Uganda Reporters

By Andrew M. Mwenda

He was trying to avoid one death when he fell into another

War Criminal Gen. Kazini right with Lawyer

Maj. Gen. James Bunanukye Kazini spent most of Monday evening November 9 out with his girlfriend, Lydia Draru a.k.a. Lydia Atim Draru. At about 5am, the former Uganda People’s Defence Forces army commander dropped her off at her house in Namuwongo–Wabigalo? parish, a low income city suburb, and drove to his home in the upscale neighbourhood of Munyonyo, a 15-minute drive away.

His wife, Phoebe Kazini, was already awake when he reached home around 5.20am. They were preparing Kazini’s bags as he was supposed to leave for the airport at 6am for a flight to Juba, Southern Sudan.

According to reports, Kazini went to the bedroom, changed clothes and came out wearing a safari outfit. Then he received a call. It is not clear who called him and what he was told on the phone. Anyhow, he immediately picked his car keys and stormed out of the house.

Outside the house, his driver was seated in an army green, army registered official vehicle. As he saw his boss walking out, he started the engine. However, Kazini walked directly to another car, a brand new Landcruiser VX that was given to him by Gen. Isaak Mamoor Saidoti of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

He entered the car and drove off alone. Surprisingly, his driver did not follow him and possibly tragically so. It was about 5.40am. Thirty minutes after he had driven off, someone called his home with bad news: Kazini was dead.

What happened in the 30 minutes when Kazini left his home and when he was found dead in his mistress’ love den remains unclear.

What is clearer is that just before he died at the alleged hands of a lone woman, Gen. Kazini, army number RO 1331, was facing a possible long jail term or even death sentence by firing squad.

Just a few months before, in March, the military court martial sentenced Kazini to three years in jail for causing financial loss to the army. He was also still on trial for other charges of disobeying lawful orders and moving troops without the Commander-in-Chief’s? permission. But the judgements were still pending. These charges could attract a death penalty or a longer jail term on conviction.

Sources said that President Yoweri Museveni had endorsed a Military Court Martial decision to also find him guilty on three counts of insubordination, abuse of office and disobeying lawful orders. Kazini reportedly disregarded the directives of the commander-in-chief and moved troops without seeking approval from the Commander in Chief.

In effect, Kazini was on trial for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government of President Museveni. According to Section 133 of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces Act of 2005, a soldier who disobeys a lawful order that results in the failure of an operation or leads to loss of life is liable, upon conviction by the General Court Martial (GCM), to be sentenced to either death by firing squad or to life imprisonment. Legal experts say that since Kazini’s actions had not led to loss of life, it was unlikely to lead to a death penalty.

Highly placed sources told The Independent that the GCM had finished its deliberations and had found Kazini guilty on the remaining charges. However, its chairman, Lt. Gen. Ivan Koreta, decided to consult widely on how to handle the matter. Koreta who is also the Deputy Chief of Defence Forces is one of the few remaining Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) veterans in the UPDF. FRONASA was President Museveni’s first rebel organisation that later gave birth to the National Resistance Army and now the UPDF.

The sources told The Independent that Koreta managed to cause a meeting of the army High Command to discuss Kazini’s fate. The meeting was called at President Museveni’s country home in Rwakitura and was not open to all High Command members but a restricted few.

High Command sources at the meeting say that Koreta briefed them about the implications of delivering judgment in Kazini’s case – sentencing a former army commander to a long jail term. Koreta is said to have told the High Command that this was unprecedented and asked them to think seriously about its implications.

Sources in the meeting say that decorated army veteran, Lt. Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho a.k.a. Salim Saleh, who is the President’s younger brother and a respected voice in the army, came to Kazini’s defence. He argued that Kazini had made a great contribution to the struggle that brought Museveni to power and that delivering such a judgment would unsettle many other officers. Saleh also told the meeting that many officers who sacrificed have been on katebe (un-deployed) and some have charges against them. Locking up Kazini for many years or, remotely, executing him, Saleh argued, would put this group in great anxiety.

The Independent was told that Museveni finally and firmly pronounced himself on the matter: If guilty is the verdict, then the GCM should go ahead with the judgement. End of meeting! According to people at the meeting, Saleh was highly agitated. As Koreta and others left for Kampala, Saleh immediately called Kazini on phone.

Sources say Saleh told Kazini that the High Command had reached a decision to go ahead with the judgment. “Where things have reached,” Saleh reportedly told Kazini, “I cannot save you.” Kazini knew that meant trouble. Saleh advised him to seek protection from the courts. According to sources, Kazini ran to his lawyer, Kenneth Kakuru.

However, Kakuru’s recollection of events was different. He told The Independent that Kazini came to him after losing the case before the GCM. Kakuru says he advised Kazini to petition the Constitutional Court arguing that his trial in the GCM was unconstitutional. However, the petition was not enough to stop Koreta and the GCM from delivering their judgment which, sources say, Museveni wanted done immediately. So Kakuru sought a court injunction restraining the GCM from proceeding to deliver the judgment.

On October 12, 2009 he had lost his Constitutional Court petition challenging his trial by the General Court Martial (GCM). Sensing danger, Kazini had written to the Attorney General indicating that he was taking his fight against the GCM trial to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land. He died before this appeal could be disposed of.

But did Museveni really intend to hang Kazini? What went wrong between the two men?

Earlier, in the affidavit sworn on April 2 to support his case for an injunction against his GCM trial, Kazini was clearly worried by the speed at which the GCM wanted to finish his case. “Given the speed at which the hearing of the above cases is going on,” he wrote, “it is likely that the cases in the General Court Martial are most likely to be decided before the application for stay and the petition, are disposed by the honorable court.

“The General Court Martial is ready to dispose of all the impugned cases pending before it before the disposal of the main application and the petition,” the affidavit said.

This wording of the affidavit, sources say, was aimed at showing how fast the GCM was moving to deliver the judgment.

The papers for the injunction were filed before Justice Steven Kavuma. Apparently, Kazini’s team had noticed that the GCM was going to deliver the judgment the next day, although Kakuru says it was a strange coincidence. However, UPDF sources say that information leaked on April 15 that the GCM was going to deliver its judgment the next day.

Sources say that at this point, Kazini’s team turned to Saleh again for help. Saleh called Kavuma and personally asked him to save Kazini’s life by granting the injunction against the proceedings in the GCM. Kavuma himself had sympathy for Kazini because they had worked together at the ministry of Defence. Kavuma was minister of state for Defence when Kazini was army chief of staff.

The Attorney General opposed Kazini’s application. After hearing both sides, Kavuma adjourned court and consulted. He learnt that Museveni had personally approved the GCM to deliver judgment. He got worried that in issuing a court injunction he was likely to annoy the president. However, Kavuma granted the injunction.

“An Interim Order does issue against the General Court Martial restraining it whether by itself, representatives, officials, agents or workmen from implementing the directive to prosecute the Applicant/Petitioner for the various offenses stated herein until the disposal of Miscellaneous Petition No.08 of 2008.” Kavuma wrote.

It was not the first time Saleh was intervening to save Kazini’s skin. When he was convicted by the GCM and sent to Luzira last year, it was Saleh who helped him get released on bail, something Museveni had opposed. Saleh had gone to his brother and pleaded for his friend to get bail from the GCM Appeals Court. Museveni had initially refused to yield, but after a heated exchange, the president succumbed.

According to sources close to the two brothers, Museveni asked Saleh to go and seek permission from, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, saying that if the Chief of Defence Forces agreed, he (the president) would have no objection to it. Saleh did and Aronda agreed that Kazini be released on bail. However, for Saleh, it was the ultimate humiliation of forcing him to seek authority from his junior. Although the two are of the same rank, in historical seniority, Saleh is above Aronda.

Then Saleh began frantically looking for sureties and managed to get major generals Kahinda Otafiire and Zed Maruru and Lt. Gen. Jeje Odongo.

Draru being led away from the scene of the murder

But why had Museveni approved the GCM to go ahead and deliver a judgment that would have sent Kazini to long time in jail? There was a time when Kazini was (or appeared to be) Museveni’s blue eyed boy in the army.

The Museveni Kazini fallout appeared to be confirmed when on March 27 Kazini was sent to Luzira Maximum Security Prison on charges of bloating the army payroll with non-existing staff numbers in the so-called “ghost soldiers” scam. He was accused of unlawfully enriching himself to the tune of Shs 62 million from ghost soldiers’ money.

Analysts claimed Kazini was paying for two cardinal sins: First, earlier in the investigations, Kazini had rattled the army top brass with a claim that the so-called ghost soldiers’ money had been sanctioned by President Museveni to pay off Congolese rebel leaders.

Kazini and Saleh have a long history, having hit off neatly since 1985 when Kazini became head of Saleh’s escort. At that time, Saleh was commander of the Mobile Brigade of the then rebel NRA.

Loved and hated

Some reports claim Kazini was a nursery school teacher near Kabamba Military Barracks when the Tanzanian army defeated Idi Amin’s government in 1979. His military career was launched when he joined the fleeing soldiers of Idi Amin’s regime into Southern Sudan. When the soldiers regrouped to form the Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF) rebels under former Amin minister Brig. Moses Ali, Kazini was among them.

While Museveni fought in the southern and central Uganda Luwero areas, Kazini’s UNRF operated mainly in the West Nile region of northern Uganda. In 1984, however, Kazini appeared to have defected to Museveni’s NRA although some claim the two groups were really working together. Their representatives, for example, were in Tripoli, Libya together to seek arms and other support from Muammar Gadaffi. At the time, Kazini’s brother, the late Lt. Col. Jet Mwebaze was already in the NRA.

But at Kazini’s funeral at All Saints Church in Kampala on November 11, Museveni said he had first met him in 1981. He said Kazini who was serving in UNLA convinced him that he could persuade some disgruntled UNLA soldiers to defect to NRA.

“I gave him money to hire trucks to transport these soldiers but he ended up in the bar where he was arrested,” Museveni said.

She is led to Buganda Road Court where she made a confession statement.

Museveni’s revelations, especially with Kazini’s body lying in the casket before him, caused restlessness in the church. But Museveni in typical direct style said Kazini was a hardworking, patriotic soldier whose major undoing was recklessness. He concluded that “Kazini’ had taken himself to God.”

Kazini death was a precedent in that he was the first former army commander to die when the regime he served was still reigning. His body, however, did not lie in state whereas that of former Defence permanent secretary Brig. Noble Mayombo, much junior to Kazini, lay in state in May 2007. The president and commander-in-chief also attended Mayombo’s burial in his village in Kabarole.

The president did not attend Kazini’s burial at Sanga in Kiruhura district. He reportedly had engagements in Karamoja.

Kazini had been a blue-eyed boy of the army. Nurtured under Saleh, Kazini bloomed over the years to become a ruthless and efficient battlefront commander. He rose quickly through the ranks to the chagrin of many who nicknamed him “the creeper” – someone reaping big from a struggle he did not invest much in.

Along the way, he seems to have created many enemies. As commander of the Mechanised Brigade in Masaka in the 1990s, Kazini wrote a secret dossier that accused Gen. David Tinyefuza and Col. Kizza Besigye of training a secret army to topple President Museveni.

Museveni dropped Tinyefuza as Ministry of State for Defence and named him advisor on Security. As fate would have it, Tinyefuza was on the committee that tried Kazin for creating “ghost soldiers.”

Secondly, Kazini had apparently angered the high-ups when, during the burial of one of his co-accused in the ghost soldiers scandal, Col. Poteli Kivuna, he blamed the leaders for the latter’s demise.

“A person of Col. Kivuna’s status has a big family to look after but you put him on ‘katebe” (not deployed) for a long time! There was no medicine for him, yet there were some people who were acquitted by the court martial,” Kazini is quoted to have said.

Gen. Salim Saleh lays a wreath on Kazini’s casket during the funeral service at All Saints Church at Nakasero on November 12.

Kazini, who had been undeployed since 2003, was understood to be speaking for all the disgruntled officers on katebe. The UPDF routinely punishes errant soldiers by denying them plum postings, but by expressing bitterness so publicly, Kazini appeared to have sealed his fate.

Between April 4 and May 14, The Independent ran a series of articles: “Kazini’s fall: What price will Museveni pay?”; “Kazini: The untold story (How Museveni used Kazini and dumped him)” and “Did Kazini plot to overthrow Museveni?”

In one of them, it was revealed that sometime in 2001, Gen. Salim Saleh was in trouble over two loans from two banks. One was Shs 900 million and the other Shs 1 billion.

He approached then army commander, Maj. Gen. Jeje Odongo with a request to help him clear them. Odongo refused to comply. Two weeks later President Museveni removed Odongo and replaced him with Kazini, who had been the army chief of staff.

Kazini’s appointment came as a surprise: Just weeks earlier, on October 28, 2001, Museveni had written an angry memo to Kazini titled “Sense of direction”. Museveni accused Kazini of three things: Incompetence (poor judgement of especially terrain in war); insubordination (acting unilaterally even against the President’s written orders), and being a bad team player (by ignoring advice from the army forum).

Had Museveni appointed him purposely to help Saleh out of his financial predicament?

The treason case against Kazini includes allegations that he recruited 7,000 men and trained them at Bihanga Training School in Mbarara and also created a semi-autonomous unit in West Nile region (409 Brigade) to assist him execute his mission.

Kazini’s inglorious death is likely to add to the restlessness in the camp. Many of those on katebe are high ranking officers, and like Kazini, have wide networks in the army. To use a famous quote in Ugandan political circles,” they can cause trouble.”

If Kazini’s death proves to be a turning point in the Museveni reign it would not be the first.

It is well known that Muyseveni’s rebellion against Obote II was catapulted to success by the death of Oyite Ojok in a mysterious helicopter crash. Earlier in history, post-independent Uganda’s politics was affected dramatically by the death of Brig. Severino Okoya.

Investigations into death

Kazini’s has had women trouble in the past.In March last year, he hit headlines when he punched a man, Dr Robert Kagoda, whom he suspected of having an affair with his lover, one Winnie.

Be that as it may, Kazini’s trip to Sudan could be a pointer into why he was killed. He had spent the day preparing for the trip.

Secondly, he was driving a Sudanese registered car i.e. he would need the car for some time either because he would be staying in Sudan for a long time or he would be going there often. Therefore, Ugandan number plates would not do.

Thirdly, there was a fear that Kazini intended to flee the country. In fact, reports attributed to intelligence circles claimed there was a “man-hunt” for him by security when he went off the radar a few days before he was killed.

Earlier in July, according to press reports, Kazini had had a conversation with Ugandan-born American journalist Shaka Sali which suggested he was seeking asylum in the US.

Museveni confirmed the fear that Kazini intended to flee.

President Museveni told mourners at Kazini’s funeral at All Saints Cathedral that he had forced Kazini to sign an agreement that he would come back to the country after a military course in Nigeria in 2004.

“I told him that if you do not I will contact Interpol,” Museveni said.

The Independent could not confirm whether Kazini had got clearance for the trip from the Chief-of-Defence? Forces, Lt Gen. Aronda Nyakairima. Soldiers of Kazini’s rank need such clearance to travel.

Meanwhile, investigations continue into Kazini’s death

According to the police and the press, Kazini was killed by his girlfriend who used an iron bar to hit him on his head during a brawl. However, the police explanation raises more questions than it answers. The police picked a round iron bar as the murder weapon. Such a weapon would have inflicted a blunt injury. Yet the cuts on Kazini’s head are deep, suggesting use of a sharp object – like a machete or an axe.

The woman who claims to have single handedly killed Kazini is much shorter, smaller and weaker than Kazini.

Experts The Independent spoke to say that given her height, she could not have reached his head to cause such injury. Besides, given that she claimed Kazini was holding her by the throat, how did she then slip from his grip to deliver such devastating blows on him? Besides, Kazini was a giant of a man – strong and macho. Many experts find it highly doubtful that he could have been killed by a lone young woman.

Also intriguing about Kazini’s murder is the fact that although he was reportedly killed at about 6am in the morning and the police arrived at the scene before 7am, the scene of the crime was left unattended to till 10am. Normally, police cordon off a crime scene, especially in high profile cases, and deploy specialised crime detectives called Scenes of Crime Officers (SOCO) in order to stop onlookers from accessing it and either deliberately tampering with or inadvertently destroying evidence.

In Kazini’s case, the scene was left unattended and no SOCOs were sent to preserve or secure it. His body was also left on display for three hours. During this time, journalists with both still and video cameras were allowed to take pictures from any angle they wished.

Why did the entire security system seem to want journalists (and through them the general public) to see how Maj. Gen. Kazini was killed? Was this sheer incompetence or was someone trying to “manufacture” believable evidence?

The most puzzling was the behaviour of Kazini’s alleged murderer. She was telling everyone who cared to listen how she had killed “her man”. Her confidence and calmness after killing one of the most senior officers of the Ugandan army, a man known to be close to President Museveni’s brother, Gen. Salim Saleh, intrigued even the most dispassionate witnesses. Why didn’t she fear retribution from the state?

Police sources say that the statement she gave at the crime scene immediately they arrived was almost identical to the statement she gave hours later at the Central Police Station (CPS). Crime experts say that victims of such circumstances tend to be incoherent immediately after the event, only gaining calmness later to be able to recollect the chain of events. However, police sources say, Draru’s testimony sounded rehearsed.

In fact, when the police arrested her, Draru’s hair was combed to perfectionist detail; her clothes were clean and well kempt. In fact, initial photos show her in a yellow top with black cardigan as she is hauled from her house to the police station. However, by the time of her interrogation, she had changed into an immaculate chili-red long-skirted dress. It’s unusual for suspects in police custody to be allowed such privileges.

However police later explained that the clothes were taken from her as exhibits and that’s why she had to change the clothing.

She also did not show any signs of a lone woman who had just been involved in a life-and-death fight with an army general. Her skin had no bruises safe for a few around the neck. Her clothes were not spurted with blood.

Could Draru have killed Kazini without the aid of anyone? This is very unlikely. Her testimony raises more questions than it answers. That is why it is important to interrogate the scene of crime itself.

Gen. Kazini’s widow has said publicly that she would ask the government to investigate the possibility that Draru was part of a group.

Apparently inside the house, police found three glasses of whisky and a bottle of Black Label that was almost empty. Who was drinking with her in the house? Draru’s neighbour claimed that there were three men (although other accounts say they were two) who ran out of the house immediately after the murder.

If these were the men who could have helped her subdue a general of Kazini’s caliber, then they were not ordinary goons from the slums of Namuwongo who should have been drinking kasese or some sachet waragi (crude local gin); they were high class players who took expensive drinks. Who are they?

Idi Amin Dada Did not Kill Benedicto Kiwanuka

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One of the still-unresolved murder mysteries in Ugandan history is that of the former Chief Justice and DP party president Benedicto Kiwanuka.

Most people believe that Kiwanuka was murdered personally by President Idi Amin, or on orders of Amin, or by Amin's henchmen, while a few others believe that Amin's Foreign Minister Joshua Wanume Kibedi was partly behind it.

The truth, as with most other events in Ugandan history, is far from that and more spine-chilling that most people realize.

On June 27, 1971, five months after the military coup, President Idi Amin, swore-in the President General of the Democratic Party, Benedicto Kiwanuka, also a lawyer, as Uganda's new Chief Justice. He had, in all probability, been nominated for the job by Amin.

Always outspoken and militant, Kiwanuka oversaw many cases in the High Court in which he stood for the oppressed and was not afraid to tell Amin what he thought. Amin did not seem bothered by Kiwanuka's attitude and seemed to encourage it.

Late in 1971, letters started to come to Uganda from Tanzania, written to prominent public officials, ostensibly from their collaborators among the exiled Ugandan community in Dar es Salaam, in which these prominent public officials in Kampala appeared to be working with the exiled groups in Tanzania to overthrow Amin.

Amin told his cabinet ministers and army officers to turn these letters over to security, some of which bore the names of a L. Col. David Oyite-Ojok? and were purportedly from this army officer loyal to Milton Obote.

It has been claimed over the last 30 or so years that Kiwanuka ruled in a court case that did not please Amin, spoke out on Amin's human rights violations, and Amin sent Kiwanuka an oblique warning, referring to a "prominent Muganda from Masaka" as being a collaborator against his military government.

Even if this were so, it presents some difficulty in laying the blame for Kiwanuka's abduction and subsequent murder on Amin.

Amin was a decisive, open, action-oriented man. He believed in taking action in the open. He believed he needed to explain his actions to the public. When Museveni's FRONASA guerrillas were arrested in Jan. 1973, their trial was public, their execution even more public, in their home towns with crowds watching.

When Janani Luwum, the Anglican Archbishop, was arrested in Feb. 1977 under suspicion that arms intended to overthrow Amin's regime had been smuggled into Uganda through him, diplomats, the cabinet, army officers, the media, and the public were kept fully appraised of the developments.

A public gathering was called at the Nile Mansions Hotel in Kampala, the proceedings aired on Radio Uganda and Uganda Television, and published in the government newspaper, the Voice of Uganda, the next day.

The fact that this was the Anglican Archbishop, in the centenary year of the Anglican church in Uganda, did not faze Amin and he did not respond to public pressure.

Likewise, he would have had no reason to sent state security agents to the Uganda High Court in Kampala to seize the chief justice from the premises and then make him disappear without a trial or public reprimand.

In 1972, Amin was much more popular than he was in 1977 and if he went out openly to call for Luwum's trial, there would have been no reason to fear public anger if Kiwanuka was arrested and tried in 1972, with Ugandans grateful at Amin's recent decision to expel the much-resented Asians and with the euphoria still high after the track athlete John Akii-Bua? having won Uganda its first ever Olympic Gold medal at the Munich Summer Olympic Games.

What, then, happened to Benedicto Kiwanuka?

After Benedicto Kiwanuka was abducted, Amin summoned a meeting of the Defence Council at Bulange in Kampala. Senior intelligence officers were also asked to attend the meeting.

Later, during a conversation at the army officers' Mess at Nakasero in Kampala, some State Research intelligence officers said the three men who had abducted Kiwanuka had come to the High Court carrying State Research Bureau identity cards.

One of the men, dressed up in a women's traditional robe, the Busuti, a wig, and heavy make up, walked up to Kiwanuka and said: "You are under arrest!"

A source who was in the 1970s Uganda Airforce once told this writer that two intelligence officers, Lt. Ali Willa and Sergeant Frank Besigensi of the State Research Centre (or Bureau) carried out investigations into Ben Kiwanuka's disappearance.

They said their evidence showed that the people who abducted Kiwanuka had entered Uganda from Tanzania through the Mutukula border area via Kyotera.

On Jan. 9, 1973, the government's Security Committee sat at a meeting and produced its report on several prominent Ugandans who had gone missing since 1971.

This is what it reported on Kiwanuka:

"Ben Kiwanuka: Former Prime Minister in the Democratic Party government and Obote detainee at Luzira. Released by the government and made Chief Justice. Was arrested by three unknown persons on September 21, 1972 at about 8:30 a.m from the High Court.

These three unknown persons were traveling in a saloon car Peugeot 504 light blue, bearing registration number UUU 171, came to the High Court Chambers where Ben Kiwanuka was working, identified themselves as security officers and said that he was required at their office. They were armed with pistols. They hand-cuffed the Chief Justice and took him with them in their car driving at a very high speed in the direction of the Kampala International Hotel. The men were all dressed in plain clothes and when they took him away most people working in the High Court witnessed the incident.

When some of these bystanders tried to follow they were threatened to be shot. On investigation, the government discovered that the people who posed as security men were not, in fact, members of the Security Forces and the number of the Peugeot 504 car which they were using belongs to a Volkswagen saloon car of the Uganda Armed Forces, P.O.Box 7069, Kampala. It is therefore clear that the planners of this plot wanted to confuse the country that the people who arrested Ben Kiwanuka were members of the Security Forces, using an official vehicle.

The Government investigated this matter thoroughly but so far no evidence has come to light as to who arrested the Chief Justice and where he is. In this connection, the military spokesman drew the attention of the country to a press statement appearing in a foreign paper, Sunday Post, of December 31, 1972 where it was alleged that the Chief Justice was tied up in a jeep which was then set ablaze by members of the Security Forces on the Kampala/Entebbe Road.

The country will realise that Entebbe/Kampala Road is an international route where people always pass up and down, night and day but no-one has ever seen the alleged car burning on that road at any time since Kiwanuka disappeared. This is another clear example of the enemies of the country trying to cause confusion in the country."

Later, after the 1979 war when exiles started returning home, several were heard to speak in a way that suggested that Kiwanuka had been abducted by an exile group.

Amin in 1973 stated and would thereafter state that Kiwanuka had been abducted and killed by a guerrilla group called FRONASA led by a guerrilla and former intelligence officer called Yoweri Museveni.

Speaking on or about June 25, 1975, Amin said "the highest rate of disappearance was during 1971...President Amin said there was a high rate of disappearances in September 1972. He explained that there was the FRONASA guerrilla organisations, then, creating confusion in Uganda by kidnapping many Ugandans.

General Amin said in 1972 Uganda was invaded from Tanzania by guerrillas who killed many Ugandans including the former Chief Justice, Mr Kiwanuka…General? Amin reiterated that an evil organisation called FRONASA which led by a man called Musebeni Museveni was in the early years kidnapping important people in Uganda, on behalf of guerrillas, just to cause confusion and disunity. By then he said guerrillas were training hard to come and invade us amidst that confusion created by Fronasa for their benefit." (Voice of Uganda, June 26, 1975, p. 1, 6)

A source in 2005 said he had got information from a former FRONASA operative who admitted that it was indeed FRONASA that had abducted and killed Kiwanuka.

In 2005, a man went to the offices of the Daily Monitor newspaper in Namuwongo in Kampala. He was very frightened. He spoke to the then Executive Editor Peter Mwesige and said he knew where Ben Kiwanuka was buried.

He appeared to know the circumstances of Kiwanuka's murder, too. However, he insisted that before he could reveal anything, he first had to be guaranteed an international amnesty.

It seemed odd. This man was clearly frightened and looked nervously around Mwesige's office. Why would he be so frightened?

Idi Amin, the man who allegedly killed Kiwanuka had died two years earlier in 2003. Amin's military government had fallen from power in 1979 and most of Amin's henchmen had neither power, nor money, nor the connections to threaten this man in anyway, should he speak out on Kiwanuka's murder

Who was he so afraid of, that he should seek an international amnesty? The man left the Daily Monitor offices and did not return to continue with his story.

Former FRONASA guerrillas know very well the story of who ordered the murder of Kiwanuka. They know very well that Benedicto Kiwanuka was not murdered by Amin or anybody in Amin's regime. In time, they will start to speak out to a shocked Uganda.

"Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families." --- George Henry Lewes, Physiology of Common Life, 1860. What does this mean?

"Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families." --- George Henry Lewes, Physiology of Common Life, 1860.

With Uganda still pondering over the details and meaning of the murder of the former army commander, Maj. Gen. James Kazini, the national mood remains ripe for an understanding of where this trail of blood starts and leads.

In summing up what goes on inside President Yoweri Museveni's head, a Uganda Record analyst observed:

"Think about it: he has conjured up the image of a man who faced and evaded death on the front line yet he has never engaged the enemy in active combat. He knows that those who know this and were active combatants sneer at him. He also knows he has never won a free and fair national election.

Consequently he has this morbid fear that the truth will catch up and expose him so if he thinks someone is up to showing the world that the emperor is naked then he must be dealt with ruthlessly. Stalin (who had been an active combatant, albeit extremely ruthless) did this in Russia when he murdered all the war heroes of the revolution because he feared competition!"

The story of Yoweri Museveni cannot be complete without an understanding of the secret history of another person in his life: Janet Museveni, his wife and the current Ugandan First Lady.

Let us get the specifics.

In 1994 or 1995 (definitely in 1995), the Museveni's teenage daughter Natasha had fallen in love with a young man who worked as a videographer at the Pan African Movement secretariat in Kampala.

This young man was called Warren Bantariza. Bespectacled, handsome, relaxed, serious, he had a thoughtful air about him, spoke slowly and with intent, the sort of young man who would have intrigued and attracted Natasha, the most fanciful and artistic of all the Museveni children.

How she got to know him is not clear, but she did get to know him one way or the other.

They started dating. Or more accurately, they started secretly dating, since Natasha's mother, the girl knew, would not have approved of this relationship for reasons we shall soon see.

For Natasha to make the relationship seem like a friendship and nothing more, she would often bring along her sister Patience during her meetings with Bantariza.

Somehow, Mrs Museveni got to know about it and immediately became angry that there was a relationship at all. She determined that it had to be stopped.

The First Lady contacted a young army officer called Lt. Noble Mayombo to find a way of bringing to an end this relationship which she strongly disapproved of.

Mayombo worked out a plan for this. He contacted a Makerere University student called Shadrack Rwakasisi. The plan, as hatched by Mayombo, was to have Warren Bantariza eliminated.

Rwakasisi would be the person to carry it out. Rwakasisi asked a few friends known to him and Bantariza to accompany him to the Pan-African? Movement offices in Muyenga in Kampala to ask Bantariza out for a day in Entebbe. One of them was Raymond Ofungi, a son of the former Inspector-General? of Police, Luke Ofungi.

Rwakasisi hoped that by coming along with friends known to Bantariza, it would not raise any suspicions.

When Rwakasisi came to the Pan-African? offices, he signed the visitors' book and indicated that he was Bantariza's visitor. Since they were friends, Bantariza agreed to go along.

A source told the Uganda Record that the watchword for the mission had been to tell Bantariza that Natasha wanted to see him in Entebbe (presumably State House Entebbe, but definitely a location of some sort in Entebbe.)

The group then left the offices and went to a small take out (or takeaway) restaurant in Muyenga not far from the Reste Corner Hotel where Rwakasisi suggested that they pick up some fast food, and then go on to Entebbe. They all agreed.

On the way to Entebbe, they ate their food and talked. Before long, Bantariza started complaining of not feeling well. He started convulsing. Clearly, he had eaten something like poison in his food.

The car speeded on to Entebbe. Bantariza was getting worse by the passing minute and it was now obvious that he might go into coma. In panic, Rwakasisi drove to a location near the Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel where he hoped to leave Bantariza.

Although in fits and convulses and moaning, Bantariza did not show any sign of dying any time soon. He was put down on the ground and the car was driven over him to kill him. Even that did not work and the boy remained alive.

In a panic, Rwakasisi then got Bantariza and tied him up at a cliff near the beach front and off the party drove, back to Kampala.

According to an intelligence officer, even this did not kill Bantariza and late into the night, a fisherman on a boat on Lake Victoria heard the sound of a male voice moaning and upon rowing in the direction of the noise, found Bantariza hanging by the cliff, a rope around his neck.

He later died.

A number of officials at the Pan-African? Movement were arrested and framed over Bantariza's murder. They denied any part in his death. What gave away the story was that Rwakasisi had signed in the visitor's book that day and this incriminated him right away.

Raymond Ofungi was arrested and taken to the Central Police Station in Kampala. While there, he privately narrated the story of what had happened to some police officers.

They realized that Ofungi had been an unwitting accomplice to the murder and did not have anything to do with it. Since they were professionals and had entered the police at the time Luke Ofungi was the Inspector General of Police, they worked out a way to smuggle Ofungi's son from detention.

Rwakasisi was arrested and ended up at Luzira Upper Prison in the condemned section, for the murder of Warren Bantariza, where he remains to this day.

One of the Pan-African? Movement officials farmed over the murder started his own investigations into the murder but was discouraged by Mayombo. "Are you the police?" Mayombo said to this official and ordered him to leave the matter to the police.

This Pan-African? official went to the Monitor newspaper and narrated the whole story to a staff reporter, but somehow, the story was never published by the Monitor.

What happened next is a key part of this story.

William Shakespeare, in his tragic play Hamlet, explained what happens when murder takes place.

Wrote Shakespeare: "For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ." (Hamlet, Act II, scene II)

This is an important lesson, because it helps us understand the reality that there is an invisible spirit Being at the highest place of existence that ensures that, for reasons we do not fully understand, murderers always leave a trail, a sign, a finger print, an incriminating piece of evidence.

It would have been almost impossible to trace who might have ordered the murder of Warren Bantariza, but for a chance event.

At State House in Nakasero, there was a young Muhima boy, the kind commonly called a Kadogo in Ugandan slang, who was deployed in the army at the president's residence. He was one of these teenage soldiers who were almost always in close proximity to President Yoweri Museveni.

One day, in a moment of idleness, this boy started playing with the military radio or walkie-talkie that Museveni uses or which is available to Museveni to use. Either he caused it to develop a mechanical fault or some other problem, but the result was that it could no longer work.

When Museveni discovered or was told about this, he angrily ordered that the young soldier be sent to Luzira Prison as a disciplinary measure.

While at Luzira, this young soldier identified Shadrack Rwakasisi as the killer of Warren Bantariza. He then said something more important.

He told some fellow inmates of an argument he had witnessed between President Museveni and the First Lady at State House Nakasero. Mrs Museveni, angry and near hysterical, was telling the president, in the Runyankore language, that there was no way she was going to allow "Bairu blood in my family."

The Bairu are the sub-ethnic group that form the largest percent of the Ugandan tribe known as the Banyankole or Banyankore.

The Bahima are the minority and were for centuries the royal class, in much the same way the Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority form the bulk of the people known as the Banyarwanda of Rwanda or the Barundi of Burundi.

Janet Museveni is said to be from the Bahinda clan of the Bahima, the actual royal blood line of Ankole (Ankore, or Nkore).

As the First Lady was getting worked up and insisting she would not allow this relationship between Natasha Museveni and Warren Bantariza to happen, Museveni did not seem to see a problem with it.

Janet Museveni, according to the soldier who was sent to jail, was angrily telling Museveni that Bantariza had raped Natasha. That is why she was most angry and in this argument appeared to be seeking Museveni's intervention.

Museveni remained casual about it and, according to this soldier, told the First Lady that he did not think Natasha had been raped by her boyfriend. Museveni, usually liberal about sexual matters, thought that the First Lady was overreacting.

It might have been after this argument that Janet Museveni contacted Mayombo to take action against Bantariza.

This deed, according to an intelligence officer, is what endeared Mayombo to the First Lady and that year 1995 is when he started his rapid rise in the army ranks and becoming a national star.

That was the reason that, even though Museveni resolutely refused to visit the ailing Mayombo at the International Hospital Kampala in late April 2007 when he had been poisoned, Janet Museveni made a point of attending Mayombo's funeral service at Kololo Airstrip in Kampala in May 2007, a few days after his death.

As stated above, the vital lesson in this story is not the gory details of murder and intrigue, but what Shakespeare wrote, that "…murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ."

It always leaves pieces of evidence that come to the light in the most strange twists and coincidences, the most unintended incidents.

A loyal soldier at State House messes up Museveni's military radio and Museveni angrily dispatches him to jail, giving him the opportunity, unwittingly, to narrate what he saw at State House that would have remained hidden from the pages of history.

There is a well known murder in the 1990s of a Makerere University student, Aaron Kagondoki, from Ntungamo in western Uganda, murdered and stuffed into a latrine, on orders of......

The Ugandan state that murdered Maj. Gen. James Kazini, in their haste and amateurishness - or because "murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ" - left behind so many trails, fingerprints, contradictions, and glaring bits of evidence, that even shoe shiners and market women, just from the most superficial glance at the stories in the media, have concluded that Lydia Draru did not in any way murder Kazini.

After Bantariza's murder, Janet Museveni, as Gen. Salim Saleh had been after the murder in 1997 of Kazini's brother Lt. Col. Jet Mwebaze, because haunted and life nightmarish.

This is the time, starting in late 1995, that Mrs Museveni took on the air of religiousness and Christianity that she is now strongly identified with. According to an intelligence officer, this is the time that she became "born again" or at least started displaying her faith or claim to having faith, in public.

The murder of Bantariza, the Uganda Record speculates, might have been the most traumatic event in Natasha Museveni's life and might have been what drove her to the self-destructive and rebellious beheviour that she is well known for.

She later got married to a young lawyer called Edwin Karugire. On the day of their wedding, Saturday Sept. 2, 2000, an unusually heavy rainstorm hit Kampala and Entebbe.

Trees were uprooted and electricity poles brought down. The wedding reception was held at....the Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel in Entebbe, a few hundred metres from where Warren Bantariza, Natasha's lover, was murdered.

On the day of Jet Mwebaze's burial at Kapeeka near Nakaseke, there was a heay downpour. On the day of the burial of the murdered Maj. Gen. James Kazini, Friday Nov. 13, 2009, there was a heavy downpour over Kampala.

"For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ."

This is the reason some of us have lost our fear of death, detention, or arrest by any government or individual.

We now know the pattern and we know the invisible spirit forces that control the universe.

Uganda Generals to die before Museveni's assassination

Readers who might have followed my writings in the Daily Monitor's Saturday column in 2006 and 2007 and listeners to the KFM radio talk show on Friday, might have heard me mention on air or put in writing my meeting in July 2006 with a clairvoyant, a person with an uncanny gift for predicting future events, the person I called the Seer.

In one of those columns or several of those KFM broadcasts, I did mention, in 2006 and 2007, what the Seer told me would happen to Uganda in the years just ahead.

One of the things I told listeners clearly several times, for the record, was that the Seer had told me that generals from ethnic tribes in western Uganda would die one by one as the clock ticked on to the assassination of President Yoweri Museveni, as foretold by the Seer.

It started with the Secretary for Defence, Brig. Noble Mayombo in May 2007 and has continued with the former army commander Maj. gen. James Kazini now in Nov. 2009.

It has been reported by the mainstream media in Kampala that Kazini was murdered by his mistress, Lydia Draru.

The facts of Kazini's death, in fact, point to what the Uganda Record knew to be the truth yesterday, Nov. 10, 2009: that Kazini was killed for the same reason that Mayombo was killed.

Two days before his death, according to well-informed sources, Kazini received a phone call from the Chief of Military Intelligence, Brig. James Mugira who asked Kazini: "Are you safe?"

Mugira then offered Kazini some escorts, to which Kazini angrily replied that he did not need any security and he switched Mugira off the line. It is not clear whether Mugira genuinely wanted to offer protection to Kazini or he was, in fact, monitoring Kazini's movements on behalf of the hands that run the Ugandan state.

This week, Kazini was scheduled to travel to southern Sudan. The white luxury Toyota Landcruiser he owned was given to him as a personal donation and an act of sympathy by the government of southern Sudan after he was court martialed for the alleged creation of a false army payroll.

Southern Sudan, it should be remembered, still has a smoldering resentment toward Uganda because many, if not most, of them believe that the death of their leader Lt. Gen. John Garang in July 2005 was orchestrated by Museveni.

It is not clear at this point whether the Ugandan state believed or suspected that Kazini was being prepared by southern Sudan or even Libya to lead a possible military coup against the Museveni government.

But as the background given by the Uganda Record yesterday revealed, quoting news reports and analysis from two Kampala papers, the Independent and the Observer, it was publicly known that the state believed Kazini had a plan or role to play in a plot to overthrow Museveni.

A source in Kampala has told the Uganda Record this: "About Kazini's death, I one time overheard my uncle in the army say Kazini may join Col. Samson Mande and Col. Kiiza Besigye against M7 President Museveni. He then said they the state, presumably were going to eliminate the 'rebels' one by one. This is not the last death of this year."

The true facts of Kazini's death, then are as follows: Kazini had a night out on Monday, as has been reported by Kampala newspapers.

What they do not reveal or know is that Kazini had parted company with his mistress Draru. Later, he got a call from her.He had been in his military vehicle but on receiving her call, his instinct was to get into his personal vehicle, the Landcruiser, and head to Namuwongo, the suburb in Kampala near the Industrial Area.

Waiting for Kazini at Draru's home were three burly men, commonly referred to in Uganda as "Kanyamas".

It is these three men, not Draru, who bludgeoned Kazini to death. An eight year-old boy at Draru's home provided that evidence to the police when it arrived at the scene but somehow this version of events was slowly withdrawn from the public.

The first person to arrive at the scene of the crime was a woman called Mabel, sister to Jovia Saleh, the wife of Gen. Salim Saleh. After Kazini's murder, sources say, Draru phoned up Mabel and said "Come and pick your body."

The reference by Draru to "your body" in making that call to Jovia Saleh's sister, starts to shed light on to true facts of Kazini's murder.

At the mortuary at Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Gen. Saleh's aide, Capt. Juma Seiko and a Colonel in Military Police took charge of the body. Mourners and family members who arrived to view and treat the body were screened by the Military Police and as one by one the relatives and other mourners arrived, the Military Police officer made a phone call to an unidentified person to get permission to allow each person to come in.

Capt. Seiko, with a long revolver strapped at his waist, kept a tight grip over the proceedings.

All of this raised the question of why suddenly tight security and controls should be imposed both at Namuwongo and at the Mulago mortuary, if Kazini's death was the result of what is being reported, a drunken brawl between two lovers.

At the wake at Kazini's home at Munyonyo, most of the army generals and other high-ranking officers who had worked with Kazini over the years appeared to commiserate with the family --- except Gen. Salim Saleh.

Sources who claim to know what is going on say that it was Salim Saleh who made the phone call to Draru asking her to invite Kazini to her home on Monday night and early into Tuesday morning.

The haste with which Lydia Draru was arrested, taken to the Central Police Station for interrogation, arraigned before a magistrate at the Buganda Road Court, and sent to Luzira Upper Prison where she spent Tuesday night, Nov. 10, raises the level of suspicion even more.

She seemed eager to confess to having killed Kazini. She did not explain what the iron bar that she reportedly used to hit Kazini, was doing in her house.

As the media did what it did with Maymbo's death, publishing and broadcasting the usual redundancies about Kazini the "fearless commander" and "national hero" that Ugandan society and the media typically heap on deceased public officials, the truth behind Kazini's death remains out of public view.

But, as the Seer said, this is the trend that events will be taking prior to that cataclysmic event soon to befall Museveni.

Salim Saleh haunted by Jet Mwebaze's death. Why?

In Sept. 1997, an army officer and brother to Brig. James Kazini, another senior army officer, died in western Uganda under circumstances that remain mysterious.

The then Minister of State for Defence, Steven Kavuma, gave conflicting accounts of what had happened to the private plane carrying Mwebaze. The media also reported various accounts.

Appearing on the Capital Gang talk show on 91.3 Capital FM at the time, the then Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh was grilled by the then Mbarara Member of Parliament, Winnie Byanyima, also a panelist on the Capital Gang, to explain what Saleh's employees were doing on that plane in which Mwebaze was said to have died.

Saleh did not have an answer.

Maj. Gen. James Kazini the former army commander died on Nov. 10, 2009 still convinced that his brother had been killed by the state or at least an actor in the state.

But for several months, Saleh found himself almost unable to sleep. He disclosed to some people that he was being haunted by the spirit of Jet Mwebaze. Apparently it was tormenting him night and day.

On the day of Mwebaze's burial, an unusually heavy downpour of rain swept over the area. It rained heavily and continually all through the burial proceedings and convinced many onlookers that there was something suspicious about Mwebaze's death.

In 1998, Saleh tried to find a way out of the nightmare he was facing. He sought the help of a traditional fortune teller, a soothsayer of some sort, to go to Mwebaze's grave and perform a number of rituals to appease the spirit of Mwebaze.

A young man approached by Saleh refused to look up the fortune teller. Saleh finally found another young man to go to Mwebaze's grave with the medium on his behalf.

What happened, however, shocked Saleh. The young man, usually meek and modest in personality, suddenly burst out into a loud wail when he met Saleh. He shouted at Saleh and insulted him, speaking as one possessed by a strange spirit or invisible force.

What happened next is not clear but this episode is a glimpse into the dark and sinister world that Uganda's leaders since 1986 live in.

Their abnormal lust for power and material things, their casual way with shedding blood speaks not of ordinary human beings, but of people possessed by what some might refer to as the spirit of death and murder.

It is this spirit in Museveni, his brother Salim Saleh, and Museveni's wife Janet Museveni that I went to investigate in July 2006 when I met a Seer outside Kampala. I ended up discovering the most astonishing things imaginable.

But the net result of that experience was that all my fear of the state, what it can do, and of Museveni vanished from me the next day. I had stumbled onto what in the Bible is referred to as the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil", the ultimate in knowledge of the deep mysteries of the universe.

That spirit of death and murder hangs over the other leader in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

About Mwebaze's death, Saleh had planned to mobilise soldiers and army veterans to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo to offer support security to the new government of President Laurent Kabila.

But failing to successfully convince these men to go to Congo, the task fell to Mwebaze, who easily assembled the men and these men waited for the flight at Entebbe International Airport.

For whatever reason, Saleh started to view Mwebaze as threat to his power and influence within the army and plotted against Mwebaze.

Just before Mwebaze was to have taken that flight, Saleh - who knew Mwebaze's love of money - convinced him to give up on the military mission and instead fly to Congo on a diamond business mission.

Mwebaze agreed to. Employees of Saleh's company, including some Israelis, boarded a plane.

When the plane arrived in the skies over Kasese, it came down to the ground. Later, Mwebaze was shot dead by the army in Kasese, then under the command of Brig. Nakibus Lakara.

Who gave the order for Mwebaze's murder? Who else but the man who would later be haunted by what he himself said was the spirit of Mwebaze.

It is no coinsidence that it is he, Saleh, who made the call to Lydia Draru or Lydia Atim, asking her to call Mwebaze's brother to Namowongo, only for three hit men, not Draru, to beat Kazini to death --- and then reports of a domestic quarrel conveniently fed to the media.

According to NRA fighters in Luwero, Saleh was given the nickname "Rufu" which in the languages of western Uganda means "death."

This nickname was not because of any extraordinary military achievements or bravery on the battlefield, but rather, according to the former NRA guerrillas, because it was to him that Yoweri Museveni entrusted the task of eliminating Museveni's real or perceived enemies in Luwero.

These NRA veterans say that such major assassinations as that of the first NRA commander, Lt. Ahmed Seguya and many others - including, now, the killing of Maj. Gen. James Kazini - were the core assignment of Salim Saleh during their guerrilla war.

In Kampala, most army generals, intelligence officers, and others familiar with the workings of the NRM government do not believe that Kazini was killed by Lydia Draru.

Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire's melodramatic questioning of why God allowed Kazini to die without first consulting he, Otafiire, reflects the amount of fear being felt within top military circles than that Otafiire was trying to express black humour.

The "Atmos-Fear" in Uganda after Kazini's murder

A mood of fear and conspiracy has come over Kampala since Monday night's murder of the former army commander, Maj. Gen. James Kazini.

It is reminiscent of the days following the death of Brig. Noble Mayombo, the Secretary for Defence, in May 2007.

Most people do not believe or do not want to believe that Kazini's death was the result of a domestic fight between lover and mistress.

At Kazini's home on Tuesday night, the mood among the mourners, on its own, spoke volumes, of people who believed there is more to this story than we are being told.

Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, who had told the media several months ago as he was arriving at State House Entebbe for a special NRM parting meeting that "intrigue. Intrigue" was killing the NRM, has asked if Lydia Draru, Kazini's mistress and alleged killer, might have worked with some conspirators.

If this is how much intrigue the atmosphere in Kampala has, we can only imagine what it is like inside State House, the intelligence services where the deputy director general of the External Security Organisation, Emmy Allio, no less, is living in fear of his life, and within the Presidential Guard Brigade.

For the whole of last week, there was a rumour going round the country that DP publicity secretary Betty Nambooze had died.

The fact that rumour, conspiracy theory, and fear are now the norm in Uganda, itself paints an accurate picture of the state of governance in the country today.

From now until the 2011 general election and quite possibly until Museveni's time in office, Uganda is going to grind down into an atmosphere of intrigue, unexplained murders, "car accidents", and on and on.

Museveni is now at his most scared. The intelligence reports that Libya, with support from Rwanda and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga were the hands behind the September riots in Buganda have now become the focus of Museveni's thinking.

Just as Brig. Noble Mayombo's murder in May 2007 increased tensions within the army and intelligence, Kazini's death is going to have many generals asking when their turn will come.

The atmosphere of tension in Kampala will soon equal that felt in the Rwandan capital Kigali where even government officials do not truth their thoughts with their spouses.

Whatever your opinion may be, Semujju Ibrahim Nganda’s departure from ‘Observer Media’ will have far reaching effects on what goes on at the popular bi-weekly. It will be an eye-opener to those who do not know the intricacies of the independent media, not only in Uganda but on earth.

Last week I was browsing Ugandans-at-Heart?, an internet kimeeza which not even the NRM government can ban, when I came across what amounted to Nganda’s abrupt resignation from Observer. He used the same opportunity to inform (and shock) the Democratic Party, which had frequently laid claim on him, that he was fully for Dr. Kizza Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change.
Political Career

Perhaps intending to alert the media, which seems to have ignored his presence at Dr. Besigye’s recent FDC rallies in Mukono, Nganda said he had already attended ten of them as an FDC and not a news reporter. He let us know that he had asked Observer to “adjust my status at the company because from now on politics is going to be my full-time job”.

I do not know whether he has been a director in addition to being Political Editor, but he goes on to beg Observer to permit him to continue writing “if my employer still sees some value in me…” Semujju qualifies his plea by indicating that if permitted, he will be writing his own opinions in Observer rather than news. But he is not through; Semujju goes on to reveal that he is abandoning his media career “mid-way” for politics and opinion writing, which is why he has resigned.

Lethal Contradictions:

Resigned? My opinion is that the harsh realities of this world have forced Ibrahim Semujju Nganda out of Observer and inevitably, out of mainstream journalism. Politics has again reared its ugly head and cheated us of yet another brilliant journalist. However, I think Nganda had it coming and it is a wonder he lasted this long!
Last year, Semujju’s biting pieces suddenly disappeared from the columns of Weekly Observer for a time, prompting some of us to fear that he had been bribed by the NRM into silence, or sacked. He apparently overheard us and returned with a bang.

Remember that in 2006 one of his ‘biting’ articles had landed the paper in the dock, which he shared with the soft-spoken James Tumusiime whose fault was to be Editor in Chief of Weekly Observer. They were charged with ‘sectarianism’, an addiction for very many Ugandan media workers, especially where sharp-nosed Ugandans like James Tumusiime are concerned. I want to mark this as a very serious contradiction.

Jingoism Unlimited:

Weekly Observer then became Observer when it went bi-weekly and anyone conversant with what that transition involves must salute whoever clinches it. Most of the leadings scoops were from Nganda and were focused on his crusade to “rid Uganda of dictatorship”, which to him means ousting President Yoweri Museveni. At Observer, he could not have been alone in this but he also had the additional task of being the semi-official mouthpiece of Baganda anti-NRM powers, some based at Mengo, many elsewhere.
As he became more and more politically active, Observer and Nganda became one and the same thing.

His opinions, especially on Radio Buganda left no doubt in many minds that the once independent English weekly had been silently taken over by tribal political forces. One stunning oath that made Nganda infamous was that he would slaughter a cow to celebrate over every other UPDF soldier killed on peace-keeping duties in troubled Somalia! A few soldiers have fallen on duty but I don’t know how many of Nganda’s cattle have accompanied them…

God of Commerce:

One other factor that you who merely read these articles (including this one) frequently ignore is that nearly every sensational article makes a media house less attractive to big business, irrespective of whether it is factual or fake. That is why the articles of some of Uganda’s best writers are scrutinized by the business managers of their media houses to see how many adverts (money) the biting article might kill.

Their silent decision is usually binding, as many notable pen-smiths have painfully accepted.
Nganda’s decision to quit was because he wanted to freely express his opinions and with honesty, not present them as news. This is a noble decision, but one that he should have taken about one year ago, when his well-researched and beautifully written opinions began to compete and defeat the hard news.
And as though feeling out of place, he ungracefully writes, “For me I cannot continue hiding under the comfort of The Observer anymore. Maybe Museveni will one day turn the heat against newspapers as he has threatened…” Was this a prayer that Museveni fulfills his threat?
It is not clear how Semujju, who has abandoned his professional calling ‘mid-way’, will earn a living from politics. His outburst against NRM bigwigs being funded by taxpayers speaks eloquently about financial worries in the uncertain future before FDC comes to power.

If Col. Besigye succeeds Gen. Museveni, Nganda will realise that Amama Mbabazi, Dorothy Hyuha, David Mafabi, Moses Kizige and others were facilitated by the state because NRM was in charge of the state. And that is exactly how ‘President’ Besigye will facilitate Semujju Nganda.

Kiggundu’s Heir?

I have however learnt from an article by John Serwaniko that Nganda may not be badly off, being connected to wealthy donors and very close to Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II. Serwaniko has also disclosed that Nganda may be FDC’s answer to the yawning chasm that the death of Dr. Sulaiman Kiggundu occasioned in the FDC. Mark that he joins as Kiggundu’s temporary heir, John Butime decamps to rejoin NRM.

On this score, the NRM should take care. Nganda is said to be one of those who missed getting arrested over the recent Buganda riots. Some speculate that he was even disappointed at being ‘left free’, which was probably because he was a journalist. As a politician, he will most likely get his wish and join Betty Nambooze & Co in the ranks of their brand of martyrdom.
But if NRM thinks they have removed another ‘jigger’ from journalism they should know that Nganda may now be free to ignore the professional ethics that have in the past sweetened the acid on his tongue, the bile in his stomach and cooled the volcano in his brains.

Tortured Child Ssebanga is Dead

Enock Ssebanga, the 12-year-old boy who was
almost crippled and starved to death by his parents has died at Mulago Hospital in Uganda.

Ssebanga became a topic of emotional discussion on FM stations, in taxis, office canteens and else where, in 1999, he was discovered by a Good Samaritan almost rotting to death at the cruel hands of his parents in Kyebando, a Kampala suburb.

His father Charles Kayongo and his wife Regina Nabakooza were charged with attempted murder.

256news has not yet established what has killed Ssebanga but a letter in one of the dailies by one Micheal Nsamba could shed light on the cause of his death.

In that letter written in July, the writer appealed for help to rescue a sickly Ssebanga.

“Your letter in the Daily Monitor touched me. I worked for Dr Ssempangi from February 2004 to Feb 27, 2007.Around that time Ssebanga was a student of Rookmaaker School where he had his PLE before joining Bethel College in Namulanda along Entebbe Road. Ssebanga was diagnosed with blood cancer and currently Dr Kefa has limited resources for his medication.

You can visit him in Ddandira, Mukono and come to his rescue. My phone is 0754-625346 or you can call the head teacher on 0752814090. You can publish his predicament and help him get people who can help him otherwise, he is dying,” wrote Mr. Micheal Nsamba,

Dr. Kefa’s NGO took him up and looked after him till he was able to go to school.

CMI boss Mugira sued over torture

Uganda soldiers torturing and killing Ugandans with brutality

Brig. James Mugira, the Chief of Military Intelligence, is in danger of losing his job and being banned from holding any public office, if he loses a High Court case that begins today.

In this landmark case, Hoima Town Council LC-III Chairman, Francis Atugonza, wants court to punish Mugira and four other Army officers for allegedly torturing him. In April this year, Atugonza was arrested, detained and allegedly tortured by soldiers attached to the Joint Anti-Terrorism? Taskforce (JATT) where Mugira is the overall coordinator.

JATT comprises of soldiers from CMI and intelligence operatives from the internal and external security organisations, and the Police. Atugonza filed Miscellaneous Cause Number 118 of 2009 at the Kampala High Court two months ago, through his lawyers Nyanzi, Kiboneka and Mbabazi Advocates. The case is against Mugira, Maj. Benson Monday, Maj. Abel Kandiho, Lt. C.K. Assiimwe and Lt. Alex B. Tumushabe in their personal capacities, plus the Attorney General.

The Observer has learnt that the government has asked Justice Yorokamu Bamwine’s court to lock the public and the press out of the proceedings. The government argues that the proceedings might reveal details that will compromise national security. But critics say this is futile because the judgment will not be delivered “in camera” but in full view of the public.

In addition to praying court to declare that his detention and torture violated his rights as enshrined in Chapter Four of the Constitution, Atugonza wants court to declare that “the respondents are unfit to hold offices as members of the UPDF and/or any public office or state institution, agency or organ of Uganda.”

Atugonza, the Secretary for Trade and Industry in the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), is also seeking “an injunction restraining, stopping, prohibiting and forbidding the respondents from continuing to act in the offices they currently occupy, or as members of the UPDF or any public office.”

If this case succeeds, as lawyer Mohammed Mbabazi believes it will, Mugira and the other soldiers would not only lose their jobs, they would also be barred from taking up other public appointments in future.
The case is particularly important in the campaign against torture by state security organs because it targets individual soldiers who commit heinous crimes under the guise of interrogating suspects.

For years now, soldiers of the CMI and JATT have been torturing and in some cases killing Ugandans with brutality reminiscent of the dark days of Idi Amin. And no one ever raised a finger at them. Instead, the closest some victims of this torture have come to justice is a few pronouncements by the Uganda Human Rights Commission that the government, represented by the Attorney General, should pay the victims a few million shillings in compensation. Even then, the government takes years to pay; it now owes torture victims Shs 2 billion.

Human rights activists have long warned that this vicarious version of justice was not addressing the problem. Without fear of any punishment, CMI and JATT operatives have continued torturing suspects with heart-wrenching brutality. And if Atugonza’s testimony is anything to go by, President Museveni’s security organs seem to enjoy torturing their victims.

Kololo torture house

In his affidavit in support of the case, Atugonza detailed how he was arrested from Tal Cottages in Lubaga, beaten up and taken to a house on Plot 54 Kololo Hill Lane, which serves as JATT’s headquarters. The house, according to court documents, is adjacent to the Embassy of Denmark.

“Lt. Assiimwe spat in my face and said that I was a cockroach and that I could be done away with a little fumigation,” Atugonza says in the affidavit. “Lt. Assiimwe then repeatedly poured cold water in my face and as I tried to wipe my face and eyes, I was hit with a heavy object an inch from my right eye upon which I fell down with blood gushing out”.

After four days in the Kololo torture house, Atugonza was charged with obtaining money by false pretence at Mwanga II Road Court and was released on bail. Speaking about his official’s detention and torture, FDC President Kizza Besigye said the party would sue individuals like Security Minister Amama Mbabazi. But with legal opinion divided on how easy it would be to convict Mbabazi, it is not surprising that the minister is not among the respondents. But lawyer Mohammed Mbabazi says Mugira and company should take personal responsibility for the acts of torture committed under their watch.

Chapter 208 of the Constitution requires the Army to be professional and disciplined. The lawyer is expected to argue that JATT officers violated this provision and other relevant laws and should be punished to avoid impunity.
“If the President as commander-in-chief can remove pips from a disgraced Police officer, why can’t the Constitution remove pips?” Mbabazi told The Observer last week.

Mugira responds

The Observer has seen an affidavit sworn by Mugira on September 25, in which he opposes Atugonza’s application. He says he has never met Atugonza and that on April 11, 2009, when the complainant was arrested, he (Mugira) was out of Uganda.
“CMI, which I am in charge of, is an intelligence unit of the UPDF and does not use torture as a method of work,” Mugira swears, repeating a well rehearsed line that however contradicts testimonies of torture victims.

“I have never given any directives or been involved in any operation or matter to do with the applicant (Atugonza)”.
Mugira further quotes his lawyers, Nangwala, Rezida and Company Advocates, as having told him that he cannot be liable for a matter that he has “no personal connection to”.

Mugira, a lawyer by training, says he has no reason to believe Atugonza’s accusations because all JATT operations are carried out according to the organ’s standard operating procedures (SOPs), which were issued by the late Noble Mayombo on November 20, 2002. According to a copy of SOPs seen by The Observer, JATT is only supposed to detain terrorism suspects unless otherwise approved by the overall operations commander – in this case Mugira.

Section 4d of the SOPs reads: “No suspect shall be subjected to any form of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, while undergoing interrogation or any form of questioning. Any infringement of this rule shall strictly lead to individual criminal liability and punishment of the perpetrator.”

Welcome move

Atugonza’s court application is being greeted by activists as a more potent weapon against torture. A Human Rights Watch activist, for instance, says it should help check the impunity of intelligence operatives.

The chairman of the Uganda Human Rights Commission, Meddie Kaggwa, said the commission was going to follow the case closely as it could set some precedents that could be useful to the commission’s tribunals. He supported the principle of holding individuals answerable for acts of torture even if they perpetrated these acts in the service of state agencies.

This, he said, was the reason the commission and other stakeholders drafted the anti-torture bill, which they hope will be tabled in Parliament soon.
“You will have to think twice before doing something (read torture) if you know that some one can bring action against you as an individual,” Kaggwa said at the weekend.

One challenge for lawyer Mbabazi will be to convince Justice Yorokamu Bamwine to grant the declarations against Mugira and company, especially since the anti-torture law has not yet been enacted. But according to Uganda Law Society President, Bruce Kyerere, the application has a 60% chance of succeeding. “It depends on what evidence you bring,” Kyerere said, hailing Atugonza’s court application as a step in the right direction.

By Uganda on Wed 26 of Aug., 2009 12:53 BST

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