Besigye’s chaotic return from Nairobi

On Saturday, a tense calm returned to Kampala. The events of the previous day had shocked many. The BBC website reported on April 30, 2011: Internal Affairs Minister Kirunda Kivejinja said 360 people had been arrested and those injured had mainly been hurt by “stones, sticks and bottles.”
John Ssemyalo returned to the mortuary to retrieve his brother’s body. The police gave him 50kgs of posho and 50kgs of bad beans. He threw away the beans. The post-mortem report indicated that Ssemugga Kanaabi had died from a wound caused by a pointed stick. The bullet in his heart had not been removed. Ssemyalo rejected the report and insisted his brother had been shot dead.
“Dr (D/AIP Wilson) Balyeidhusa told me if I insisted I would not get the body, after all, there were other unclaimed bodies in the mortuary. Six bodies on the floor were beginning to swell. A policeman advised me to accept the report and take the body. A funeral had been prepared in Kasambya, Mubende District, and we needed the body. So, I let them write whatever they wanted and paid the fees. However, the police stopped us from travelling in a convoy.”
The police fuelled the cars in the cortège and instructed them to drive through side roads until they reached Busega roundabout. Every car used a different route. The car carrying the body was given a police escort to ensure it did not branch off to another route.
Sam Mufumbiro’s uncle received nothing from the police as he transported the body of his nephew to Naibiri, Iganga District. Ruth Nabejja, a sister of Wilber Mugalazi also got nothing. From Bweyogerere police station, she only got a letter permitting the release of Mugalazi’s body. “We found a naked body with ugly black threads running down its middle. There was no sign of the Shs1.7million he had in his pocket when he was shot. The body was still bleeding because they had made a huge cut around his heart to remove the bullet. The cotton wool they stuffed in the wound was dripping. Even the 30 metres of bark cloth we wrapped around the body soon got soaked.”
A pathologist refused to sign the post-mortem report, urging Nabejja to agree to his opinion that her brother had died due to haemorrhaging from a wound caused by a sharp stick. She refused. “He threatened me and pointed at a security guard’s gun, saying I could be next. When I insisted that my brother had been shot, he said I was a mad woman. But, he eventually signed the certificate. We buried Wilber in Nandere, Kibuku District.”
Cissy Namugereka, James Mukiibi’s widow, did not receive anything from the police, either. With her brother-in-law, Experito Muyonjo, she retrieved the body from the mortuary and took it to Wobulenzi for burial.
Religious leaders, under the Inter-religious Council (IRC) called for talks between government and the Opposition to end the violence. The talks slated for May 1, 2011, collapsed after the government rejected the Opposition’s demands to unconditionally release of those arrested and hold a fresh presidential election.
Besigye returns
Ironically, the protagonists of the brutal contest – Besigye and Museveni – were in Nairobi at the same time. While President Museveni addressed a business meeting at Intercontinental Hotel, Besigye was recuperating in Nairobi Hospital. On May 12, 2011, Besigye flew back to Uganda. Entebbe highway, right from the Airport stage in Kitooro, was jammed with his supporters and admirers. Teargas trucks and army lorries drove up and down the road.
Close to midday, Besigye’s convoy snaked into Abaita-Ababiri. Besigye, in a blue shirt, sat on the roof of his car waving with one hand. His wife, Winnie Byanyima sat beside him. On the same day, President Museveni was being sworn in for his fourth elective term in office. With plainclothes and uniformed security operatives, mingling with the crowd, the situation was bound to degenerate into chaos.
Michael Kakumirizi, then working for Red Pepper as a photojournalist, was standing opposite J&M Airport Road Hotel. “President Goodluck Jonathan’s (Nigeria) car was stoned and in retaliation, the military fired shots into the air. I saw a dead body opposite the hotel. Soldiers warned journalists that they would follow the dead man if they dared take his picture. There were covered double-cabin pick-up vehicles driving up and down the road. Their number plates had been rubbed off. People were saying they were carrying terrible cargo.”
Luka, a boda boda rider in Namasuba, was among those waiting to see Besigye. “A mamba stationed at Bata Bata stage. I do not know how the riots began, but suddenly shots were being fired and everyone was running. We ran into a clinic and locked the doors. We lay on the floor, listening to the riot on Entebbe Road. We were lucky none of the patients were children because policemen sprayed teargas into the clinic. On that day, I discovered that ice-cold water is the best remedy for teargas. We emptied the clinic’s fridge. When we came out, we heard that some boda boda riders had been killed on Salaama Road.”
Blood spill after soldier undressed
In Lufuka zone, Namasuba, a boda boda rider Augustine Guwatudde, 21, was shot dead. Angello Mukasa, Guwatudde’s brother, was 17 years old in 2011. “A red-top soldier came into the crowd at Lufuka stage. It was around mid-day. The angry crowd grabbed him, beat him, and undressed him. They wanted to kill him, but he escaped, running naked across Entebbe Road. I thought the riot had ended, but people started cutting water pipes. Then, more soldiers came, chasing people off the road. They ran into the residential areas of Lufuka. I got scared. I had never seen riots extending into Lufuka.”
The rioters lit tyres on the dirt roads. Then, they decided to release the prisoners in Kikajjo police post. Mukasa followed them. “As we were entering Kikajjo, we heard gunshots. They sounded like they were coming from powerful guns, not AK47s. I ran back home. The others continued to Kikajjo and released the prisoners.”
From his rented room, Mukasa saw soldiers entering Lufuka from the Kikajjo direction. “They looked like commandos, with pistols strapped all over them. We disappeared into our houses. The whole area was quiet; except for the gunshots.”
Across from Mukasa’s room, a man who had been shot in the legs ran into his rental. Three-year-old Patricia Namugumya was shot in the buttocks. The child and her mother had hidden in their rental when they saw the soldiers. However, when the teargas became unbearable, the mother carried her daughter outside, where they came face-to-face with a soldier. He shot at them.
Locked in his rental, Mukasa fell asleep. When he woke up, his brother, Guwatudde was in the room, changing into a t-shirt. Outside, it seemed the riots had stopped because it was deathly quiet. “I knew he was coming from Kikajjo; so, I asked why he was tempting death, yet he had a three-month-old baby. He said he was angry at the economic situation. I was surprised because he had warned me never to join riots.”
Guwatudde had once joked, while at the family burial grounds, that among “Besigye’s bullets” there was one with his (Guwatudde’s) name on it. Mukasa adds, “He was one of those unfortunate people whose predictions come true. He walked out, despite my pleas, saying he was going to the stage. A few minutes later, at 12.30pm, I received a phone call. Guwatudde had been shot dead at the junction.”
Mukasa walked down a deserted road to the junction. As he neared it, people came out of their rentals and walked with him. The bullet was lodged in Guwatudde’s heart. He had been shot from the back. “We picked the body, but as we were walking, someone said the murderer was a bodyguard of an army officer who lived at the junction. We put down the body and began stoning the officer’s house. Then, someone said he was not the one, so we picked the body and carried it to the tree outside my room.”
The army officer and his bodyguards followed the crowd. When people saw him, they fled, abandoning Mukasa and the body.
He says, “The soldiers wanted the body but I held onto it. Even the Red Cross volunteers collecting injured people failed to persuade me. I knew they (soldiers) wanted that body to disappear.”
When the soldiers left, Mukasa dragged the body into his room and locked the door. The neighbours returned with news that another soldier (names withheld) had shot Guwatudde. They walked to his house, intent on torching it. The soldier’s wife and children were inside. Only the landlord saved them, pleading with the mob to spare his only source of income – the house.
“That soldier peeped into our compound,” Mukasa says, continuing, “He had four bodyguards. People tried to grab him but he escaped. He pulled out two pistols and shot at us. We dived to the ground. A bullet narrowly missed a Bukedde newspaper journalist who was standing next to me.”
The people carried the body to Kikajjo to an uncle, Mzee Kabandwa’s, home. At 4pm, Mzee Kabandwa was arrested in the city and brought back to his home. Security operatives forced their way into the house and took the body. Later in the night, police officers gave Mukasa’s cousins Shs3m, 50kgs of posho and 50kgs of beans.
Francis Rwego’s blunder
Meanwhile, towards evening, Besigye’s procession was nearing Najjanankumbi. Kakumirizi and other photojournalists had stationed themselves opposite the FDC offices.
“The traffic jam was quickly cleared by the police to make way for a convoy of mambas. Judith Nabakooba was sitting in a blue mamba. She pointed at us (journalists) and soon a man in plain clothes approached me, demanding that I give him my two cameras. I refused. Then, a soldier hit me twice, on the head, with a baton. I fainted. I woke up in Nsambya hospital. The cameras were gone. I still bear the scars on my head.”
Such were the riots on Entebbe highway that AIGP Francis Rwego, who was the head of Interpol in Uganda, and Military Police Commander, Lt Col Michael Kabango, lost their positions that day. They had been assigned to oversee security on Entebbe Road and clear it within an hour of Besigye’s return.
In a statement on May 17, 2011, President Museveni said: Besigye and his group arrived at Entebbe Airport at 9am. By the time we left Kololo airstrip at 3pm, Besigye and his group were still at Bwebajja. They had spent all the intervening hours at a disco at Abaitababiri and other spots…Somebody had advised me to take shelter at Nakasero State Lodge until they had removed Besigye from the road. I rejected that view and went straight to Entebbe. I was able to see a few hundred people at Kibuye roundabout, at Najjanakumbi and Kajjansi, making FDC signs. By the time I came across Besigye’s convoy at Bwebajja, there were no crowds…Therefore, those who have been talking of the harmless ‘walks’ can see their mistakes. The media houses both local and international such as Al-jazeera, BBC, NTV, The Daily Monitor, etc., that cheer on these irresponsible people, are enemies of Uganda’s recovery…