A slain beauty, tears of a broken General and pigs we fear to talk about
What you need to know:
- Mr Gawaya Tegule says: It is from the field in DRC that I profiled Katumba. His soldiers held him in awe.
Mashujaa pia hulia. Los heroes tambien lloran. Heroes also cry. One of the simplest conclusions that can be drawn from the biggest story in Uganda lately.
The sight of a most celebrated General drenched in blood, weeping inconsolably, not for himself, but for his slain daughter, is perhaps the most enduring image of the tragedy. Whoever tried to kill former Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Katumba Wamala, need not make another attempt on his life: by murdering his daughter Brenda, they actually finished him.
I first came close to Katumba just over two decades ago. By then he was a Brigadier; heading the Ugandan forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and headquartered in Gbadolite, in northern DRC, which was former president Mobutu Sese Seko’s home town, just below the border with the Central African Republic.
DRC at the time was an absolute tinderbox: President Laurent Kabila had just been assassinated, his son had been installed as heir, sorry, new president and further war was imminent. The place was deadly, especially for journalists like me who were there to tell the world what was happening on the ground.
Katumba, easily the most influential man in DRC at the time, put me up in his house, in a room next to his…and made sure that I was safe even whenever I was outfield with the soldiers. It is from the field that I profiled Katumba. His soldiers held him in awe.
There are five things soldier boys can’t resist when they go out to war: women, women and women, then booze and cigarettes. Perks of battle! Katumba was nowhere near any; didn’t want to compromise his family life. His humility, simplicity and discipline were a work of fiction…especially when one dares compare him to one of his predecessors (RIP) – in Congo - whose middle name was Mischief.
When a man values family to that extent, you can probably begin to understand the pain he feels, with Brenda, probably his most treasured child, having been set aside in cold blood, on his watch.
Three, maybe four things, must be said. One, tragedy is no respecter of persons; you never can tell what bloody surprise the next minute has in store for you.
Two, the tears that Gen Katumba is shedding, the pain that pierces his heart every passing moment as he remembers her final word “Jesus!”; the anguish of watching his beautiful daughter lowered into a grave prematurely, the agony of a promising young life cut short, the grief that will follow him wherever he sees another young woman and imagines what Brenda might have become, are emotions that many more parents have experienced before him.
His President, a few months ago, after the massacres of unarmed civilians by security agencies, didn’t think much of the deaths. To him, it was a matter of just bury…and come pick up some money in compensation from us, if your kid was not part of the demonstrators. If he or she was, they deserved to die… like twice. Question: how much money would satisfy Gen Katumba as “compensation” for his daughter? A billion? Okay, let’s be generous: a trillion? See the folly of it all?
Three: those who killed Brenda may be pigs, as Mr Museveni calls them. But what shall we call those who wear uniform and freely kill in the name of keeping Mr Museveni in power?
Those who abduct people, frame charges against them and dump them in military court where, as we all know, justice is foreign and forbidden?
What shall we label those that we fear to talk about in the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI, which also controls the Police Special Investigations Unit, SIU, in Kireka) and Internal Security Organisation (ISO) who keep torture chambers and subject our young people to untold agony, coming out maimed, or impotent or dead? Just because we don’t cry on television doesn’t mean we are not pained by the atrocities of the regime.
If the death of Brenda and the pain that her father is suffering, can become a springboard for reform, in a new Uganda where human life does matter, regardless of status, then Brenda, rest in peace, will not have died in vain.
Mr Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda
