Writer: Asuman Bisiika. PHOTO/FILE
I have not brought myself to make a clear position on the matter of regime change via public protests. Public protests are wont to regress into some kind of criminal enterprise manifesting in looting and vandalism.
Plus: the expected violent confrontation between the state’s instruments of coercion leading to loss of lives.
But what if the regime consciously and deliberately provokes citizens into such protests? Indeed, what if the regime criminalises thought? What if the regime turns rogue and state actors just kidnap, detain and torture citizens just for the fun of it? Wouldn’t that be an invitation to citizens’ protests or armed rebellion?
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The working title for this piece was: I learnt Runyankore from a neighbouring country.
Since I left Kampala, I always get city beat from social media. And so, a very funny friend of mine was telling me that ‘torture’ is now called ‘learning Runyankore’. So, when I say I learnt Runyankore in a foreign country, I mean I was tortured in a neighbouring country.
It is the nature of things that those holding power don’t fancy losing it. But to what extent can the state compel the citizens not to hold and own thought?
When I heard of Eddie Mutwe’s case, I asked myself: what strategic benefits does holding and torturing Mutwe offer the state (or to be specific those holding power)? Mr Mutwe is not an ideologue nor a demagogue.
In all its manifestations, torture seems to be associated with states carrying some elements of a failed or failing state. So, 60-plus old Ugandans like me don’t understand the political significance of a Mr Mutwe; least said of the need to torture him.
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I have lived all my adult life in the voisinage of security and politics. And I can testify that classification of information (secrecy codes) by security services is about concealing illegal activities (sometimes bordering on pure crime). So, you can imagine Eddie Mutwe’s detention location was classified as secret (with restriction on access)!
Ugandans are used to security servicemen kidnapping, torturing, illegal detention of citizens. But there seems to be nkuba mpya (Luganda: a new trend). A citizen is kidnapped and held in illegal detention. Those illegally holding him boast and claim to be teaching (torturing) him or her one of the local vernaculars. That’s new. And then we ask: whose interest do these security people serve?
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I have shared my torture testimony before. I will repeat it for the benefit of those who have not read it.
I was in one of the neighbouring countries whose security agencies suspected (wrongly) me of being a Ugandan spy. I was arrested and thrown into a safe house facility. I was stripped naked, my legs and arms tied, and left in a three-by-six-foot cell for 96 hours.
When they came to pick me (to parade me before the media as a dangerous spy), they found me wallowing in my human excreta and urine. I was too weak to even sit upright; least said of standing up. Neither did I have the energy to clean myself.
Other detainees were brought in to clean me. A doctor was later brought in to stabilise me. Yet that’s not the only thing they did to me. They did more; some of which I have conditioned myself to take to the grave.
I don’t want such a situation to happen to anyone (for any reason: breach of state security or other). We are human beings, and no amount of passion for nationalism, support for regime or patriotism should push one to do what ‘they’ did to me. No. It is wrong. It is inhuman.
