38 Ugandans rot in DRC military prison

Kampala. A total of 38 Ugandans are languishing in military detention in DR Congo, with some having spent as many as five years in jail.
Saturday Monitor has established that none of them has ever been charged or been informed of the offence for which they were arrested.
Highly placed sources in the DR Congo who leaked the information to Saturday Monitor claimed the Ugandans were detained with the knowledge of the Ugandan security agencies.
Repeated attempts to reach army spokesperson Lt Col Paddy Ankunda were unsuccessful.
However, government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo denied the claims of government complicity in the detentions.

“They should demonstrate to the public that Ndolo Military Prison is under the jurisdiction of Uganda or we are occupying Congolese territory illegally. I don’t think those arrested are such a threat to Uganda.”
The list, a copy of which we have obtained, was compiled by detainees in the Ndolo Military Prison, a facility with a bad human rights record and internationally reported cases of suspected extra-judicial killings of detainees.
The Congolese authorities hold up to 2,000 suspects and convicts of varying offences at the prison.

As of Wednesday, four of the detainees at the Ndolo Military Prison in the capital Kinshasa, were said to be terminally sick without any treatment in jail.
Some of them are suspected members of the Ugandan rebel group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), Congolese rebel group M23 and other illegal entrants or suspected “dangerous” opponents of the Uganda government.

When contacted, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Sam Omara suggested an even worse situation for Ugandans. He said the number of Ugandans detained in foreign prisons could be higher, suggesting up to at least 3,000 Ugandans being in different detention centres in the USA alone as of 2014.
The issue, he said, was a topical discussion point during the ambassadors meeting in Kampala about two weeks ago.
“We have Ugandans detained almost in every country. At the recent ambassadors’ conference, emphasis was laid on facilitating the embassies to negotiate for them to serve their sentences here so relatives can visit them,” Dr Omara said.

Families aware
The FDC party member and former Ugandan envoy to the Scandinavian countries, Mr Sam Makokha, who has established contact with the Ugandan detainees in DRC, told Saturday Monitor that he had also informed their families about their plight.
Of the 38 detainees, 19 are from the eastern part of the country with 12 of them from Busoga sub-region. Twelve are from western Uganda including Nyabushozi County in Kiruhura, President Museveni’s home district.
The other six are drawn from parts of central Uganda (Buganda sub-region). Thirty are indicated as Muslims.

In an interview with this newspaper on Wednesday at Ndolo, Dr Kizza Besigye’s aide Sam Mugumya said a one Musa Sudaisi from Bugiri District who was shot in crossfire between ADF and Congolese forces a year ago leaving a bullet stuck inside his body had deteriorating kidney, was increasingly becoming anaemic and they were “expecting the worst” to happen.
Three others are battling tuberculosis, hernia and paralysis with the only medicine they get being pain killers provided by prison warders. To get some treatment, one has to pay at least $100 (about Shs350,000) which the detainees do not have.

“Some of the people here were thrown in this prison for allegedly working with ADF. Others M23 and then some of us are FDC activists facing persecution. Uganda claims we were involved in rebellion though they haven’t disclosed which rebel group,” Mr Mugumya said.
Some of the detainees our reporter spoke to through an intermediary in the prison said they were arrested in DR Congo for illegal entry but when the Ugandan authorities were informed, they branded them rebels of ADF, a now demobilised dissident group that fought the NRM government between 1996 and 2002 with occasional attacks in the subsequent years before they seemingly fizzled out.
The Uganda Media Centre executive director, Mr Ofwono Opondo, admitted the government had done little in contacting their Congolese counterparts to resolve the plight of the Ugandan detainees.

“The issue should be if we have taken enough effort to have them brought here and ask why our people are being held illegally. As a matter of fact Ambassador James Kinobe was assigned six months ago to visit that place,” Mr Opondo said.
Appearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament in May last year, Mr Kinobe revealed that DRC was illegally holding more than 300 Ugandans in their prison without trial with at least 100 of the suspects closely linked to rebel activity after Congolese authorities launched an offensive on remnants of the ADF in eastern Congo.

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