On February 8, at around half-past-midday, we were in a meeting at Womeya School in Kyebando.

The parish chief had convened [the meeting for] all parish chairpersons to listen to guidance from [officials of a] certain non-governmental organisation (NGO) on how to handle marriage and family-related issues.

While we were still in the meeting, a double-cabin pick-up entered the school compound and one occupant dressed in civilian clothes came out and entered the room. The man said: ‘Kasato, first come out; I need to talk to you’.

I went with him and as we were standing outside, I saw two other people dressed in Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) uniforms with guns.  I asked [the man who had called me out] what he wanted.

He slapped me and with the help of the other officers, I was arrested and dragged into their vehicle. When I entered their vehicle, they hand-cuffed and blindfolded me with a black piece of cloth.

Then they started beating me while asking me questions [about allegations of collecting evidence for Mr Kyagulanyi during the January 14 elections].

Issue

I told them that it was true that I collected the evidence, but I had already submitted it to [Bobi Wine’s] National Unity Platform (NUP) party headquarters in Kamwokya [a Kampala suburb]. The evidence was for election results and we wanted to use it to challenge Museveni’s victory in the 2021 polls.

They asked me about NUP’s next plan. I told them that I am the chairman of the constituency and at my level the NUP National Executive Committee (NEC) has never given us the next plan after general elections and I referred them to NEC.

While we were moving, they started beating me while handcuffed and blindfolded. They stopped somewhere and they shifted me from the double-cabin pick-up to another vehicle [I suspected to be a drone] and they told me to lie down. They (soldiers) started beating me with heavy sticks while asking me the same questions they had asked me before.

They first detained me at Special Investigations Directorate or SID (in Kireka, Wakiso District) where I spent only three hours. 

While I was in their custody, one officer came and asked me why I don’t support Museveni. I replied: Why don’t you also support Bobi Wine? From there they started beating me seriously and one officer came and beat me on one side of my cheek and [my ear on the side] stopped hearing completely.

Then another officer came into the cells and asked, in Kiswahili, the cell guard: ‘Who is this person’? They told him that he was arrested from Kyebando. He told them that ‘this is not our person’ and he ordered them to take me where I belong.

Again, they put me in a vehicle and drove me to Mbuya while handcuffed and blindfolded.

In Mbuya, I realised I was at the headquarters of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). I was taken before an army officer to get my particulars and later took me to the cells where I found other suspects.

While in the cells, a group of soldiers came and asked whether there was a new person in the cell and suspects responded ‘yes we have and he is here’. The soldiers started beating me. 

In the night, two other people told them that I had refused to give them information that they wanted. 

On the same night, their boss came and ordered them to suspend me in the air. They tied me up so that my feet could not touch the ground.

After a while, another soldier came and asked the cell guard why I was tied up like that? They told him that those were the orders given to them. The officer then ordered them to remove me from where I was tied.  Then he ordered them to take me to the Go-down where suspects were sleeping.

When I reached the Go-down, I found several young boys and, fortunately some of them were boys from Wakiso who knew me. 

One of them was a boy who contested for the LC2 seat in Kyengera on the NUP ticket. He had stayed there for a long time and was actually on the committee of those that run the cell. He gave me a mat and a bedsheet then I slept because I was almost dying.

In the morning, the officer who [the previous evening] instructed that they remove me from the hanging point came back and called me. He told me that now ‘I am going to take you back to where I found you because I was helping you and I do not want the bosses to know about it’.

He handcuffed me, blindfolded me and put me back on my hanging point.

In the morning, at around 7.30am, they called me to make a statement and they asked me the same questions. After recording the statement, they told me to sign it which I did. He then said he is taking it to his bosses.

After one hour, he came back and said ‘we are taking you to court because you have refused to tell us what we wanted’.

At around 11.30am, I with eight others were taken to Unit Disciplinary Court at Mbuya where I was told that on November 18, 2020, while in areas of Wakiso, I was seen putting on military-related clothes yet UPDF has monopoly over it. I denied the offence.

The court remanded me to Makindye Military Barracks prison from February 9 – 17, 2021.

At Makindye barracks, I was taken to the military hospital because I was not in a good shape before entering the cell.

I spent two days in the hospital while on serious medication. 

On February 17, the officers who are in-charge of taking suspects to court told us that they were taking us to Bombo Military Court. 

They handcuffed, blindfolded us but as we were moving, one of us spotted Lubugi wetland and that was when we knew that we were going to Nansana and were probably being taken to UPDF 1st Division headquarters court in Kakiri, Wakiso District.

When we reached Kakiri, I asked the officer to allow me make telephone calls to my people so that they could come and stand as surety for me. 

I called the Wakiso District chairman (Matia Lwanga Bwanika) and told him to mobilise people and to come UPDF 1st Division court in Kakiri.

When we entered court, they read me the same charges they had read to me at the Unit Disciplinary Court in Mbuya.

My lawyers [sent by NUP] asked the court to grant me court bail on court conditions and I was bailed out and even up to now I am still reporting on court bail.”

Disappearing Ugandans

Over the past few months, hordes of Ugandans, especially the youth, have been rounded up by unidentified people who relatives of the victims suspect to be security operatives.

Many of those who have been picked up have not been in contact with their loved ones since. It has taken months for some, and the crackdown seems to continue.

The different accounts this publication has gathered about many of those arrests, in fact almost all show that they are supporters of the National Unity Platform (NUP) party and their loved ones suspect that the arrests are politically motivated.

NUP party and its leader, Mr Kyagulanyi, have on many occasions cried out about what they say is the continued harassment and illegal detention of their supporters and members.

 Joseph Nkoyoyo Kyakuwa has just returned home from abduction. Courtesy photo

Two NUP supporters rotting away in their homes

https://www.independent.co.ug/two-nup-supporters-rotting-away-in-their-homes/ 

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Two National Unity Platform-NUP supporters who were allegedly kidnapped from Katoogo village in Nama sub county in Mukono North constituency are rotting away at their homes after undergoing a series of torture. Twenty-three-year-old Joseph Nkoyoyo Kyakuwa and 53-year-old Fred Kamya Yuya sustained serious injuries but they were reportedly warned by their tormentors to stay away from public health facilities if they want to enjoy peace for the rest of their lives.

The duo went missing on December 22, 2020, together with thirteen others during the fierce Mukono North parliamentary campaigns. The campaigns pit the incumbent Member of Parliament and National Resistance Movement-NRM party candidate, Ronald Kibuule and National Unity Platform-NUP candidate and MP elect, Abdullah Kiwanuka Mulimamayuni.

Yuya was later dropped at Kavule, Nansana municipality in Wakiso on December 24, 2020, under terrible condition. He has since been hiding for fear of his life. Unfortunately, his feet have started rotting up to the knee joints. Kyakuwa who was also dropped at Kavule, Nansana municipality on February 6, is also complaining of pain in his right leg, severe pain in the chest and poor visibility.

Much as the duo is still in pain and traumatized because of the torture, they have pleaded with their relatives to find simple remedies to treat them at home instead of taking them to hospital for fear of fresh abduction. Kyakuwa who spoke to URN while trembling said that he was picked from home at around 10 pm together with his friends, Sula Kiwanuka and Juma Mukasa who are still missing.

The two had paid him a visit at Katoogo trading center. They were all handcuffed and moved into a white van before their faces were blindfolded with black masks. “Ever since we were abducted, masks have been covered on our faces and tied in the neck, they only spared space for the mouth to enable us to eat food once in a while. We were subjected to severe beatings almost every hour. It is hard to describe how the torture chambers looked like but we were stepping on tiles full of itchy water, they could at times pour on our entire bodies,” Kyakuwa recalls.

He says the torture chamber seemed to be big and full of people who were yelling out of pain and were not allowed to talk to each other.

Kyakuwa notes that prior to their release, they were taken to another facility for treatment. “We were given tablets and injections that helped regenerate some energy in our bodies. At that center, they could do a routine roll calling of members,” he said.

Kyakuwa recalls hearing the abductors calling names of other victims of torture such as Patrick Bagambe, Fred Jjingo, Rashid Kawunda, Sulaiman Kiwanuka and Junior Ainebyona. He believes that some of the torture victims came from Kyotera, Mpigi, Kampala, Mubende and Mityana districts.

Kyakuwa’s father, Joseph Ssekimwanyi is scared about the life of his son which is deteriorating each passing day. According to Kyakuwa, his son can no longer move and experiences nightmares that force him to wake up shouting out loudly pleading for forgiveness whenever he tries to sleep.

Yuya, a father of 20 children and one pregnant wife cannot move because his legs are rotting away following two days torture. According to Yuya, he is currently unable to work and feed his family because of severe torture.

Byekwaso Venensio, the Katoogo LC 1 chairperson says the two torture victims are part of the four people who went missing in his area. He notes that he reported the matter at Mukono police station and has tried searching for the other missing people in vain. He appeals to whoever is concerned to at least release the residents in whichever condition they are.

Mukono Division Police Commander, Abubakar Musiho acknowledges receiving reports from Nama sub-county police station about the re-appearance of the residents claimed to have been abducted. He says they have embarked on investigations to establish what could have happened.

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URN