two decades. Apart from being targeted for physical assaults, Bobi Wine will be – and it is already happening – isolated from members of his inner circle, especially those who provide him with physical cover. They will be arrested, intimidated, or offered money to start businesses, a ploy to get them to abandon him. Some, like his driver Yasin Kawuma, who was buried a few weeks ago, will die.

Another thing the Museveni machine will do, and which it has done in the past, is plant fifth columnists around him – men and women who will show immense eagerness to work with Bobi Wine to remove Museveni from power but whose real assignment will be to get him to make mistakes and to spy on him.

It is also to be expected that Museveni will reach out to Bobi Wine with some kind of deal – he seems to offer all his credible opponents proposals for an amicable settlement so that they can drop their political ambitions. It is hard to say whether Museveni has already approached Bobi Wine or not, but there are rumours to that effect.

Ultimately, it will be up to Bobi Wine to decide what he wants to do going forward, but with him fighting for his life in hospital, we dare not predict the future.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Uganda and the Bobi Wine Proposition

By Eriasa Sserunjogi Four police operatives who were charged with torturing a local politician were on May 30 granted bail, hardly a week after they had been remanded to Uganda’s biggest prison, Luzira.

In Uganda, bail is treated as a constitutional right, granted at the discretion of a judge/magistrate and subject to the accused fulfilling certain conditions. But the speed with which the accused policemen were granted bail will leave you agape, especially since the same court that restored the policemen’s temporary freedom – Buganda Road Chief Magistrate’s Court – had dilly-dallied and in the end taken 33 days to release on bail one of President Yoweri Museveni’s leading social media critics.

I will digress into this peculiar case for a split second.

Stella Nyanzi, a researcher at Makerere University, uses colourful language on her Facebook page. Her posts, especially before her incarceration beginning early April, are littered with phrases many consider lewd and obscene. She ventured into largely uncharted territory, berating Museveni and his family, especially his wife Janet; to many an observer that was courting real danger. Some of Nyanzi’s classic phrases may not be appropriate for this article, but suffice it is to note that her charge sheet indicated that she had referred to the president as “a pair of buttocks”.

As Museveni marked 31 years in power on January 26, which is a public holiday, he told the people gathered to celebrate his unprecedented feat that, contrary to what some (referring to his opponent Kizza Besigye) had said, he was not a servant of Ugandans. A boiling Nyanzi wrote the post as a rejoinder to the president, for which she was eventually charged.

Opinion was split over Nyanzi’s case; those who back Museveni and moralists admonished her over what they called obscenity, while Nyanzi’s following and support of activists disenchanted with Museveni’s long rule grew astronomically.

Some of Nyanzi’s classic phrases may not be appropriate for this article, but suffice it is to note that her charge sheet indicated that she had referred to the president as “a pair of buttocks”. On the other hand, the country was galvanized in condemnation and shock after pictures of the tortured local politician, Geoffrey Byamukama, were leaked on social media. His knee and ankle joints had been hammered and pounded, and by the time he was delivered to Nakasero hospital in Kampala, all the skin around them was dead and mounds of pus, as he would later tell members of parliament, were rapidly inching towards his bones. Medical workers at the hospital had to urgently peel away the dead flesh and drain the pus immediately and, according to Byamukama’s narration to the MPs who visited him as he recuperated at the dreaded Nalufenya police station in Jinja, his doctors feared that they would need to amputate his legs.

If for a moment we keep on the court’s decision to immediately grant bail or delay it, it is hard to miss the irony in all this. The chief magistrate hesitated to grant Nyanzi bail because the prosecution had, based on a colonial-era law, argued that, given what she had written about the president, the accused was probably insane and asked the court to order that she undergo a mental examination. Arguing this application took a lot of the court’s time on the first day, leaving no time for Nyanzi to apply for bail.

The same prosecution, however, did not find it appropriate to seek leave of court to examine the mental states of the four policemen – who are part of a force whose motto is to “protect and serve”, but who were accused of visiting the most savage torture imaginable on a suspect.

Nothing unusual

As far as the unlucky Byamukama is concerned, it is easy to conclude that his tormentors had just done a bad job of torturing him, as opposed to him being an isolated case.

Byamukama, as we would later learn from the MPs that interviewed him at Nalufenya, was accused by his tormentors of having played a part in the gruesome murder on March 17 of former police spokesman Andrew Felix Kaweesi. The flamboyant police publicist, who was at the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police and was an unmissable embodiment of power in the force, was, the postmortem report showed, shot 27 times. He was killed together with his driver and bodyguard shortly after leaving his home in a Kampala suburb.

The chief magistrate hesitated to grant Nyanzi bail because the prosecution had, based on a colonial-era law, argued that, given what she had written about the president, the accused was probably insane and asked the court to order that she undergo a mental examination.

The country was terrified. Police chief Gen. Kale Kayihura pensively sat out the whole day at the scene of the crime, and President Museveni a day later paid a visit to the bereaved family to pay his respects. Museveni observed on that occasion, and not for the first or last time, that the police had been infiltrated by criminals, and charged Kayihura to clean up his house.

Kaweesi was mourned but the arrests began even before he was buried. Kayihura would announce at the burial that at least three suspects had been arrested in connection with the murder, and that one of them had been nabbed as he tried to escape to the Democratic Republic of Congo. More arrests followed but we have no accurate count of the people arrested in connection with this high profile murder.

Appearing before a magistrate for mention of their case, 13 of the suspects complained that, contrary to the court’s remand order for them to be detained in Luzira, they had been taken to Nalufenya and tortured, “both physically and psychologically”. The case had just come up for mention, the magistrate would tell the complaining suspects, adding that the court had no jurisdiction to hear them out. Security Minister Henry Tumukunde would later remark that it was prudent for the forces to release suspects and even apologise to them if it was discovered that their arrest was a mistake.

Byamukama told MPs that after suffering terrible beatings that left him thinking he was dead (if there is such a thing), he pleaded with his tormentors to shoot him right away instead of raining the painful beatings on him. He later found out that he was suspected because his phone number was found in the contacts list of one of the arrested suspects.

Byamukama is a man of some standing, a ruling party supporter and mobiliser at the local level in Kamwenge, Western Uganda, where Museveni and most people in positions of power and authority in the political and security circles hail from. He, therefore, does not fit the profile of a torture victim under the current circumstances.

Torture as an instrument of rule

Before his torture story came to the fore, those who had alleged torture during Museveni’s regime either supported the opposition, had scores to settle with influential people in government or security circles who had set them up for torture, or were genuinely suspected of committing crimes and were being tortured to reveal information the investigators would otherwise not access.

In a “safe house”, we were told, one would get savagely beaten up, carried though a mock execution, shocked with electricity, threatened with vile reptiles, have fingers or toe nails pierced with needles, among other torture methods. There was widespread outcry for the torture chambers – “safe houses” – to be shut down, but they tended to be located in the most unexpected of places in upscale neighbourhoods of Kampala and so could not be easily identified.

Mid last year, for instance, the magistrate’s court at Makindye in Kampala issued criminal summons for Gen. Kayihura and other police commanders to appear before it and answer to charges of torture. The court appearance, which was set for August 10, 2016, did not happen because the court was besieged by goons who argued against Gen. Kayihura being summoned by a court of law. The lawyers who had spearheaded the private prosecution, including opposition politician Erias Lukwago, who is also lord mayor of Kampala City, had to be sheltered in the magistrate’s chambers as the mob bayed for their blood, until they were whisked away.

Richard Mafabi, the magistrate who took the unprecedented step of summoning a top general to answer to torture charges, died two months later of a cardiac arrest as he was being rushed to hospital. He was aged 51.

The complainants, who through a private prosecutor had moved Mafabi’s court to summon Kayihura, were supporters of opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who at the time was protesting against what he said was a stolen election. Many of his supporters had been rounded up, and many told horror stories of torture during incarceration.

Before Kayihura shot to prominence, there was Nobel Mayombo, a brigadier who headed the chieftaincy of military intelligence and who was the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence at the time of his death in 2007. His critics accused him of being in charge of torture chambers, ironically dubbed “safe houses”. In a “safe house”, we were told, one would get savagely beaten up, carried though a mock execution, shocked with electricity, threatened with vile reptiles, have fingers or toe nails pierced with needles, among other torture methods. There was widespread outcry for the torture chambers – “safe houses” – to be shut down, but they tended to be located in the most unexpected of places in upscale neighbourhoods of Kampala and so could not be easily identified.

The word “safe house” has now almost gone out of use in Uganda, but multiple sources within the police and accounts by people who have been subjected to torture recently suggest that such places still exist. In his narration to the MPs, the tortured Byamukama said the beating that nearly ended his life did not happen in Nalufenya, for instance. He was blind-folded and driven to a location within Kampala City where he was tortured and was only dropped in Nalufenya after the fact.

During the pre-colonial period, for instance, Susan Miers, in a book published in 1988, refers to a practice of mistreating slaves in Buganda which sometimes led to the mutilation of parts of their bodies. The author quotes an earlier book, which provides the origin of a popular Luganda saying: “Muddu awulira; y’awangaaza amatu” (“A slave who is obedient gives long life to his ears”).

Museveni, as the public huffed and puffed about Byamukama’s savage torture, wrote a widely publicised letter to the security agencies, warning them against torture and pointing out that it is a backward and ineffective method of investigation.

But, in all honesty, a revolted Fountain of Honour would be expected to do more under such circumstances. How, to begin with, would he let Kayihura’s leadership of the police, which he had renewed only weeks earlier, continue after such a terrible scandal? And even if he were to let it continue, what demonstrable steps were taken to ensure that such torture does not continue?

The four policemen referred to earlier were charged, of course. But that would, contrary to the reports that have continually come through, suggest that that the instance of torture was an isolated occurrence, which is not the case. The Uganda Human Rights Commission, the statutory body charged with overseeing the observance of human rights in the country, for instance, has consistently pointed out that torture is the single most prevalent violation of rights by state organs. In its 2015 report, for example, the rights body noted that nearly 38 percent of all reported rights violations by security agencies involved torture.

The facts suggest that what is going on is just a furtherance of the way those who have held power in Uganda across time have reproduced it. During the pre-colonial period, for instance, Susan Miers, in a book published in 1988, refers to a practice of mistreating slaves in Buganda which sometimes led to the mutilation of parts of their bodies. The author quotes an earlier book, which provides the origin of a popular Luganda saying: “Muddu awulira; y’awangaaza amatu” (“A slave who is obedient gives long life to his ears”). There are tales of servants in ancient Buganda having their ears cut off if they disobeyed their masters; others were summarily put to death. The story of Kabaka Mwanga putting to death disobedient subjects who had embraced Christianity (and would later be regarded as Uganda Martyrs) towards the end of the 19th Century is very widely told.

“Ankole”, according to a publication by the British aid agency DFID, “became a class-based society in which the Bahima controlled the use of violence…” The old Ankole kingdom is the only one whose restoration Museveni has blocked until now, citing the possibility of resurrecting inter-ethnic tensions between the Bahima (Museveni’s ethnic group) and the Bairu, who were previously oppressed. The Uganda Human Rights Commission, the statutory body charged with overseeing the observance of human rights in the country, for instance, has consistently pointed out that torture is the single most prevalent violation of rights by state organs. In its 2015 report, for example, the rights body noted that nearly 38 percent of all reported rights violations by security agencies involved torture.

In a working paper titled “Taking orders from above: Police powers, politics and democratic governance in post-Movement Uganda,” Makerere University law don Joe Oloka-Onyango takes a look at how the police have been used as an instrument of repression in Uganda through time. Oloka-Onyango writes:

“If the police played an essentially coercive role under colonialism, after independence it became even more overtly politicised and draconian. In other words, the police became an instrument of direct political repression in the competition for state power among the Ugandan elite. This witnessed the proliferation of sub-branches of the police, such as the Special Force in Obote I (1960s), or the Public Safety Unit (PSU) and State Research Bureau (SRB) under Idi Amin.”

No single Ugandan, going by recorded history, personifies torture, repression and outright murder more than Idi Amin, who seized power in 1971 and held on to it until April 1979 when a combined force of the Tanzanian army and Ugandan exiles shot him out. The figure is disputed, but it is estimated that about half a million Ugandans were killed by state agents during Amin’s time. Many of the victims were severely tortured. Some of these gruesome murders are documented in a book with a depressing title, A State of Blood: The Inside Story of Idi Amin, by Henry Kyemba, who served as a minister in Amin’s government but later fell out with the dictator and ran into exile.

“The basic role of these agencies was to use state resources to terrorise political opposition, to carry out covert intelligence operations that could barely be sanctioned by the law, and to spread and maintain a high level of terror and intimidation among the general public,” writes Oloka-Onyango.

He adds: “In this context, the prevention of and tracking of crime took a back seat, unsurprisingly leading to higher levels of criminality as the attention of the police was focused elsewhere.”

That crime surges as the police focuses more on repressing the regime’s opponents than catching criminals is as true today as it has ever been in Uganda’s history. The police have not released a crime report for over three years now, so it is hard to prove this scientifically, but there has been a surge in shootings and petty crime, especially house break-ins in and around Kampala in recent months. For this reason, President Museveni has on at least three occasions in a space of three months talked about the police force being infiltrated by criminals.

I will give you an example. Someone I know personally had her mobile phone grabbed in the streets of Kampala two weeks ago. She went to a nearby police post and told a police officer that she desperately needed her phone back. The police officer told her she would actually get it back, but at a fee, which she agreed to pay. She described to the police officer the person who had grabbed her phone and left. Hours later, the police officer called her and she picked up her phone, with all her data already deleted.

One policeman, Stephen Mugarura, went public about what he calls criminality within the police force, but the force he serves is instead trying him for the exposé instead of investigating his claims. Speaking to police officers like Mugarura, you discover that as far as investigations are concerned, there are at least two, not one, police forces in Uganda. There are so many Ugandans with similar stories these days. Thieves broke into one man’s house and stole his electronics while he was asleep. . When he reported the incident at the police station the following morning, there was no policeman to follow him to the scene of the crime. He was just asked whether he was interested in having his phone tracked, for which he would have to pay.

One policeman, Stephen Mugarura, went public about what he calls criminality within the police force, but the force he serves is instead trying him for the exposé instead of investigating his claims. Speaking to police officers like Mugarura, you discover that as far as investigations are concerned, there are at least two, not one, police forces in Uganda. Those who call themselves “professional” investigators distance themselves from acts of torture, which they say are perpetrated by rogue groups closely connected to the topmost leadership of the police but have nothing to do with the directorate charged with criminal investigations. These “rogue” police operatives, other policemen say, were either former criminals or informants who were irregularly recruited into the force. But this doesn’t matter so long as they do the job.

After the fall of Amin, Obote II came up with the dreaded National Security Agency (NASA), which was directly under the Security Minister Chris Rwakasisi. Rwakasisi would, after Museveni took power, be convicted for murder and condemned to death, only to be released on presidential pardon. He was later named presidential advisor and campaigned for Museveni in the 2011 elections.

During the early hours of Museveni’s bush war, one man who would pay for hailing from the same region as Museveni and who backed him in the impugned 1980 elections, was Kizza Besigye, now Museveni’s fiercest challenger. Besigye has since told his story: He was picked up and tortured in the dreaded Nile Mansions for, he would later find out, being suspected of supporting Museveni’s rebel activities; he later teamed up with Museveni in the bush.

The point in all this is that the state is, as has always been the case, unwilling to stamp out torture in its entirety. In the wake of Byamukama’s torture, for instance, parliament sent a team of MPs to inspect the dreaded Nalufenya police station. But the inspection took just a day after which the MPs reported back to their colleagues. Some things were said and that will be about it; of course until another serious case of torture pops up.

In such a case, parliament should have charged a select committee with conducting an inquiry, hearing from victims and summoning accused persons and heads of security agencies accused of torture. We would, through such a process, get to know much more about the anatomy of torture in Uganda, and those carrying it out would be deterred for a while or forced to change their approach.

That was a lost opportunity in the war against torture. And, if Museveni is keen on launching an assault on the Constitution to remove the 75-year age cap to the presidency as it is widely feared, torture against his opponents could escalate and provide even more space to mourn this lost opportunity.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

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