Besigye resorts to reading, jogging to kill prison stress

I think the prisons staff really endeavour to act professionally in a county where institutions are not allowed to function. To be fair, I think they do their best amid the challenges, it is an institution one can be proud of, again, despite all the room for improvement.

The Uganda Prisons Service is evidence that all is not lost for Uganda, we can be better and our people deserve better across board.

One thing though I think they have not resisted is the undue influences of the other arms of government – the police and intelligence services – in getting access to prisoners. Because once you are in prison you are under the court; you are in the line of the Judiciary, so a police officer to have access must go through court for he is an interested party.

But sadly, they still do illegally access the prisoners with the permission of prisons officers both in 2005-2006 and even now, this has persisted.

In fact, in 2005-2006 they came and got to some of my colleagues, intimidated them into signing for amnesty and made money offers and as a result my co-accused buckled and signed into amnesty even when there was no case against us.

While there this time – 10 years later – I learnt that some prisoners were actually removed from Luzira, taken to meet one army general and I understand they were taken to the field to help him recover guns. And, of course, nothing was recovered and they were returned to the prisons.

I am sure you heard what happened in the case of the Muslim clerics who were brought to court and one of the suspects wasn’t in prison and had left prison without any knowledge of court and there was no explanation how he had left prison. Those are very serious matters. The prisons authorities must be concerned about such developments.
Curiously, when and where the prisons service has failed to resist the pressures of the other arms of government you notice these are usually political cases. They don’t do it with cases like robbery and murder.

It is politics and that is very dangerous because you have cases that have collapsed because people have been killed in prison.

It is reason to worry when one is politically detained in these facilities. And in my case it was a big worry considering what happened in Moroto, and to know that the same hand can reach out for you inside the prison ward was quite scary.

So it is extremely important that all Ugandans are worried about this matter. Today it might be Besigye; tomorrow it might be [President] Museveni behind the bars and me in charge. So Museveni should protect himself before he goes there. So we [should] create institutions that are transparent, have checks and balances and protection for all citizens in all circumstances.

Mr Museveni should not think that because something works for you today it cannot be an inconvenience tomorrow. The whole question of bail becoming a right for all to apply is something we got clarified through my application to the Constitutional Court because of fighting these cases.

That petition was ferociously opposed by the Attorney General who was talking about how bail must be restricted. A short while later, it was Sam Kutesa, John Nasasira, [and] Jim Muhwezi presenting to court my authority (Kizza Besigye vs AG) and, of course, they benefited from it. So people shouldn’t be short-sighted.

Let’s build institutions that serve all fairly and equitably. This is why we should be keen to protect the safety and rights of prisoners for we never know what the future holds. But even then, it is paramount that we treat fellow Ugandans with dignity and equity.

Hobbies in prison
Anyway, in Luzira one settles down to occupy themselves. It is important that you live as normally as you can. You don’t allow tension and constriction of space to overcome you. So yes, I occupied myself with doing some reading. One gets some time to read all kinds of things, some of which I read when out of prison. But the one I found time to engage with was studying the Bible.

It was very refreshing and empowering because there are many things that relate to the challenges we grapple with; the question of our spirituality which we don’t in our ordinary life of hustle and bustle focus on. So I got significant enrichment in that light.

I had time to read and reread books I have read before. There are books I read and cannot get enough of, so I keep rereading them. One of them is Animal Farm by George Orwell, though I didn’t have it in prison. But I reread it many times and get amazed by the incredible wit of this man to translate what happens in all our lives into those few pages in the most dramatic way.

In prison, I reread Nicolo Machiavelli’s works. It is amazing what some of our people do and what this man was projecting so many centuries ago. So I read about the economy as well.

Happily, access to the newspapers is another one of the significant improvements in the prisons, that if you have money you can access newspapers. So I did read especially the Monitor, The Observer and Bukedde. The only government newspaper I read and buy is Bukedde. I don’t waste my money on New Vision; I think it has declined beyond benefiting from my pocket. I must say even you the Monitor need to pull up your socks. The quality of print media is wanting at this time.

Red Pepper is not allowed in the prison, though even when I am out of jail I don’t buy it. I guess it is not accepted because of the explicit pictures they carry. Don’t forget that Upper Prison is for only men detained for long sentences, so I think there is a belief, and maybe well founded at that, that if you have those explicit images it may urge behaviour that the prisons authorities consider improper.

One can say it is controversial, but homosexuality is one of the behaviours the prisons fights. I found a rather interesting rule that applied to my female visitors.

First, I used to see them all wear lesus (kitenge) and thought it was normal. But it persisted and ticked my curiosity because everyone was coming in a lesu, so I wondered and inquired from them.

I was later told that women who come wearing pants have to buy or hire a lesu from the gate to be allowed in. I don’t know if the fear is that if male inmates see them they can jump and rape them.
Possibly the ban on Red Pepper is shaped by the same line of thought against women coming in with pants and other revealing attire.

Receiving visitors
Communications and visitors is one area prisons are really particular about. Even visitors who came to see me were subjected to thorough checks, their socks, belts, pants removed and every body part checked in and out.

Expectedly, no one from government visited me and even some of our supporters who felt intimidated or feared harassment did not turn up. There was a register for all my visitors so some people feared to be traced. But I got visitors from all corners of the country.

The visiting hours for Luzira are Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But because of the many visitors I received, the authorities set aside Tuesday and Thursday for my visitors whom I would see for about two hours in the afternoon.

I started seeing them in groups of 10 to 12 to be able to meet with all. But still, the time was not enough and sadly many of our supporters bounced. I was certainly humbled by these visits; it kept me going and looking forward to the next day.

Some visitors came and we prayed and that kept me strong. Others brought me food items and other utilities that I gladly shared with my fellow inmates. Only raw food is allowed in the prison, so we had one of us who did the cooking and we were impressed by the food this gentleman cooked. He is serving a sentence for murder and has so far served 12 years.

When you get to the prison you get to know your way around such things as laundry, ironing and hair cutting. I partook of the services of a barber who uses a razor and comb and does quite a good job. The currency there is soap and even during the Sunday services, soap is what we gave as offertory.

I attended all Sunday services and visited all the churches. Some of the services are led by inmates.

There are a number of games and sports, including serious football teams like my own Manchester United which is always a victor there, but not a victor outside the prison these days. I didn’t take part in the sports, but got time to exercise and jog.

Prison within a prison
My interaction with other inmates was limited and I was actually in a prison within a prison with one guard keeping 24-hour watch over me in my cell. Even inmates who wanted to speak to me had to seek permission.

I met former Tooro [Kingdom] prime minister [John Sanyu] Katuramu twice in the corridor during visiting days, Prof [Christopher] Bakuneta (the Makerere University professor accused of rape). He is quite an interesting man who has already settled in and leads one of the volley ball teams there.

I also met a Nigerian intellectual who was convicted for human trafficking. He has written a number of books and was keen on writing on my biography, but we didn’t get time together. Of course journalists were not among those allowed to see me.

There was a photo of me with [FDC president] Gen Mugisha Muntu that made rounds on social media and was published widely. There is a particular lady who seems to be the only one allowed by the prisons service to take pictures from prison.

On that day, Gen Muntu came to visit me. I found him seated in the OC’s office. The OC too was seated and there was this lady whom I didn’t bother about since I was told Gen Muntu was the only one visiting me.

I noticed she was taking pictures using her iPad and not a camera and imagined she was one of the prisons staff until she walked to me after my chat with Muntu and introduced herself as a New Vision journalist.

I was shocked because in 2005 we struggled to get clearance for a camera man to take my picture from Luzira for the 2006 presidential election. It was [now Kampala minister] Beti Kamya at the time who moved left, right and centre to secure my photograph for the campaign posters and she was really tossed about.

So on reflecting on the hustle Kamya went through to take my photo for the 2006 campaign posters, I was really surprised that this journalist had access with her iPad to the prison.

Anyway, I asked her to send me copies of the photos she took and shared my email with her. But I am yet to check all my emails, maybe she sent it.

However, I think it is unfair for the prisons service to allow only one journalist from a government newspaper access. They should set standards so that the process is fair and transparent.

This particular journalist, I later found out, regularly covers the prisons because even the time the Archbishop [Lwanga Kizito] visited the prisoners she was present and she does cover all functions at Luzira. Quite obviously, the photo was stage managed for reasons best known to them.

I think prisons staff are generally professional compared with other institutions. They have held on reasonably well, short of the areas I have pointed out. You may see a few overzealous ones seeking to attract the attention of those in government that they are pro-government and are harsh to people like me.

You see a bit of that occasionally, but on the whole the prisons staff are generally professional; they work under hard conditions, their pay is meagre, but they try their best. I am fairly happy with them. Even when there seems to be high handedness, one sympathises with their view point. A case in point is the prisons van I used to be brought in which is thoroughly caged and secured.

The reason they call it maximum security prison is that people there are potentially dangerous so it is understandable what precautions they take. You find walls have layers; you scale one and find another layer. So it is intended and indeed some of the people there are dangerous.

Few people might remember (Richard) Arinaitwe, not the one who attacked me, but the serial killer who murdered a lady at then Equitoria Hotel. He is in Luzira Upper Prison. Such people are dangerous; not that they cannot reform, but they are dangerous.

The issue though is that in political cases like mine, it is not that they believe that I am dangerous but it is choreographed to create fear to those out there. It is to say, ‘look at him and where he is’. It is to send a message to our people and tell them if this can happen to him, what about you? It is part of the whole intimidation programme any dictatorship prides itself in doing.

As I have said before, as long as one sets out and continues to challenge a dictatorship then you must prepare yourself to have prison as your second home. So I prepared myself long time ago and I believe I will be in and out till this dictatorship ends.

Happily, I believe it is about to end. It can’t sustain itself the way it is, but as long as it is here, prison will remain something we have to contend with and we must continue to do everything to improve the conditions of our prisons.

And this is close to the heart for some of us whom the dictatorship has reduced to the waiting lounge of prison, that any time you can be thrown in.

Even those who consider themselves not waiting should ensure we improve these facilities, prepare them, not as punishing but correctional facilities so that those who commit offences come out as better citizens of Uganda and not hardened criminals.”