Brothers volunteer to die together as the killing starts

Turned to God. Patrick Lumumba and Charles Wafulaa. PHOTO BY RACHEL MABALA & David Musengeri

What you need to know:

Brotherly bond. Charles Wafula and his brother Patrick Lumumba were meant to be gunned down by Idi Amin’s soldiers together with the 46 other students at Bulumbi on the Busia-Busitema road on April 26, 1979. In this second-to-last part of the series, Mr Wafula narrates to Isaac Mufumba and David Musengeri how the two brothers, preferring to die together, resolved to remain bonded; even in death.

A group of men and army officers hailing from Busia and led by Capt Maloba had a few minutes prior to our arrival at Busia Police Station been involved in a gunfight with some of their colleagues from other parts of the country at a place commonly known as Mile 9 on the boundary between Buhehe and Masaba Sub-counties. The place is referred to as Lwangosya on the Buhehe side and Siangosya on the Masaba side.

The sudden arrival at Busia Police station of a jeep carrying a few dead and injured soldiers who had been involved in the gun fight with their fellow soldiers at Siangosya seemed to signal a change in the torturous soldiers’ state of mind.
A man’s tears are usually hard to come by. They are even harder to come by if the man is a soldier who has been at war. It therefore came as a surprise when this group of soldiers literally broke down.

“This is the only brother I had remaining in the military,” wailed one of them as he clutched the head of one of the dead soldiers.

The injured were also wailing. The pain on the soldiers’ faces was unmistakable. They decided to take it out on us.
The arrival of the bus on which we had been travelling had sparked off a frenzy of activity at the station. G3 rifle-wielding men clad in civilian attire had mobbed the bus to partake of bogoya, the long yellow sweet bananas, which had been destined for Kenya.

Since the war had disrupted military operations, there were no rations for supply to the retreating soldiers. Besides, Busia was at the same time suffering a severe food shortage. The bogoya was therefore like manna from heaven.
Within no time a few of them had clambered up the bus and started helping themselves to the sweet bananas as others who had stayed down begged them for a share as they called out: “Tupa chini! tupa chini! (drop some down).
It was only after they were done with the bananas that they then turned their attention to us and our luggage.
They told us to lie down in the Police Station yard facing the sun. A cocktail of salt, hot pepper, spices, coffee and tea leaves were rubbed into our eyes which were already hurting from the effects of the direct rays of the sun.
Those who tried to look aside were whipped with a hippo hide. I had until then not been subjected to that whip, but that day, I had I raw whipping of the hide. The pain was excruciating. I at one point thought my stomach had been split into two because of the pain from that whip.

Our luggage, mostly wooden boxes and mattresses, was brought down. One of the soldiers had a metal and went around forcing open every box that had a padlock. They then returned to ransacking our boxes. Their biggest interest was in bed sheets, plates, spoons and forks.

They were not interested in the rest. They tore through books and clothes with their bayonets.
In a moment of madness one of the boys, Sihudu, who came from a family of one of a former Parish Chief, Odando, sprang to his feet and pounced on the soldier.
“No. My box cannot be tampered with,” he shouted as he took on the soldier.
The other soldiers came to their colleague’s rescue, beat up the young man and stabbed him with their bayonets. We saw life sipping out of the young man right there.

The brutality and ruthlessness with which they descended on the lad had left most of us shocked, but the arrival of the dead and wounded soldiers seemed to throw a spanner in the works. The soldiers started openly baying for blood.
They brought out more hippo hides and started whipping us. Bayonets were also brought out. People were randomly stabbed.

So severe had the beatings become that one of them, who looked and behaved like an officer, intervened in what could be seen as akin to the efforts by Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea, under Emperor Tiberius, who pleaded in vain to save Jesus Christ from crucifixion.

Like Pilate who sought to avoid personal responsibility for Jesus’ execution by washing hands off the matter, the officer also sought to steer clear of the actions of the men under his command.
“Kama nyinyi nataka wuwa awa watu nyi weka awa kwa gari muwapeleke musituni muwamalize. Musiwuwe wattu hapa,” meaning “If you guys want to kill those people put them back in the bus and drive them to the forest and kill them. You shouldn’t kill them here) he ordered.
That signaled an end to the beatings.

We were forced back into the bus, but no sooner had we boarded than they started demanding for money from us. They started going around collecting from everyone.
“Even my sons were students at Makerere (University), but they were killed. I don’t see why you are also telling me that you are students. You are going to die today,” one of them coldly said.
We were ordered off the seats.

“Lie down! Lie down!” they ordered us before the bus was commandeered to begin its journey to what was meant to be our rendezvous with death.
Anyone who was watching might have thought that the only people on board were the driver and the few soldiers who were seated inside watching over us.
It was at around 5pm when the bus set off towards Busitema forest.
Once we got to Bulumbi Health Centre, those on board and those who had travelled in the small car, which had followed opened a barrage of gunfire that sent residents of the area scampering for cover in the bushes and surrounding gardens.
From our points of confinement in the aisle and under the seats we were dying of anxiety to see what was going on out there, but none of us had the courage to raise his head.
The bus came to a halt a few hundred meters after the health centre. The spot which was filled with trees constituted part of Busitema Forest Reserve. Most of the trees have since been cut down to pave way for human activity.
Some soldiers must have either been sent to Bulumbi ahead of us or had been camped there long before that day, for we found quite a number of them there. They had already lined up along both sides of the road.
Those on the ground directed the bus to a point close by where the monument in honour of the dead would eventually be erected, while others took up positions at various points around the bus.
Most of those who had been with us on the bus went down, leaving two or three of them on board. We were then ordered to pair up and go down one pair at a time.
The first pair was one involving a Muslim man who was the biggest of our lot. The man was, like the rest of us, afraid of meeting his Creator. He was quickly kicked out along with his partner. No sooner had they stood on the ground than they were shot.
That was the first time I had seen someone killed with a gun. The force of the bullets raised his huge body to the level of the windows of the bus. Had the circumstances been different one would have thought he was a goalkeeper diving for a ball. His body seemed to turn before going down head first.
“Those are some of the people involved in subversive activities to to topple us,” one of the soldiers in the bus said moments after the man had fallen.

More pairs of students were called and summarily shot. The doorway was within a very short time filled with bodies.
They then stopped and called for four volunteers to help drag the bodies away from the doorway to a point a few metres beyond the road verge.
“If I remain here I am going to die and if I go out I am still going to die. So why not go out and be one of the volunteers?” I said to myself.
I got hold of my students’ identity card, looked at it and said to myself, “I am I surely going to die without seeing my mother for at least one more time? I wish I had seen my mother yesterday,” I said to myself before putting it back in my pocket.

Neither I nor my brother had been a born-again Christian at the time, but I was gripped by a strong compulsion to pray to God. “Oh Lord God, I have done no wrong to anybody this evening. We are innocent. Just excuse these people’s minds for they do not know what they are doing. I come to you and my brother is also here, please receive us!” I prayed.

With that I rose up. Little did I know that my brother too had made the decision to get up and be part of the next set of partners in death.

Lumumba (his brother) was taken aback. I was later made to understand that he had all along thought that I had stayed back at Busia Police Station where some soldiers had assigned me some chores, including carrying bunches of matooke from the Post Office to the Police Station.
“I thought you had gone (home)!” he said, but I did not answer.

I simply walked on and joined him, preferring that we die together because I could not have been able to deal with the pain of seeing him go down under a hail of gunfire.
We made our way to the door.