Tale of the princess of the tombs

Clad in a gomesi and seated on the dusty ground huddled with a dozen or so desperate commoners was Nalinya Princess Alice Namika. She looked worried and implored gun-totting soldiers to spare her life. Outside the fence of the UNESCO-certified World Heritage Site, seven people shot as the military stormed the burial ground of the Buganda kings, were being ferried for treatment. In normal times, Princess Nalinya would be received with high dignity and accorded royal honour. Not at this moment. People caught in the confusion ran in different directions while others took cover and crawled to safety.

Daily Monitor Senior Reporter Tabu Butagira spoke with Princess Nalinya as bullets flew overhead and asked her what she thought of the fire that on Tuesday night razed the royal mausoleum, and unfolding subsequent events:

“I am Princess Nalinya Namika, the representative of the Buganda royal family in charge of the tombs. By profession I am a lawyer. I began overseeing the tombs of our beloved kings Daudi Chwa, Mutesa I, Mwanga and Mutesa II in 1999. We consider this site as sacred. When I arrived here on Tuesday night, I found the tombs were already burning. We tried to get help from government fire fighters but the help was not coming. Those who were around told me the first fire started after an explosion. So, they extinguished it. Again there was another explosion which sparked another fire and they again tried to put it out.

Then the four fire extinguishers we had at the site were all used up. By this time, I was told, there was a burst of flames which engulfed the whole place. Inside the building, we have bodies of our kings interred; there are other regalia and some treasured gifts. It’s our cultural identity. If something like this (fire outbreak) happens, there is no way you can expect that the Baganda will not come and lament. Here are [remains of] their kings. I don’t know why the government fears the gathering of many of the king’s subjects at the cultural site to mourn after what befall the institution.

People should be allowed to come and mourn in peace and I don’t know why they are being blocked by the military. There is no reason they should be doing this. Already as you can see, the subjects are clearing the debris. I cannot move around to mobilise for the cleaning because there is a lot of shooting and it is risky around here.

That’s why I am seated and hiding to avoid being caught maybe by stray bullets. We came here to mourn. And by tradition, we don’t exhume the bodies of our kings. So we are going to rebuild the place. That’s why the subjects were cleaning the site and removing the debris before the soldiers chased them with gun shots. But our people are determined and will do the work.

The last time this place caught fire was sometime in 1999 when one of the princesses tried to take over the tomb site by force and against the will of the king (Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi).”