Torture of Kawooya: History says there’s more to come

What a dramatic recording it was. It is of a man named Yusuf Kawooya. He is shown subdued and rolling on the ground while being brutally beaten, allegedly by gun-wielding security agents in casual wear in a bid to arrest him. As usual, it was roundly condemned with many expressing surprise and disappointment that this could happen under the NRM regime.

The tired cliché of choice in such circumstances is ‘going back to the dark days of Idi Amin and Milton Obote.’ The two regimes no doubt had their own poor records of human rights abuses. Recall, in May 1986, the Justice ministry set up a Commission of Inquiry into Violations of Human Rights between October 9, 1962 and January 26, 1986 when the NRM government shot its way to power.

According to the United States Institute of Peace, the mandate of the commission, which was also known as the Justice (Arthur Haggai Okello) Oder Commission “… was to pay specific attention to arbitrary arrests, detentions and killings. The commission’s broad mandate also included forced displacement, disappearances, discrimination, and it authorised the Commission to recommend ways to prevent future abuses.”

For eight years (1986-1994), the six commissioners, who included John Kawanga, John Nagenda, Dr Kiddu Makubuya, Ms Joan Kakwenzire, Dr Jack Luyombya and Mr Edward Ssekandi as lead counsel, did a commendable job amidst financial constraints, to come up with a credible record of this history. They also made several recommendations, which included repealing of laws that legalised detention without trial.

History has a bad habit of repeating itself, especially in cases where there is an equally bad habit of not paying attention to it. This is Uganda’s major challenge in this area. The wind of change in 1986 was received with relief as a fresh breath of air. It was thought that those who had fought against the ills this country had suffered, gone ahead and courageously recorded them, would fight against a repeat of the same.

Parts of the country after the war of 1986 experienced relative peace. Many people observed with gratitude that they had nights of peaceful sleep without worry of gunmen attacking them (twebaka ku tulo.) There was a different story though in northern and parts of north eastern Uganda where a rebellion against the NRM government was in full gear.

Soldiers and security agents made their own records of human right abuses against the people accusing them of aiding and abetting the rebellion. The stories of people being suffocated in train wagons in Mukura and those burnt in pits in Burchoro where some of the highlights. Most of that was ingeniously blamed on the Rwandans in NRA like Maj Peter Baingana, who left the country, raided Rwanda and eventually liberated their homeland.

The scorched earth policy in the area when Gen David Munungu Tinyefuza, aka Ssejusa, was in charge of ‘Operation North,’ detention without trial and torture of prominent politicians like Omara Atubo, Andrew Adimola, Ojok Mulozi, and Zachary Olum took place. People were displaced from their homes and forced into camps, others detained in prisons as ‘lodgers.’ There were cases of rape, looting and extra judicial killings recorded, among others.

Almost everything the Oder Commission documented was repeated in the 20 plus years of rebellion in northern Uganda. Trouble was that most of the people, especially in the south (many of whom are now surprised by the brutal actions of security agents), simply dismissed what was happening as “northerners killing each other.” Others claimed that they were receiving their comeuppance for the atrocities Amin and Obote committed in the south between 1962 and 1986. The truth is that, nothing has changed in a long time. It is just that the problem has come closer to home.

The main theme running through all this history is that in Uganda generally, the perpetrators of human rights abuses, especially if they help to perpetuate a government in power, are never at risk of punishment. In fact, they are likely to be shielded by Ugandans, who in a bid for vengeance, will find an excuse to sympathise with them. Part of the problem has been the weakness of the State from 1962. The police, which should investigate and help with prosecution, is so weak and distracted by survival and perpetuation of regimes that it has not built capacity overtime. The Judiciary is in a similar state.

So if one is known to have committed a crime, they are likely to escape through the many loopholes in the system. So security agents don’t allow them into the system normally. They torture them to get a confession because they have not developed the capacity to gather evidence that can lead to successful prosecution.

They sort the matter out in dark rooms or on the streets. The same applies to matters that are not criminal but deemed a nuisance to the comfortable existence of the government in power.
Torture and brutality becomes the law. The reason it is done in broad daylight for all to see is to act as an example of the risk one faces in case they step over the boundary.
The case of Yusuf Kawooya is not the last. That is what history tells us.

Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues. [email protected]
Twitter:@nsengoba