Mayengo escapes the gallows over treason

Israel Mayengo. Photo by Geofrey Sseruyange

What you need to know:

Charged. Barely a year after taking power on January 26, 1986, 17 people were in court facing treason charges. This week in Witness, we take you back to October 1986 when former National Consultative Council member and a member of the National Resistance Army in the Diaspora, Israel Mayengo, was arrested and spent six months shuttling between Luzira prison and the High Court in Kampala. He shares his story with Saturday Monitor’s Henry Lubega.

In October 1986, I hosted two German friends on an investment fact-finding mission. They wanted to set up a farm tractor-assembling plant in Uganda.
The Agriculture minister had given us a 7pm appointment. I had the company of my friend Prof Serwada and our female translator from Makerere University. We decided to take the Germans on a tour of the source of the Nile in Jinja, before the appointment with the minister that evening.

Shortly after the roadblock at the Nile bridge, we were stopped by a military Land Rover, which had come from behind and overtaken us, and one of the occupants waved us to stop. A soldier walked out towards our cars, and asked where we were going. I told him we were going to the source of the Nile, and he asked for our identity cards. He got them from us, including the passports of the two Germans, and he walked away with them back to his car and he instructed us to follow him.
We followed him up to Gaddafi Barracks in Jinja, where he directed us to sit in a room and wait for him. That was around 1pm. At around 3.30pm, he told us to go. Outside, we found an armed soldier on each of our two vehicles. He told us to follow him.

The ping pong continues
From the barracks, we went to Jinja Police Station. We parked outside as he entered the main building; where he stayed up to around 9.30pm. When he came out, he instructed us to follow him. We drove up to the Parliament building in Kampala, where we reached at around 11pm. He ordered us to follow him up to the third floor, which was part of the President’s office then. When we got there, he ordered us to remove our shoes and sit down.
He asked which hotel the Germans were sleeping in and I told him Hotel Diplomat. He then told them to wear their shoes, but one of the Germans asked: “How about these gentlemen?”
“You forget those ones,” the soldier barked in response. I later learnt they were taken back to the hotel and had their rooms searched. The following morning, at 6am, they were deported.

As our translator was taken back to university, Prof Serwada and I were transferred that Friday night to Central Police Station. The next morning, at around 10am, a policeman came and shouted out Prof Serwada’s name. When he went out, he did not return.
After another almost two hours of waiting, the same policeman came and called me out. On the stairs from the cells, he asked me: “Do you know anyone called Nyanzi?” I said I had heard of the Commerce minister but I had never seen him in person. He said: “Fine, let us go.”
I was given my shoes and watch. He escorted me towards the exit. Outside the police station, there were soldiers lining on both sides of the stairs. I walked through to a waiting car.

Inside the car, I found a man in a grey suit with grey hair. We did not talk. Other soldiers entered. The one seated in the co-driver’s seat told the driver: “Kyambogo east”. We moved in silence until we reached the Wampewo, Port Bell Road roundabout, when the same man murmured something inaudible and the driver diverted towards Bugolobi. That was when I learnt we were going to Luzira.
It was at the prisoner registration point that I got to know that the grey-haired man seated next to me was minister Nyanzi. When they asked for his name, he said: “I am Everisto Nyanzi.” I turned and said: “Ehh, it is you, minister Nyanzi! I am Israel Mayengo.”
“Ehh, interesting. I have a letter from you on my desk,” he replied.

We were put in a cell with about 13 prisoners, including Andrew Kayiira, Francis Bwengye (a former presidential candidate) and others I did not know. That Saturday, at around 5pm, the cell door opened to usher in another prisoner. It was Paulo Muwanga. He came and sat next to me, leaning against the wall. Later that evening, someone I do not recall brought in a cluster of sweet bananas and we all struggled to get a finger. I passed the last one to Muwanga.
Later, when he was out of earshot, Bwengye reprimanded me: “How dare you give Muwanga our bananas? I do not like that man. If I was left with him in a cell, I would strangle him.”
After three days, on a Tuesday morning, we were paraded out to board a military truck. The head of the military men, who had come for us, was David Tinyenfunza [now David Sejusa]. Soldiers were seated on top of the Tata lorry, with their legs dangling on our heads.

The charge
At court, all the 17 of us were accused of holding meetings at different times and venues with the aim of toppling the government. I do not recall who the judge was but Peter Kabatsi was the State Prosecutor.
For the next six months, we were taken to court under similar condition after every 14 days. Every time we were in court, the prosecutor would say investigations were still ongoing and we would be sent back to Luzira, until the case was dismissed due to lack of evidence.