How many ‘isolated incidents’ did it take before Amin’s army went rogue?

In early November 1964, a nondescript man sat sipping a beer in a bar in Nakulabye, a Kampala suburb. Then, but considerably less so now, the suburb was popular for its roast meats and its proximity to Makerere University where nubile undergraduates, finally freed from watchful parents, and eager to be shown the ways of the world, could be found.

Several beers in, the man started fondling the bar-owner’s daughter who might have been part of the waiting staff. Another man, a concerned relative or a jealous boyfriend with longstanding interests in the subject, intervened and slapped him.

His pride hurt, and his cheek buzzing from the unexpected encounter with an open palm, Mr Touchy-feely melted into the shadows. If Mr Touchy-feely had taken his sore pride and cheeks to bed, Uganda’s history might have been different.

Instead, he returned shortly after, this time accompanied by a gang of armed men. As it turned out, Mr Touchy-feely was a member of the security services (probably Police Special Branch, maybe the Uganda Army – its all detail, really) and had fingers that liked to grope and pull things, including triggers.

Mayhem broke out as the armed men opened fire indiscriminately at revellers and residents. When calm finally returned, six people lay dead and several others were injured.

There are several versions of this story and not every one agrees to the facts. What matters, however, is that the incident was soon caught up in the politics of the day.

The details are complicated: The Lost Counties issue between Buganda and Bunyoro; competing nationalist and monarchical tendencies in the ruling UPC-Kabaka Yekka alliance; previous incidents of gun violence and a stress-test for the armed institutions in the recently-independent country.

Amidst increasing political tensions and acts by what he termed ‘lawless elements’ prime minister Milton Obote made the right noises announcing on November 6, 1964, that he had issued “very firm instructions to the Army Commander and Inspector-General of Police, to use such powers as they have to protect the lives and properties of the public”.

It was all talk and no action. The armed men who were arrested at Nakulabye were released without charge the next day. Pressed on the matter in Parliament, Internal Affairs minister Alex Onama denied accusations that the police acted brutally.

In his gripping book, The Social Origins of Violence in Uganda, Prof A.B. Kasozi, would later note that none of the men involved in the incident were charged with any criminal offences, and no compensation was paid to the affected families. The dead and injured were merely statistics, a footnote to a history of political violence.

“Nakulabye inaugurated the use of the gun by government agents, who have been pointing it at civilians ever since,” Prof Kasozi wrote. Prof Kasozi’s book was originally published in 1994, 30 years after the Nakulabye Massacres.

In that time, the seed of impunity planted at Nakulabye and watered by the blood of mostly innocents, had sprouted into a lawless jungle in which people disappeared, often without trace.

Families exchanged heartfelt goodbyes in the morning, for there were no guarantees that one would return home safe and sound. Children stayed up late into the night listening, amidst the howling dogs and scattered sounds of sporadic gunfire, for the sounds of footsteps that announced the return of a guardian.

Over the years, we came to perfect the language of justifying the unjustifiable. People were not kidnapped, but were called in for questioning in connection, often, with rebel groups.

They did not succumb to the wounds from their torture, but were usually shot dead as they attempted to escape from lawful custody. Those whose bodies washed up by riverbanks or were found decomposing in forests were either victims of ‘lawless elements’ or enemies of the State.

No one was responsible for anything. Things just happened. We figured out how to investigate without ever finding anything, to dig deep into matters without ever reaching any conclusions.

We perfected the art of recycling undesirable thugs and killers who just happened to be our undesirable thugs and killers. We learnt how to warn rogue elements in the strongest terms possible, while giving them the lightest punishments available.

There is, if you think about it, nothing unusual about a gang of armed men in civilian uniform gun-butting another man in a crowded street in the middle of the day and then speeding off with him to an unknown destination in a car with fake number plates.

It is just another isolated incident that must be strongly condemned, until the next isolated incident, which shall, similarly, be condemned in the strongest terms possible.

No country is as strong as us when it comes to condemning violence and brutality in the strongest terms possible. We have been practising since 1964 when men with guns started fondling us.

Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and a poor man’s
freedom fighter. [email protected]
Twitter: @Kalinaki.