VIDEO: Why #Museveni is patron of #Uganda torture - from Saul to Paul!!!!

"I don't know torture. I have educated myself on many things but I have never known the boundary between what is torture and what is not. I know the NRA people tie these people when they arrest them.  They tie their hands backward.  I am now being told this is torture."

    1986 - Museveni addressing international media.

"What is the Geneva Convention on war? I have never read it."

    1987 - Museveni during the BBC Panorama program.

For the first time since Museveni made the above and more other reckless statements 29 years ago, two days ago on 15th May 2017 he opportunistically came out pretending to be against torture. In his letter to his top security managers, he justified torture by citing the infamous proverb thus "a thriving dog pays with its back being caned."  He tactfully turned around to reluctantly discourage the use of torture. In his usual style, he wisely saw it fit to dupe Ugandans and the world that he is an advocate for human rights and indeed his statement has made global headlines.

His statement has been precipitated by the recent flooding of social media with gruesome pictures of victims of torture at the hands of his security officers.  Hardly six months ago, in Rwenzori region his security forces gruesomely killed over one hundred unarmed civilians, burnt their dead bodies before inhumanely degradingly humiliating the captives. Museveni handsomely rewarded the Operation Commander of that operation, Gen. Elwelu with a promotion, appointment to head the Land Forces and was awarded the Rwenzori Medal for exemplary performance.

Torture under Museveni dates to his Bush War days where detaining of victims in mud flooded underground cells, mob beatings, tying of Kandoya style a.k.a Three Piece and Kafuuni (smashing of the skull) was the order of the day.  At the time, the victims were mostly members of the NRA who would be suspected of being disloyal or enemy agents and kidnapped UPC local functionaries like zonal Chairmen and Youth Wingers. The only UPC member who was kidnapped but survived being gruesomely killed by the NRA was the former District Commissioner (DC) of Luwero district, Nathan Kalemanzira just because he was a Munyarwanda.

When the NRA captured power in 1986, the old Bush War torture methods were adopted in dealing with dissenters, more especially the former Baganda FEDEMO/UFM supporters and the defeated 'Northerners'.  It was the highhandedness and gross human rights abuses by Museveni's NRA that fueled the Northern Uganda insurgency.  The gruesome physical torture, forced disappearances, and summary executions were among the adopted counter insurgency methods by the NRA.  Gross human rights abuses by Museveni's NRA in Acholi, Teso and Karamoja, were well documented by local and international human rights organisations.  Please refer to A BRILLIANT GENOCIDE which RT aired multiple times.

The late 1980s and early 1990s were characterised by gruesome tortures by military intelligence at its different stations countrywide.  At the Makindye dungeons, at Lubiri Barracks Main quarter guard and the Lower Gate cells opposite Kibuye round about, at Katabi barracks in Entebbe, at the 157 Brigade Headquarters in Mbale under Matayo Kyaligonza and his band of Rwandese Intelligence officers, 7th battalion in Jinja, 49th Battalion in Kihihi, 75th Battalion in Katebwa - Rwenzori, 167 Brigade Headquarters in Lira and to a smaller extent at the headquarters of Military Intelligence at Basiima House.  The dumping and humiliation of former UNLA soldiers and suspected insurgents (referred to as lodgers) at Kiburara and Luzira Prisons respectively helped fuel the insurgency in Northern Uganda.  In Lubiri Barracks under Captain Gayiira, the Division Intelligence Officer, dead bodies of victims would be hanged on the perimeter wall before being riddled with bullets so as to look as if the victims had been shot as they attempted to escape.

With the opening of political space in the mid 1990s, a new phenomenon of silencing political dissent through arbitrary arrests, torture, and detention without trial developed.  Museveni established the Joint Antiterrorism Task Force (JATT) under the guise of fighting terrorism.  It came along with the establishment of the notorious ungazetted torture and illegal detention facilities commonly known as Safe Houses.  To supplement JATT, Museveni created the notorious Operation Wembley which was designed to deplete the countryside of imaginary suspected PRA rebel infiltrators.  Then came the notorious Sure House on Bombo Road, Kalangala Action Plan (KAP) under Major Kakoza Mutale and the Gulu based Popular Intelligence Network (PIN) who caused mayhem.

JATT under Brig. Kayanja Muhanga (brother to Journalist Mwenda) was reputed for dumping their dead victims in the Golf Course.  Later its headquarters in Kololo distinguished itself for gruesomely torturing its victims during the reign of Captain Joseph Kamusiime.  The Clement Hill based, Operation Wembley under Brig. Elly Kayanja, Godfrey Musana, Bageya and others, was reputed for torturing, maiming, extorting and summarily executing its victims in broad daylight.  Its regional offices were manned by among others; Captain Rwakanuma and Captain Rudahigwa at Kamukuzi in, Lt. Shiraje at Bugema in Mbale, Maj. Joel Walusimbi in Masaka, and Cadre Amon Rutenta in Fort Portal.

It was after public outcry that Operation Wembley evolved into the Kireka based Violent Crime Crack Unit (VCCU) under ASP Magara, Col. Charles Tusiime, Godfrey Musana and other rogues.  VCCU evolved into Rapid Response Unit (RRU) which in turn also gave rise to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) that has of recent teamed up with the dreaded Flying Squad and established base at the notorious Nalufenya torture facility.  The choice of Nalufenya (50 Kms away) in Jinja was precipitated by the desire to get away from the public eye in Kampala and to complicate ease of access to the facility by human rights activists and journalists and to tie down dead tortured bodies with rocks and dump them in the Nile.

Over the years, reports by local and international human rights organisations have highlighted the appalling state of gross abuses by Museveni's security agencies.  The regime has made it a custom to rubbish off these reports as baseless.  One such alarming report was by Human Rights Watch titled "STATE OF PAIN; TORTURE IN UGANDA".  Instead, acts of torture have been steadily escalating unabetted to the extent that Ugandans have learnt to live with them in the hope of divine intervention. No security officer has ever been held accountable over torture under the Museveni regime.  As he stated 29 years ago, even in his yesterday's missive, he made it clear that he is not yet convinced that his agencies carry out acts of torture thus; ".... if it (torture) was being used as I see some groups claiming in the media."

Museveni fully supports the use of both physical and mental torture as a means of humiliating, suppressing and subduing his real and perceived political opponents into submission to his whims. State inspired gruesome torture fits well into his designs of reigning over a terrorised and fear stricken population.  Byamukama is lucky that he was not killed and dumped or branded an armed robber killed in a shoot out with the police.

It’s because a Good Samaritan leaked his whereabouts around mid April 2016 and his captors panicked.  He is their own - LC III Chairman for Kamwenge Town Council and District NRM Chairman hence why they took him to an expensive private hospital where they parted with the bill of UGX 27 million. 

Thousands of Museveni's torture victims will never see justice.   His Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) is meant to provide a cover up for regime excesses.  Parliament did a disservice to Ugandans by conniving with the executive to exonerate strict liability for torture from the police as an institution. That way whenever acts of torture are complained about, the institution of the police and the regime pushes it to individual police officers but behind the curtains the regime does all within its means to get such individuals off the hook.

Therefore, as long as Museveni remains in power, torture will continue and Ugandans are yet to see and should prepare for the worst.

INFORMATION IS POWER AND DEFIANCE IS THE WAY TO GO