Kasubi Tombs: Unsolved mystery 11 years after the fire

March 16, 2010, was a normal Tuesday but turned tragic when a furious fire gutted the Kasubi Tombs early in the night. 
The flames leapt skywards, smoke filled the air, with cries and screams from hundreds of royalists, young and old.
Many wondered how this could happen to their revered kings’ burial grounds and why. 
That the blaze had razed Muzibu-Azaala-Mpanga, the main mausoleum—an architectural masterpiece—where Buganda’s four recent kings had been buried, was a sword struck in the kingdom’s heart. 

Medard Ssegona, then Buganda’s deputy minister of information, called it the ‘second biggest tragedy’ in the kingdom’s history after the 1966 army raid of the Lubiri that forced Kabaka (king) Edward Mutesa II into exile. 
CBS FM, Buganda Kingdom’s radio station, had been banned over claims of fanning the September 2009 riots, but the news of the tombs fire spread like a wildfire. 
“Even those who should have consoled others were inconsolable,” recalls Stuart Yiga, a Red Pepper reporter then.
 
A bloody morning followed. President Museveni was coming soon for an on-spot assessment of the damage. 
The UPDF soldiers were everywhere, Yiga recalls. And hell soon broke lose when some protestors sat atop the gate to the tombs, hurling stones at the President’s motorcade. 
The charged mob suspected the State, whose relations with Buganda were deteriorating, was behind the fire, witnesses say.
 
The men in uniform had made firing rehearsals by shooting in the air to disperse the crowds who had blocked the police fire brigade from accessing the site in the night. 
Now the stakes were even higher. security forces opened fire. 
“And within seconds, the scene became a battlefield. We took cover,” Joseph Kiggundu, a Daily Monitor photojournalist, recalls. 
“I had covered riotous situations but I had never heard a staccato of bullets so rapid and so close.”
“In a blink of an eye”, Yiga adds, “We were seeing dead bodies.”

The official count said only Cornelius Kayanja, Haruna Kakumba and an unidentified person were killed but witnesses suspect more. 
The identities of the officers who commanded the military operation and the shootings at the Kasubi tombs remain shrouded in mystery.
Calm was only restored when Kabaka Ronald Mutebi II visited the scene and declared seven days of mourning.

Forewarned? 
According to New Vision of December 2, 2010, George Herbert Mulumba, who was the chief administrator of Kasubi Tombs before the inferno, told Justice Steven Engwau’s commission of inquiry that he had asked Mengo, the administrative seat of Buganda Kingdom, to beef-up security at the site following rampant fires in Buganda, most notably the one that had killed 19 pupils at Budo Junior School in 2008.
 
Mulumba, 61, told the commission that his letter to Mengo’s security minister only identified as Maj Senkoma was also copied to the Katikkiro (prime minister) JB Walusimbi, Nnaalinya [kababa’s sister] Beatrice Namikka, and the minister in-charge of tombs, but got no answers. 
By then, Mulumba said, the historical 64-acre site had only two guards armed with just sticks, bows and arrows.

“I am in fear due to the rampant fires in schools in Buganda. This is a very important historical site. I appeal to you to send me three or more security personnel to guard this place,” a copy of the July 12, 2008 letter reads in part.

It was the first document to be received by the commission, which included Augustine Okurut, Grace Akullo, and Damiano Lubega, who represented Buganda Kingdom. 
Mulumba also told the commission that shortly after the fire broke out, someone was heard talking on the phone that he had finished the deal.

“I was informed about it and I went to see him. The man was arrested and handed over to Gen Katumba Wamala, who took him to the police. His mobile phone was also given to the police, but he has never been produced in court,” he said.
But why did Buganda ignore such a serious warning? 
Noah Kiyimba, the kingdom spokesperson and information minister, says the Mengo administration of the time is in a better place to respond. 
“But even then, we cannot be conclusive on the matter without the report of the inquiry,” Mr Kiyimba told Saturday Monitor in a telephone interview in March. 

Unresolved tension 
A 2012 Africa report by the International Crisis Group Working To Prevent Conflict Worldwide, titled Uganda: No Resolution to Growing Tensions, details separating kings from politics, the central government’s opposition to Buganda Kingdom, encouraging new kings within Buganda, weakening landowners in Buganda, the attempt to introduce regional tier system of government to deflect Buganda’s chronic demand for federalism and the impact of the Kasubi tombs fire among the unresolved causes of the tension in Uganda.
The report further notes that while the fire was probably accidental, the confrontations between the State and Mengo tempted many to accuse the government. 
“It turned a cold war into a bloody feud,” an observer says. 
And that no one was held accountable for the alleged arson and the military killings at the tombs, did not help matters.
 

With hindsight, Sewava Sserubiri, the kingdom minister for culture, says the Kasubi fire was no isolated incident. 
“We had resisted several attempts to derail us from our demands and it seems our enemies wanted to strike the killer punch,” Sserubiri told us in an interview. 
This echoes the words of Charles Peter Mayiga, then Buganda’s information minister and now prime minister.
“There are people who want to cause harm to this kingdom. They are keen on destabilising us and we don’t know whether they are [the ones] behind this,” Reuters quoted Mayiga as saying.

“But we rose up stronger and committed to rebuild the tombs with better technology,” Isaac Mpanga, a member of the legal committee of the Lukiiko [Buganda parliament], adds.  “That is Buganda’s tested spirit of resilience to rise after disaster.” 
Despite the friction, the African report notes that President Museveni dominated the 2011 polls in Buganda. However, Mpanga advises the State to stop treating Buganda matters, especially on governance, with contempt. Otherwise, Buganda shall continue rejecting the status quo, as was evidenced in the recent elections.
 
Elusive report 
Yiga also covered the inquiry at the Uganda Manufacturers Association Conference Hall in Lugogo, Kampala. Most of the testimonies, he remembers, suggested possible arson or negligence by residents near the tombs. 
The commission, under the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, began in December 2010, and finished its report in March 2011—a year after the fire—and handed it to government. But the report has never been made public. 
In 2012, Young Catholic Lawyers for Political Correctness (YCLPC) petitioned the High Court to prompt government to release the report.
But Richard Lumu, one of the lead lawyers in the case, says the case is still pending hearing. 
Ten years on, Buganda’s hope for the report dwindles by the day.

Mary Karooro Okurut, who was the Gender minister in 2012, did not answer our questions for this story. 
Her successor, Janat Mukwaya (2016-2019), also declined to respond but referred us to the current minister, Frank Tumwebaze, who also referred us to Peace Mutuuzo, his deputy in-charge of gender and culture. Mutuuzo said she does not know about the report. 

“I wouldn’t want to commit myself over it,” Mutuuzo said in a telephone interview. She, however, promised to consult the director of culture in the Gender ministry, and the Ministry of Tourism. 
 
Mpanga says if the Katikkiro decides to demand the report as the law permits, they are ready.
However, he adds that the kingdom decided to move on and embark on the restoration of its pride. 
Kiyimba, the Buganda spokesperson, says the report would have guided them on how to plug the risks. But the inordinate delay already undermines its credibility. 

Delayed reconstruction
Immediately after the destruction, Buganda and Unesco drew plans to reconstruct the tombs, which are a Unesco World Heritage Site since 2001. 
Mayiga, who had replaced John Bosco Walusimbi as Katikkiro in May 2013, courted established businessmen to launch Ettoffaali [fundraising] to speed up the reconstruction process.

Probably the biggest fundraising drive in Uganda, Ettoffaali reached even other kingdoms and the diaspora and attracted billions of shillings that built the perimeter wall around the 64-acre site; decent houses for the caretakers and Muzibu-Azaala-Mpanga, the main mausoleum. 
In partnership with Japan, and the central government that contributed Shs12b, the Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage had projected the opening ceremony of the tombs for October 2015. 

But like the report, the reconstruction has been delayed.
Kiyimba attributes the delay to cultural norms and the architectural complexities involved “but there’s progress,” he reassures.

The master plan, initially projected to cost Shs10b, also included a cultural village and a tourist sanctuary to boost the kingdom’s revenue. 
But Kiyimba says the priority is completion of the tombs. “That will help us generate income for the other projects.” 
When we visited the site in March, we saw about six big fire extinguishers due to be installed. 
CCTV cameras shall also be mounted on the fence.

Why Kasubi
According to David Nkalubo, who replaced Mulumba as the katikkiro of the tombs, Nsigo, is a title for a gateman at the tombs. 
One of the gatemen, who has done the job since the reign of Chwa II, for more than 80 years, says before settling at Kasubi, Mutesa’s first palace was in Banda. 

When Kabaka Ssuuna II died, Nsigo says, a succession battle ensued among his many sons. Mutesa, one of the youngest, emerged the new crown prince. 
But his maternal uncle sensed danger and took him to Kasubi, in Kyaggwe for safety. When the dust settled, Muteesa left Kasubi to live in the Banda palace. He set up another palace on Lubaga Hill, where the Catholic cathedral stands today. 

However, Muteesa fled Lubaga during an outbreak of a skin disease, which killed more than 4,000 in the kingdom, and established his new palace at Nabulagala, which he named Kasubi, the village of his maternal ancestry in Kyaggwe. 
When Muteesa died in 1884, he was buried in his Kasubi palace, which became tombs even for his descendants: Mwanga II, Chwa II and Mutesa II, the first collective tombs in the kingdom. 
The mausoleum held royal regalia, while it is believed that the kings’ spirits inhabit the rear area called Ekibira (forest). Mutesa II renovated the tombs in the 1940s.
 
Legend has it that the main pillar of Muzibu-Azaala-Mpanga was uprooted from a forest in Kasubi, Kyaggwe, by strongmen who carried it without resting it down until it was erected at the site. 
Upon reconstruction of the tombs, Sserubiri’s team simulated the ritual only that this time, they used a trailer truck bed on which men stood with the log on their shoulders. 

Background

Journalists’ experience
Moses Lemisa’s peers at Bukedde newspaper call him Kawonawo (survivor), having survived the harrowing experience while covering the incident. 
Lemisa had defied his boss’ instructions to rush to the tombs immediately when the fire broke out. “I went there the following morning but the fire had not been completely put out.”
But the worst came as the Presidential Guard Brigade confronted agitated protestors who attempted to block the President’s visit. 

A witness, who never wanted to be named, saw operatives in civilian attire, with pistols pouncing on whoever was suspected to sabotage their mission. 
Some rioters even wanted to grab journalists’ cameras. 
Lemisa updated his boss about the tense situation and was told to be careful and flee when necessary but soon, he was sent crashing to the ground with his camera. 
“In the scuffle, a soldier kicked me in the chest and I crashed with my camera,” Lemisa says. 

The soldier apologised that he did not intend to hit him. Lemisa rose again and covered the events, and delivered the work to his boss. 
But that would be his last coverage of the incident. 
“Back home, in the night, I felt deep pain in my chest, and soon I became unconscious.”
His wife called his bosses, who rushed him to Nakasero Hospital, where he said he spent two weeks, with some days in a coma.

In his five years of journalism, Lemisa had covered chaotic environments, including the September 2009 riots in which at least 40 people were killed  and scores injured. “But the Kasubi incident was my worst day in journalism.”
To Stuart Yiga, a Red Pepper reporter then and now with the New Vision, the sight of men and women, probably in their 90s, wailing, others prostrating before the charred ruins, was the most striking and imprinting on his mind an inerasable memory.