11-year-old Mutebi taken to exile in London

Former Archbishop Joseph Kiwanuka predicted the desecration of Buganda Kingdom five years before it happened.

Kiwanuka may have been a clergyman, but he understood politics and had a vision of Uganda more than most leaders of his time.

In mid-November 1961, five years before the clash in Mengo between Buganda Kingdom and the central government on May 24, 1966, Archbishop Kiwanuka predicted the fall of Buganda Kingdom if Mengo did not accept the political changes made in the 1955 Namirembe Agreement which transformed Buganda from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. Unfortunately, Mengo did not heed to the clergy’s call.

In 1960, the Kabaka Yekka (King only) political party was established and the persecution of Democratic Party (DP) supporters in Buganda ensued. The central government, led by the British colonialists, did not do much to stop the violence against DP supporters.

Although DP was predominantly Catholic, the party also drew support from the Muslim and Protestant faiths, though minimal in number. Worthy of note is that Kabaka Yekka (KY) radicals did not spare the head of Catholics in Uganda, Archbishop Kiwanuka.

A sheep wearing archbishop’s mitre
In November 1961, while Archbishop Kiwanuka was about to travel to the US for a religious conference, suspected KY adherents got a sheep, dressed it in the archbishop’s mitre and wrapped it in a cloth with inscriptions “Archbishop Joseph Kiwanuka.”
The sheep was then left to loiter around Rubaga Hill where the Archbishop resided. The following morning, priests as well as the Catholics were shocked to see a sheep dressed to mock the archbishop.

One of the Ugandans who survived death instigated by suspected KY radicals was Paul Ssemogerere who at the time was political aide of the Democratic Party president general, Benedicto Kiwanuka.

Last December at his home in Kabusu, a Kampala suburb, Ssemogerere told this reporter that in 1961 while DP leader Kiwanuka was away for the Lancaster Conference in London, he [Ssemogerere] narrowly survived death perpetrated by the KY radicals.

He said on the fateful evening, he had retired from work in the Prime Minister’s Office in Entebbe and was being driven home on Kasenyi Road off Entebbe Road when the attackers, armed with spears, suddenly appeared in the middle of the road and started hurling insults at him.

“I was in my car going home, then suddenly a crowd of KY people appeared armed with pangas and spears shouting insults at me. I told my driver who turned [round the car] and we sped off back to office. When the situation had calmed down, I went back home,” he said. “At the time it was terrifying to be a DP member here in Buganda.”

Archbishop warns Mengo
Faced with suppression, Catholics sought guidance from archbishop Kiwanuka. Many of them had been imprisoned, others killed while their property was destroyed.

One of the local publications at the time carried a story with the title, “Aba KY basse omukazi bba nadduka.” (KY radicals kill woman, husband escapes)

The story reported from Busiro carried an interview with the widower in which he narrated how he fled from the KY youth and how his wife was hacked to death because she couldn’t run faster. The story was accompanied by a picture of his wife’s corpse. In the picture was a dog looking at a crying baby seated next to a hoe.

In his critical pastoral letter of November 1961, Archbishop Kiwanuka tried to comfort his flock, but also told them to defend themselves by whatever means possible in self-defence.

“Others among you may fear to admit that you are Catholics, hoping in this way to obtain a place in government. There may also be a number who would conceal their faith in order to avoid being recognised as Catholics. It is true that you cannot avoid being attacked as Catholics even though you have no guilt whatsoever towards your nation,” Kiwanuka wrote.

“Understand, however, that this hatred has been predicted to us by our Lord Jesus Christ when he said ‘you will be hated by all men because you bear my name! If they have cried Beelzebub at the master of the house, they will do it much more readily to the men of his house’. (Matt 10:22-25). However, it is consoling to hear that our Lord reminds us that we should not fall in the same fault committed by those who are ill-disposed towards us.”

Kiwanuka further wrote: “You have heard that it was said ‘thou shall love thy neighbour and shall hate thy enemy. But I say to you listening: ‘love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; pray for those who persecute you and who calumniate you (Matt 5).”

Kiwanuka tells Catholics to defend themselves

After the archbishop counselled the Catholics, he told them to fight the oppressors, but only in self-defence.
“However, remember also that religion does not prevent one to defend oneself against one’s assailants, nor does it forbid one to fight to protect oneself or ones’ property.

But if ever you have to do that, never act through contempt or hatred or through the spirit of revenge; just defend yourself, or simply prevent the action of evil-doers who wish to harass you,” he said.

The archbishop, like the immortal Benedicto Kiwanuka, also warned Mengo that if Baganda politicians did not exclude Kabaka Muteesa II from politics, the kingdom was doomed. Kabaka and his advisers neither listened to Benedicto nor the archbishop.

Archbishop Kiwanuka had in his pastoral letter warned Mengo and that: “When political parties are established in a country, if the king still mixes up in politics, the kingship is on the way to digging its own grave.”

Kabaka arrests Monsignor Ssebayigga
Archbishop Kiwanuka’s critical pastoral letter angered Kabaka Muteesa II. In Mengo, the letter was interpreted to mean that the archbishop was reprimanding the Kabaka.
According to the Catholic News Bulletin of November 24, 1961, on Thursday, November 23, 1961, at 11pm, Kabaka Muteesa personally telephoned Rubaga Hill and summoned Rev Msgr Joseph Ssebayigga, the Archpriest of Rubaga Cathedral, to immediately report to Mengo palace.

Ssebayigga was accused of being a party to the writing of the pastoral letter. The Monsignor, on the orders of Kabaka Muteesa, was arrested and detained for one-and-half hours in Buganda’s remand prison, Njabule.

However, after Fred Mpanga, the attorney general of Buganda Kingdom arrived, Ssebayigga was released on bail without any charge.

Also on that day, November 25, 1961, the public composed of Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and politicians, gathered at Rubaga Cathedral ready to storm the Lubiri in protest of Monsignor Ssebayigga’s arrest.

But Monsignor opposed their intention and conducted Mass during which he made an appeal. In his appeal, the monsignor said: “I ask you for the good and peace of this country, and in accordance with the guidance His Grace, the archbishop has given us in his pastoral letter, to abstain from public demonstrations in town or in Mengo.”

“We are Christians, so let us all go to church and pray for peace in Buganda. But let the public know that it is through the personal appeal of Mgr Ssebayigga that the demonstration you had planned has not taken place. In these difficult times trust in God and pray for his guidance.”

Later Ssebayigga briefed journalists about his arrest. “If my arrest can bring freedom and peace to this country, that is all I desire and this desire gives me strength.

However, as a human, I feel unhappy about the whole affair,” he was quoted as having said by the Catholic News Bulletin, Uganda of November 26, 1961.

Mengo- central government fallout
On May 24, 1966, the Kabaka, whom the archbishop had warned to get off politics, fled the Lubiri to England via Burundi.

On that day, soldiers attacked the Kabaka’s palace on the orders of the then prime minister of Uganda, Milton Obote, triggering the 1966 crisis.

The attack, which the then president of Uganda Muteesa II escaped narrowly and fled into exile, marked the culmination of a power struggle with premier Obote over power and influence.

With the Kabaka in exile, members of the Buganda royal family, including the former first lady, were imprisoned but later released. Following their release, it was time to seek safety in exile. Then 11-year-old Prince Ronald Muwenda Mutebi was taken to Britain.

In November 1969, Muteesa died in exile in England. His body was in April 1971 exhumed and reburied at his ancestral home at the Kasubi Royal tombs. Gen Idi Amin who had in January overthrown former president and commander-in-chief Obote, unlike his predecessor, allowed Muteesa’s body to be reburied in Uganda.

After the death of Kabaka Muteesa II, Prince Mutebi was put in the company of a trusted guardian, Captain Owen.
In April 1971, Prince Mutebi returned for the reburial of his father and after words returned to Britain. He returned in August 1974 for the burial of his mother, Sarah Kisosonkole. She had died of cancer on August 17, 1974, at St Theresa hospital, Wimbledon in Britain.

When he returned, Prince Mutebi was destined to join Cambridge University to pursue a Bachelor of Law degree. Prince Mutebi stayed in exile until 1986 when he returned to Uganda and the long journey to the restoration of Buganda Kingdom started.