Past and present: Obote apologises to Catholic Church over army’s raid on Rubaga Cathedral

The soldiers’ descent on the church was in the name of searching for rebels of the Uganda Freedom Movement (UFM), a rebel organisation led by Dr Andrew Lutakome Kayiira, which was one of the many rebel organisations that had taken up arms against Obote’s government. Kayiira was killed on March 7, 1987, in a rented home of journalist Henry Gombya in Lukuli Makindye, in what has turned out to be one of Uganda’s unresolved high-profile murders.

Precursor

Aday before the soldiers invaded the Church premises, UFM rebels launched an attack on the Lubiri, which was at the time one of the army’s barracks in Kampala. UNLA easily beat off the attackers in an eight-hour gun battle that left, according to Obote II government figures, at least 67 rebels and five government soldiers dead. The rebel force was, however, thrown into disarray forcing whatever remained of the force to beat a hasty retreat into Mawokota and Mubende from where most of them later joined another rebel force, the National Resistance Army (NRA). 

The NRA had already launched its own war against the Obote II government when it on February 6, 1981, attacked Kabamba Military Training School in Mubende. In response to that NRA rebellion, Obote on March 6, 1981, unveiled plans involving strict orders that were to be implemented by security forces as part of a wider plan aimed at clamping down on the activities of the rebel forces. Sixteen days later, the government launched a major campaign aimed at wiping out rebel bases and training camps from what was then known as the Luweero Triangle, an area north of Kampala, where the rebel NRA originally operated.

Government claims

It was believed that the few artillery pieces that were available to the UFM rebels during the attack on the barracks had been mounted on the church’s premises. It was on account of that thinking that the army was ordered to go on a search operation there. 

Fr Joseph Nkera was one of those who were on the premises when UNLA soldiers stormed the place. Speaking to Sunday Monitor in a February 2020 interview, he revealed that he and two other priests, Fr Mpalanyi Katumba, and Fr Bwire were conducting mass on the fateful day. “Halfway through the mass, I saw soldiers at the main entrance. They shouted ‘stop’ and I instinctively asked them ‘why’. They cocked their guns and moved very fast to the altar where we were,” he recalled. The soldiers’ actions sparked off a stampede. “Children were ordered out. As they scrambled for the exit, the priests were dragged out of the church to the parish offices. The scene was chaotic,” he added. The priests were not spared harsh treatment. They were beaten with gun butts and kicked amid demands that they show the soldiers where the guns were.

Search

According to Fr Nkera, the soldiers searched the parish offices and the private residence of the cardinal. Emmanuel Cardinal Nsubuga was away on the Church’s farm in Kyankwanzi. The search operation was, however, not limited to the church premises. The whole Rubaga Division had been cordoned off as soldiers went on the hunt for rebels, collaborators and arms. Residents of the affected villages fled their homes into the church premises thinking that they would be safer there. They were mistaken. Sixty of those who had sought refuge there were taken away. Some of them remain unaccounted for.

Cardinal’s ultimatum

When news of the raid on the cathedral got to the cardinal, he cut short his stay in Kyankwanzi and returned to Kampala. The cardinal issued a four-page statement in which he gave government an ultimatum – either apologise or face a Catholic Church boycott of State functions. 

“In view of what has happened and the suspicion aroused, I would appreciate an apology from the government for the insult and the harm done to the Catholic Church of which I am the head. The violation of sacred premises is an extremely serious matter of which I am under obligation to inform the Holy Father. Should an apology not be made I don’t see how I could reasonably participate in any public function to which I might be invited in the future,” the cardinal wrote. 

In the same document, he protested the conduct of the soldiers and their treatment of the congregation. 

“I hereby protest in the strongest terms against the godless and sacrilegious act of some members of the Uganda army in violating my cathedral and using military force on, especially the congregation which was attending a religious function,” he wrote. At the time, there were also allegations that the church’s farm in Kyankwanzi was being used as a training ground for rebels. The cardinal used the same statement to dismiss those allegations. 

“I protest before God as firmly as I am able against the use of the military force in obliging three priests to leave the Higher Altar in their vestments during a solemn act of divine worship. Finally, I protest against absurd allegations concerning the Kyankwanzi farm where I was staying, namely that guerrillas were being trained by me at the farm,” he wrote. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Obote and his army chief of staff, Maj Gen David Oyite-Ojok, were not in agreement over the handling of the UFM attack on Lubiri. Obote reportedly told Ojok that the invasion of the Church premises was inopportune given that the government’s image was reeling amid allegations of human rights violations in Luweero Triangle. 

“David, that is good security, but bad politics,” Obote reportedly told his army chief of staff. It was against such a background that Obote apologised to the church. Oyite-Ojok passed away on December 2, 1983, when the helicopter in which he was traveling came down in the Luweero Triangle shortly after a meeting in which he had laid out to the UNLA field commander a plan to wipe out the rebel NRA. 

Cardinal Nsubuga died in April 1991 in Cologne Germany, where he was being treated for cancer. Obote passed on in October 2005, in a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the age of 79.