I was hacked indiscriminately and left for dead by FOBA rebels

On Friday, May 12, 1989, we had a meeting of LC chairpersons and head teachers. Uganda had gone through so many years of political turmoil that all systems had collapsed, including education. But a new dawn had come after the NRA took power in 1986. For two years or so, a Finnish organisation had been in parts of Tororo trying to rebuild schools. The meeting that day was aimed at extending all help to the organisation. There was so much hope that the country would rise from the ashes, finally.
After the meeting, we all took separate ways and went, each to their home. I reached home at around 7pm. As soon as I had sat down, I saw a group of people in military uniform matching on the village road. They must have been around 200.
We had severally reported to the new government that there was a militia called Force Obote Back Again (FOBA) causing some insecurity around Tororo. And so, when I saw this uniformed party, my first sense was that they were the NRA soldiers. I ran to them, extending my warmest welcome. Oh, what a relief!
Instead of hugging me, they surrounded me. They asked for my name. When I told them that I was Owori Deya, they chorused that I was the very person they were looking for.
‘Finish him!’ one man commanded from the back.
A man stepped forward and drew his gun and pointed it at me. But the commanding voice called from the back.
‘Don’t use the gun,’ the voice said with finality, ‘Use the panga for maximum effect.’
For a second, my brain tried to make up a different meaning from what the man had just said. It could have been a joke, or a dream. Was there something I could do to save myself? Could I recognise anyone in the group that could save me?
I took a scan of the faces in the twilight but couldn’t recognise anyone. Not that it was too dark. I could see that I had never met these people. However, some of them were hiding their faces. My guess was that these people knew me. All these thoughts were simultaneously going on in my head. I stood still, stunned, unable to run or talk.
The executioner raised his panga and aimed for the left side of my neck. At that moment, my teenage son, Matthew Okello, jumped up screaming and ran towards me to protect me. Before he could do anything, he was wrestled down and beaten mercilessly. When they saw that they had completely disarmed him, they stopped beating him and refocused on me. Having seen my son being beaten like that, I was completely dazed and motionless.
The executioner struck me with all his might. He would have lopped my head off had he not narrowly missed my neck and struck my rock-hard jaw. As I fell, the gushing blood must have convinced him that he had delivered a fatal blow. He didn’t target my neck again as he went on to punish me. He cut me everywhere. Shoulders, the back, the head, everywhere. You could see my heart through a cut in my back, as I learnt later.

As I lay there bleeding, waiting to die, I heard someone suggesting that they shouldn’t kill just me but my mother, my children and my wife. But another said that the other people were not a part of this fight. They accused me of being a government spy. They said that I was working with other educated people like me in my village to share intelligence about FOBA with the new NRA government. I was a head teacher and made regular trips to Tororo Town. They misconstrued this to mean that I was constantly delivering intelligence.
While the whole family were stunned motionless, one of my daughters jumped up as if by some spiritual force and ran faster than anything I had ever seen. They wouldn’t have caught her if they tried. My wife had gone to her family for funeral rites and my daughter was running to not only warn her not to come home, but also to tell her that I was dead.
As I lay in a pool of my own blood, I saw them slaughter all my animals for their food, one by one. They killed four cows and nine goats in total. The house was ransacked too. Saucepans, pots, all the bed sheets, blankets, and all clothes except those that were on my back. They tied everything on my two bicycles and left.
When my wife heard the news of my ‘murder’, she immediately set off to come back home without a care for personal safety. She told herself that if I had been killed, she would rather be killed too. Her sisters followed her shortly to offer support.
When they got to me, about three hours later, they started preparing to wash my body and prepare it for burial. Then they realised that I was not dead. My wife stopped grieving instantly and courage took over. She cleaned me up, covered my gashes the best she could and called for help. My friends Omwa Dundo, Obachwa Lewob, Osala, Gwanga, Lodovico Owor, Oboth Azaria, Ofwono Yakobo, and Olowo all heed her call and came as fast as they could.
One by one they voiced their doubts about my chances of survival. I was in a comma and pretty much looked dead. They were all reluctant about taking me to hospital. They all felt I was going to die on the way, anyway, and that it was a waste of time and energy to try to delay the inevitable.
But my wife was not one to change her mind. She insisted that I be carried to a health facility. My friends had no choice but to do as she commanded them. They rushed me to Kiyeni Health Centre. The health facility was at the time under the management of the Finnish organisation I mentioned earlier and my wife was hopeful that they might be able to help. As soon as we left home, it started raining heavily. The rain, it seemed, was God’s way of weeping with the people.
On reaching the health centre, the health workers could immediately tell that I was above their ability to save a life. Luckily, the organisation had a car by which to rush me to Tororo hospital, where more specialised treatment could be availed to me. That, I believe, is how fate saved my life.
On the way to the hospital, because the car was too small, I lay in one of the chairs. The remaining space was occupied by my wife and two other people. My friends who had helped carry me to the health centre had been shaken by the events of the night so much that all of them fled to Kampala that same night.
When I arrived at the hospital, it became apparent that I was only one of many that had been attacked by the same group. While I was alive, everyone else had not been so lucky. As a matter of fact, one victim who had been rushed there after surviving a lynching by the FOBA rebels died.
But he didn’t die from the injuries. His adversaries had followed him to the hospital and finished him off from his hospital bed. One can only imagine what my wife was going through as she heard this news soon after arriving with me. Luckily, the government forces deployed in Tororo Town the very next day. That is how fate would have it.
My best friend, Lawrence Owora, was murdered by the same group soon after they left my house. The reason of the attack, as it emerged later, was that I and other educated Catholics had the option of engaging in elective politics and join the new government. The politics of the time largely moved along religion lines. The FOBA group was Anglican-based. All the people that were attacked were Catholic.
Some of the educated Catholics in the sub-county that were murdered that night include, Pius Owolya, Matibus Ondur, Paul Oboth, Vererianio, Owor Bwong, Peter Alwodo and my best friend Owora. All these men succumbed to their injuries, except me.
The day after the attacks, which were widespread in the entire village, the RDC-equivalent of the time came to assess what had happened. His name was Francis Wangina. He’d been told we killed each other after drinking senselessly.
When he came and saw the situation himself, he believed that it was the FOBA militia. That visit may be the one factor that caused the government to deploy in Tororo the next day.
As soon as I got out of comma, I was warned to hide because the FOBA militia was still looking for me. I was so traumatised that I never went home even after I was discharged. I asked to be posted in Osia, 20km from home, because it was closer to the security forces.
I exiled myself there for five years but not a day passed that I didn’t think it would be my last. A friend of mine returned home during those five years and got murdered. But one day, in 1994, while I was starting to get tired of living like this, I heard that the militia had been completely dismantled. I came back home.”
The government and politicians always pledge to compensate him and the others that lost everything to FOBA. But talk is cheap. It always fizzles out after the elections. At 80 years, Deya lives on the hope that one day, the government will honour it promises.

FOBA
FOBA was a militia that operated in some parts of eastern Uganda soon after Yoweri Museveni’s NRA took power. The militia popped up soon after the defeat of Alice Lakwena in 1987. They were said to be made up of former president Milton Obote loyalists who agitated for his return to power. Their aim was to frustrate the new leadership in the east, with the aim of planting their influence across the country.