2016 elections leave trail of terror

Police and Army arrest FDC protesters in Bushenyi. PHOTO BY ZADOCK AMANYISA

What you need to know:

  • Daily Monitor has since January 2016, documented reported and unreported cases of people that disappeared prior, during and after the 2016 general elections whose disappearances has been blamed on state operatives.
  • A young man named Opio, in his early twenties, speaking a language she didn’t understand, would later rescue her. Opio was intrigued by the half-naked woman lying by the roadside.

Kampala. Zeridah Kakayi, the FDC Youth League Secretary General crossed the road from Christ the King Church where she was due to attend mass on May 11, a day before President Museveni’s swearing in to buy airtime from a vendor outside the gate of Kampala Casino. But before she could make the transaction, two men came from behind and surrounded her.

One had a handgun and another had what looked like a tear gas canister. They told her not to resist. If she did, one of the men told her, they would tear gas the area and in the process shoot her. She was scared.

The duo forced her into a parked Toyota Noor car. Inside the car, some seats had been removed. Two people, one bleeding, sat on the floor carpet of the car. There was a driver behind the wheels and another captor. In all, there were seven people.
The vehicle immediately drove off. Ms Kakayi’s fellow activists with whom she was organising “to swear in our president who is [Dr] Besigye” and the people around would find out later what had happened.

Ms Kakayi asked the two “young men” on the floor of the car to say their names. One was Moses Musinguzi and another had only said one name—Higenyi, when they were ordered to stop talking, by their captors.

Along Bombo Road, less than 10 minutes from Christ the King Church, one of the men pulled a small tin from his pocket and sprinkled the contents on a handkerchief. He flipped the sprayed hankie on the trio’s noses. After about five minutes, Ms Kakayi became unconscious and that is the last she saw or knew of their journey.

The manner in which Ms Kakayi was arrested, constitutes an enforced disappearance, which is a crime against humanity under international law.

Every disappearance according to Amnesty International, violates a range of human rights including: right to security and dignity of person, right not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, right to humane conditions of detention, right to a legal personality, right to a fair trial, right to a family life, right to life (if the disappeared person is killed or their fate is unknown).

An enforced disappearance, Amnesty International says, is frequently used as a strategy to spread terror within society. The feeling of insecurity and fear it generates is not limited to the close relatives of the disappeared, but also affects communities and society as a whole.

It has become a global problem. Once largely used by military dictatorships, disappearances now happen in many internal conflicts, particularly when trying to repress political opponents.
Human rights defenders, relatives of victims, witnesses and lawyers seem to be particular targets, but vulnerable people are also at risk, such as children and people with disabilities.

Daily Monitor has since January 2016, documented reported and unreported cases of people that disappeared prior, during and after the 2016 general elections whose disappearances has been blamed on state operatives.

This article is a result of interviews with victims, witnesses and other sources, and scrutiny of documents, including police and medical reports. Daily Monitor has interviewed more than 20 alleged victims with some willing to go on record while others preferring to “let it go”.

Suffering. Zeridah Kakayi, one of the victims of the 2016 general election-related enforced disappearances lies at her home in Mutungo, Kampala shortly after leaving hospital. PHOTO BY GILLIAN NANTUME

In some cases, like Ms Kakayi’s, it was possible to verify the claims of the alleged victims because of physical injuries, witnesses and documentation such as medical reports. In other cases, it was impossible because many former victims of the enforced disappearances never sought services of lawyers, doctors and this newspaper could not obtain police records of their detention as they were not detained in gazetted government facilities or their detention was never officially recorded.

Questionable cases such as that of Mr Christopher Aine, the former head of security of former presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi and Prince Babi Kahemba supporter of FDC, and leader in National Association of the Unemployed (NAU) have been left out. In interviews with people close to them, the duo and many others not mentioned here are linked to the very state agents that accused of enforcing their disappearance.

Nicholas Opiyo, a leading human rights lawyer, who has been at the centre of securing the release of some of the disappeared, says every Ugandan should be worried about “state excesses” and “violation of human rights” especially during periods of “political contest”.

“It appears a well-crafted mechanism of power retention using coercion and abduction of members of the opposition or people perceived to be opposition. Many are abducted by nameless state agencies and released on condition that they shut up. It has been a consistent practice in the past two elections, some have been lucky to return but others have not surfaced again.”
Across the country, Police spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi says there were groups of people and individuals ganging up to commit crime throughout the electoral period. He says the security only picked them up for “vetting” and “screening”.

“True maybe people could have been picked for having been organising criminal activities. Such people, sometimes police would arrest them on suspicion they are committing crime but Police would release them after screening and vetting but there is nobody Police abducted.”
Mr Kaweesi denied allegations that Police abducted and kidnapped people throughout the election cycle.

“Abduction is out. Abduction is a criminal offence, how can police engage in committing a crime. Police cannot abduct any person; they can arrest any person on suspicion,” he said.

Instead, he says, those accusing the force could have plans to seek “asylum” or are “running away from domestic and social pressures”.
Both Mr Mayanja and FDC, for example, say complaints were filed at Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) office in Mbarara but to date, they are yet to get a response. UHRC is the government body constitutionally mandated to monitor and advance human rights in Uganda.
UHRC chairperson Meddie Kaggwa says some of the issues will be addressed in their soon to be released report.
“I will soon present my report to the Speaker of Parliament and some of these issues are being addressed in that report because we make recommendations to government. What I can say without fear of contradiction is the last election to us was the most peaceful.”

Until, her election as the FDC Youth League Vice Chairperson for Eastern Uganda, Ms Kakayi was mainly engaged in activism and organising events and rallies for her political party. Tall and slender, the 28 year old loves being at the forefront of the “struggle” as she and her colleagues like to call it and this landed her in trouble on many occasions.

Like it had been days to the 2016 general elections, the tension was high ahead of President Museveni’s May 12, 2016, swearing in. Fears were rife that the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party and the party’s presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye who still contests the election results to date, would organise massive protests in Kampala and other major towns which are opposition strongholds.

State operatives moved into action like they had done in the past and would later do, to quell the planned or perceived riots. Suspected ringleaders including those who had been vocal on social media which government shut down during the February 18, 2016, polls amid both local and international condemnation, were picked and taken to unknown destinations.

“I gained my conscious when I was on the ground, soaked in water and the other two colleagues had gone through the same, we were all wet. One of the men dragged me by the shoulder and took me to a hut. It was at night.”

Ms Kakayi woke up lying down, to an empty hut with only a “traditional” foldable stool. Hours later, one of her abductors brought her a piece of posho to eat.
“He did not have a plate; he was just holding it in his hands, opened the door, didn’t say anything and threw it on the floor. At first, I did not understand what this whole thing was about, I contemplated, should I eat this posho or not. I was hungry. I said let me try and eat because I had not had lunch since they grabbed me before lunch. It had sand, it was cold, it was really bad. I tried to eat the posho but the posho was not shifting,” she says.

By staging a scene, Ms Kakayi thought she could get to know where she was. She started banging the door insisting she wants to ease herself. After about 20 minutes, the man who had delivered the posho opened the door and pushed a small bucket in the hut. He told her she could do whatever she wanted in the bucket. She sat down and relaxed.

Later, in the evening, the same man returned, this time laughing at her. He said: “Your president [Dr Besigye] has been given VIP treatment. We flew him to Moroto but you know that man will never lead this country; I don’t know why you young people are wasting time yet you are graduates. We can get you what to do; we can even get you jobs. Those guys (opposition leaders) get money from abroad, they are just using you. Anyway, we shall deal with you”.

The same man returned the following day but did not bring her food this time. Instead, he started pacing around in the hut without saying a word to Ms Kakayi who was sitting in the hut arms folded. All of a sudden, he charged at Ms Kakayi.

“He grabbed my dress; I was putting on a long black dress, he grabbed my dress by the neck, tore it, got the bottom bit of the dress and also tore it. I started screaming. As I was screaming, he held my jaws but I persisted with the screaming. He started slapping me. What saved me is that the other two guys he was with, pushed the door and came in. They told him what he was doing, was not according to the plan,” she said.

The man who had attempted to rape her did not return but one of his colleagues, who had stopped the rape in its tracks did. He did not introduce himself to Ms Kakayi but went about his business.

“For me, I am a very precise person,” he told her “I am not going to waste a lot of your time, if you cooperate with me, you will leave this place very alive, probably with a job and money but if you don’t, God help you.”

The man told Ms Kakayi that they had intelligence information that she and her colleagues planned to burn the city and that she is among the “clique” leaders. He asked her to tell him when they planned to burn the city, the people involved and their funders. He promised her witness protection if she testified against her colleagues. When she told him that she had no idea what he was talking about, he left without further questions.

By her own account, Ms Kakayi says she told the man interrogating her when he returned after two hours, that she was an opposition politician who deals with a registered party which does lawful activities but the man insisted on getting answers. “We are not fools,” he said. Ms Kakayi asked him to take her to court and charge her. This is angered the man who stood up and gave the stool a powerful kick that sent it flying—landing on the wall of the hut.
“You don’t tell me what to do around here. We are not fools, I know what I am asking you and I want answers. If you cannot give me answers in a better way, I will get them my way,” he shouted.
“He gave me a slap and I just fell on the ground. So, he came and kicked me in the stomach, I felt a lot of pain, I was just shaking, I rolled and that is when I exposed my back but he continued kicking, kicking, kicking…... I reached a point when I couldn’t feel the pain but kept saying I don’t know, I don’t know,” she says.

When he could kick no more, the man left the room only to return after like two minutes. He gave her two options—to live if she confessed or die if she refused. He sat down and waited but Ms Kakayi insisted she had told him the truth. It was at this point that he moved closer, stepped on her, bent down and injected her in the thigh with something she could not tell.
Two minutes later, Ms Kakayi could not move any of her limbs. She could not see properly. She blacked out.
“I found out that later, that I was in that state for three days. I woke up when people were grabbing me by the armpits. They took me back to the car. But then, I never saw those two boys again. They drove the car, I could not tell for how long and dumped me at what I would later learn is Aswa Bridge. They didn’t bother to get out of the car, they just pushed me and I fell on the ground. It was at night and it had rained.”
The unbearable cold helped Ms Kakayi to regain her senses. Surrounded by darkness, she crawled on the ground looking for something to drink. “I drank the stagnant water by the roadside but the first time I took it, I felt pain and it induced vomiting. After vomiting, I spent some time and again took more of that water.”

Her dress torn and dirty, without a shower for days and messed up hair, Mrs Kakayi by this time seemed like a mad person on the road. Boda-Bodas passed by but none stopped to help her. By 5 am, people were already going about their business, some heading to their gardens. She tried to ask for help but they instead ran away from her. She believed, they thought she was mad. She gave up and slept.
A young man named Opio, in his early twenties, speaking a language she didn’t understand, would later rescue her. Opio was intrigued by the half-naked woman lying by the roadside. He walked towards her, touched her feet and that is when she explained to him in English what had happened to her. Mr Opio, in turn, explained to the women passing by in the local language. They got concerned. One gave her a shawl to cover herself with.

They decided to take her to the home of the local council chair of the nearby Oding village but she could not walk. They brought a bicycle and transported her to the chairperson’s home. The chairperson’s home was open but he wasn’t. The women set about helping her. They put her under a mango tree and gave her boiled herbs. She started shivering and was covered with blankets.

Uganda was among the first countries to sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance intended to end such disappearances like Ms Kakayi’s.

While enforced disappearances were common in 2016, they are not new. For about a week in 2007, families, relatives and friends of three influential Buganda Kingdom officials did not know their whereabouts. The officials were Buganda Katikkiro(premier) Charles Peter Mayiga then information Minister, Busiro East MP Medard Lubega Sseggona then Mayiga’s deputy and Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze.

Their lawyers led by Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago searched detention centers in western Uganda where it was believed they were detained but in vain. The duo was later released.
Human Rights Watch also documented cases of five detainees who had been arrested on various dates in 2008 by Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force (JATT). The victims, according to the rights body, were finally released after being secretly detained for long periods of time, in one case over 16 months.

In the case of the 2016 elections related enforced disappearances, activists were held for hours, days and weeks before being released without any charge. While the victims were picked from across the country, they were mostly detained in the urban districts of Kampala, Wakiso and Jinja.

Some of the “kidnapped” accuse the state agencies of mistaken identity or having no evidence to pin them on the alleged crimes. None of the cases featured in this article went to court. Many were never formally charged at the detention centers where they were kept for days as their families, friends and relatives searched for them.

Police in some cases acknowledged possession but did not say the whereabouts of the disappeared while in other cases, it took sustained campaigns for the disappeared to be found. Victims we interviewed accuse police and other state security agencies of torture and other forms of degrading treatment while in custody. Ms Kakayi, for example, did not get medical attention from the state for the injuries she sustained during her detention.


Ms Kakayi who is currently undergoing treatment, in Nairobi, Kenya is yet to recover, more than six months since her abduction. In Uganda, she was taken to different hospitals where she underwent various tests but the pain in her back persisted. Her spine had been damaged but even when that was treated, Ms Kakayi says a doctor at Mulago National Referral Hospital, told her she could have been poisoned. She maintains that she will be back into full activism after her recovery although by her own account, her mother is against it.

Other cases
Michael Mayanja, a resident of Lugazi cell, Kakoba Division, Mbarara district had actively participated in the November 4, 2015, nomination of Dr Besigye as a presidential candidate. He followed Dr Besigye at his first rallies in Ntungamo and Rukungiri districts before deciding to return to Mbarara where he planned to prepare for his own nomination as a local councillor.

Unknown to him, security operatives had been trailing him and were looking for an opportune moment to grab him. On November 16, 2015, he took a boda-boda to a place where he had parked his car but just after the boda-boda dropped him, five men surrounded him and bundled him into a waiting Toyota Corona Car. He was detained at Nalufenya and other facilities for 19 days. His family, friends, relatives, lawyers did not know where he was.
Mr Mayanja was finally allowed return home in Mbarara but on condition that he does not speak to journalists or run to human rights groups. Police, following pressure from the public, had earlier admitted that their operatives had picked Mr Mayanja and two other FDC supporters and detained them at the Kireka-based Special Investigations Unit (SIU) but based on the trio’s accounts; they were never detained at the facility. Earlier efforts by FDC officials to track at SIU and even at Nalufenya were they were partially detained were futile.

Ismail Muyinda, a businessman, rushed to cash in on the opportunity to print “Besigye t-shirts” presented to him by his friend Samson Tumusiime a business man and an online activist. He quickly printed the first batch of four t-shirts and gave them to Mr Tumusiime who in turn posted on his social media accounts including Facebook and Twitter with contacts of Mr Muyinda. People across the country started placing orders. One person ordered for 50 t-shirts but did not make a deposit. So, Mr Muyinda decided to print 20 t-shirts for him, he planned to deliver the rest after the payment was made. On his way, near Workers House, he was surrounded by eight armed men who handcuffed and forced him into a waiting a van. Inside the van, some of the men stepped on him while others rained on him slaps, kicks and blows throughout the journey to the Central Police Station. At the Police station, he was asked who was behind the t-shirts. For more than 24-hours since his arrest, Mr Muyinda was not allowed to communicate to anybody, not even his wife and their two young children. That night, they waited for him to return. He never did. The following day, Mr Muyinda led the men who had grabbed him to Mr Tumusiime’s home in Naalya. With the aid of the local Police, the men searched Mr Tumusiime’s house and recovered four “Besigye t-shirts”.

The duo was taken to CPS and charges of inciting violence were preferred against them. That same day they were transferred to SIU Kireka where they spent four days without being formally charged in court. Police released them on bond and when they tried to follow up on their bonds, they were told there was no case to answer.
Fred Musiitwa, an activist and businessman had together with other activists gone to visit Dr Besigye who had been incarcerated at Luzira Prisons on treason-related charges when he was picked. After two days and one night in the cells, Mr Musiitwa was given a Police bond. He kept reporting to Police every two weeks and on the fourth attempt, his file was cancelled.

Peter Mwanje was waiting for a customer near the New Taxi Park May 11, a day before President Museveni’s swearing in, when men grabbed him and took him to the Central Police Station, Kampala. At CPS, Kampala, Mr Mwanje who was putting on a t-shirt with a portrait of Dr Besigye says he was tortured and forced to remove the t-shirt by operatives. After the ordeal, he was dumped in the police cells. His wife began to search when he did not return home that night. The search last three days until it was established he was at CPS, Kampala. When he was finally traced, Mr Mwanje who had been accused of treason could not be set free. Police officers told him “State House” was in charge of his case. He spent three weeks until, United Nations observers who were on a spot visit at CPS compelled Police to release or charge in court people who had been in police cells for long. Mr Mwanje was given a police bond. He kept reporting until a police officer identified as Kasaija withdrew the bond paper from him and asked him not to return. In the course of his detention, his relatives sold some of his property as they made attempts to secure his release. He is rebuilding his life.

Fred Enanga, the then Police spokesperson, had on May 9, three days to President Museveni’s swearing in denied that Police was holding FDC secretary for mobilisation Ingrid Turinawe only to be contradicted later that same day by his boss IGP Kayihura. Gen Kayihura confirmed the force was holding her for involvement in a “number of crimes”. Ms Ingrid who was picked outside her home had been detained in Nakasongola more than 100km from where she had been picked, it was later established. She spent two days and two nights at the facility. Her family, lawyer and relatives did not know her whereabouts until Gen Kayihura made the pronouncement. Before her release, Ms Turinawe claims she was forcefully driven after midnight from Nakasongola to SIU Kireka where a backdated entry at the facility was registered. She was then asked to sign out, given a bond and dropped outside her house at 4 am.

Harold Kaija, the FDC Deputy Secretary General (In-charge of Administration) was picked at the FDC party headquarters where he had just addressed a press conference. The then Kampala South Regional Police Commander Andrew Kagwa said they picked him because "he was about to commit a crime". Mr Kagwa did not say the exact crime he had committed. Also, Police did not say where Mr Kaijja had been taken. In an interview, Mr Kaija says he was first kept at Kibuye Police station and transferred the same day to SIU, Kireka where he was detained for 10 days. His family and colleagues only got to know his whereabouts after three days. He was never taken to court. To date, Police is yet to return to him, his laptop computer that was taken from his office at the FDC headquarters in Najjanankumbi.

A version of this story appeared in Daily Monitor print editions on January 24, 26 and 27, in a three-part series. The reporting was supported by the African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME).