I argued
last week that there is a small but very vocal group of Ugandans who have taken
their legitimate anger against the regime of Yoweri Museveni into a
condemnation of the Ugandan society generally. This trend is beneficial to
Museveni and company because a cynical political class that despises its own
people cannot be a vehicle for progressive change. This lesson was vividly
brought to me during a lunch discussion with a Western diplomat about our
nations major challenges.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
When Uganda arrests its most prominent journalist
By Andrew Rice
Being the most prominent journalist in Uganda is a little like having the best arm in the New York Mets' bullpen--the honor is a poisoned chalice if ever there was one. But in a country where reporters are customarily bought off, threatened, or shunned by public officials, Andrew Mwenda is someone unique: a figure larger than most of the people he covers. Mornings, Mwenda's byline appears in Uganda's main independent newspaper, where he routinely exposes stories of government skullduggery and scandal. Evenings, he conducts a rollicking political talk show on a popular radio station, hosting everyone from shady generals to exiled presidents to Western visitors like foreign aid activist Jeffrey Sachs. In the hours in between, Mwenda can be seen holding court beneath a shady tree at an outdoor Indian restaurant in downtown Kampala, attired in a tailored suit, trading gossip and spouting opinions. Imagine Bob Woodward and Chris Matthews wrapped into one diminutive, thirty something, hyperactive, pipsqueak-voiced package, and you start to get the idea. When the Ugandan police came to arrest Mwenda last week, on charges of sedition, a lot of his friends wondered, "What took them so long?"
Being the most prominent journalist in Uganda is a little like having the best arm in the New York Mets' bullpen--the honor is a poisoned chalice if ever there was one. But in a country where reporters are customarily bought off, threatened, or shunned by public officials, Andrew Mwenda is someone unique: a figure larger than most of the people he covers. Mornings, Mwenda's byline appears in Uganda's main independent newspaper, where he routinely exposes stories of government skullduggery and scandal. Evenings, he conducts a rollicking political talk show on a popular radio station, hosting everyone from shady generals to exiled presidents to Western visitors like foreign aid activist Jeffrey Sachs. In the hours in between, Mwenda can be seen holding court beneath a shady tree at an outdoor Indian restaurant in downtown Kampala, attired in a tailored suit, trading gossip and spouting opinions. Imagine Bob Woodward and Chris Matthews wrapped into one diminutive, thirty something, hyperactive, pipsqueak-voiced package, and you start to get the idea. When the Ugandan police came to arrest Mwenda last week, on charges of sedition, a lot of his friends wondered, "What took them so long?"
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Uganda soars even if its leaders sink
A few weeks ago, a Western diplomat invited a couple of us
to lunch to discuss the major challenge facing our nation and what the West should
do(I would have preferred should not do) about it. As I listened to Ugandan
colleagues speak, I got worried. They denounced our lack of good leadership and
poured scorn on the quality of our government. Here I agreed with them
entirely. Then they moved beyond this to a more generalised attack on Ugandan
society as being ignorant, lazy, complacent, cowardly, and more. This failure
to separate the failures of the Yoweri Museveni regime from the wider Ugandan
society concerned me deeply.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Prison Notes - Part 1: Background to my arrest
The Chinese have a saying that a wise man looks for an opportunity in every problem while a stupid person looks for a problem in every opportunity. Thus, when Criminal Investigations Department (CID) officer, Charles Kataratambi, called me at 3.30pm on Friday August 12, 2005 to report at CID headquarters, I knew that the trouble I had been anticipating had finally come – but that also, here was an opportunity. What was this opportunity to be? I will return to this later in this series.
Two days earlier, on Wednesday August 10, BBC news anchorman, Robin Lustig and producer, David Edmonds came to my office for an interview about media freedom in Uganda. They had many questions: Is Uganda democratising? Are the media free? I told them I couldn’t give one answer since the political terrain in Uganda is a meeting ground of contradictory movements.
The media has two elements, I said: one is political, the other juridical. At the level of politics, President Yoweri Museveni personally and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) generally have demonstrated commendable respect for freedom of the press. If you listen to some political talk shows on private FM radio stations, I told Lastig and Edmonds, you would know that Uganda’s media are as free as, or even freer than, in the United States or any other democracy. People even call the president a killer, a thief and walk home sure that no one will follow them, I said.
And???? The expression on their faces was eagerly asking. I told them that at the juridical level, i.e. if you look at the statute books in Uganda, the legal regime governing the media reads like it was drawn by a committee of five eminent men – Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin and Pol Pot. Over the years the NRM has never repealed even one anti media law. On the contrary, it has reinforced them. However, I hastened to add, the government has been very restrained to use the Stalinist legal regime to clump down on the media.
Why????? Their facial expression again seemed to ask me. I told them that once in a while, the government does appeal to these laws to lock up a journalist or drag them to courts of law. The purpose, I said, is not to prosecute the case and win it, but to intimidate journalists so that we can learn to censor ourselves. The bad laws therefore hang on our heads like the sword of domiciles, I said. How about the future? They asked me. I said that President Museveni seems hell-bent on clinging to power. As some of his close colleagues are opposing him, he will increasingly act like a wounded buffalo. The future of freedom in Uganda is very bleak as an intolerant and extremist faction has taken control.
And how about yourself? Do you feel safe? You are an outspoken and critical journalist, they asked. I told them that I have spent the last seven years of my career as a journalist preparing myself for any eventuality – jail, torture, death, and the possible planting of evidence against me in order to frame me of all sorts crimes or just humiliate me. I always convince myself that Uganda is a dictatorship, I said, so that when it strikes, I am not taken by surprise. Yet, I am also part of the contradiction because many times I tend to act and behave as if Uganda is a free and democratic society. Possibly I instinctively feel so.
Later that same day, President Museveni sounded out his warning at Kololo during a funeral of those Ugandans who died with former Sudanese Vice President, Lt. Gen. John Garang. “These newspapers,” the president said while the audience cheered him in loud admiration, “I am the elected leader of Uganda, I therefore have the mandate to run their affairs (sic). I will no longer tolerate a newspaper, which is like a vulture… I will simply close it! Finish! End! Gasiya tu!” To me this sounded like former dictator Idi Amin, not Museveni.
But the president was not done: “I have been seeing this young boy, Mwenda, writing about Rwanda, writing about Sudan, writing about UPDF, he must stop. Completely!” Again, the use of the words “stop” and “completely” each as a sentence is a very common Idi Amin expression if you have listened to the former dictator. The president went on, “He is an expert on SPLA, and he knows the minutes which took place where… he must stop.”
Two things struck me from the president’s speech. He was announcing a new law arrogating himself powers to close newspapers. But Uganda has a constitution which gives law making power to only one institution – parliament. There is no law in this country that gives powers to the president to close newspapers. The last president to rule by decree in this country was Idi Amin. To his credit, Amin’s actions were at least legal since he had suspended the constitution upon taking power and declared that he would rule by decree.
If you live in a country governed by the rule of law rather than the rule of a man’s ego, you would sleep safely and shrug at such a statement. This was not to be. I was determined to resist this attempt to establish an Aminist regime in Uganda. I was willing to die the next day than live under such tyranny. On my show that evening, I hit back saying Museveni has no legal power to close a newspaper, and joked that if he closed Monitor, I would run for president. To prove his point, the next day government shut down KFM radio – illegally. To demonstrate his paranoia about someone even joking about seeking his job, he threw me in jail.
President Museveni had claimed in Kololo that because he was elected president, he has “the mandate to manage” affairs of newspapers. Really? He then decreed what journalists can write or not write about. Although I know President Museveni’s propensity to disregard the rule of law, I still felt that he would respect some minimum standards. I was wrong. He closed KFM and threw me in jail. Possibly he and his handlers thought this would scare me. They were dead wrong. I have always held the view that democracy is not a gift from rulers. It is a result of struggle by the ruled. Indeed, most democracy movements have been struggles, not for power, but to create a self-limiting power.
My discomfort with opposition leader, Dr. Kiiza Besigye, has been to equate his struggle for power from Museveni as a struggle for democracy in Uganda. However well intentioned he may be, the trappings and imperatives of power can corrupt Besigye too. I was therefore certain that my role as a civil society person, located in the mass media, is to stand in firm, very firm defence of my right to free expression and to liberty. Museveni and his coterie of political hangers on were not going to scare me at all – not even by closing the KFM or even Monitor.
It was clear to me that Museveni and his group underestimated the length to which I am willing to go to defend my right to be a free human being. I had once had a meeting in 2000 at Nomo Gallery with Sunday Monitor’s acting editor, Charles Odoobo Bichachi, and two UPDF generals – Elly Tumwine and David Tinyefuza. They wanted to know my source of a story I had written about what had transpired in a High Command meeting chaired by Museveni. They wanted me to reveal my sources. They cajoled, tried to convince, and finally they blew it – they tried to threaten me. “You could be arrested for this,” Tinyefuza chipped in. I told them to organize a firing squad at Constitutional Square and promised to drive myself there for it in defense of the principle of not revealing my source. Possibly they thought I was joking. I wasn’t!
Two days earlier, on Wednesday August 10, BBC news anchorman, Robin Lustig and producer, David Edmonds came to my office for an interview about media freedom in Uganda. They had many questions: Is Uganda democratising? Are the media free? I told them I couldn’t give one answer since the political terrain in Uganda is a meeting ground of contradictory movements.
The media has two elements, I said: one is political, the other juridical. At the level of politics, President Yoweri Museveni personally and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) generally have demonstrated commendable respect for freedom of the press. If you listen to some political talk shows on private FM radio stations, I told Lastig and Edmonds, you would know that Uganda’s media are as free as, or even freer than, in the United States or any other democracy. People even call the president a killer, a thief and walk home sure that no one will follow them, I said.
And???? The expression on their faces was eagerly asking. I told them that at the juridical level, i.e. if you look at the statute books in Uganda, the legal regime governing the media reads like it was drawn by a committee of five eminent men – Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin and Pol Pot. Over the years the NRM has never repealed even one anti media law. On the contrary, it has reinforced them. However, I hastened to add, the government has been very restrained to use the Stalinist legal regime to clump down on the media.
Why????? Their facial expression again seemed to ask me. I told them that once in a while, the government does appeal to these laws to lock up a journalist or drag them to courts of law. The purpose, I said, is not to prosecute the case and win it, but to intimidate journalists so that we can learn to censor ourselves. The bad laws therefore hang on our heads like the sword of domiciles, I said. How about the future? They asked me. I said that President Museveni seems hell-bent on clinging to power. As some of his close colleagues are opposing him, he will increasingly act like a wounded buffalo. The future of freedom in Uganda is very bleak as an intolerant and extremist faction has taken control.
And how about yourself? Do you feel safe? You are an outspoken and critical journalist, they asked. I told them that I have spent the last seven years of my career as a journalist preparing myself for any eventuality – jail, torture, death, and the possible planting of evidence against me in order to frame me of all sorts crimes or just humiliate me. I always convince myself that Uganda is a dictatorship, I said, so that when it strikes, I am not taken by surprise. Yet, I am also part of the contradiction because many times I tend to act and behave as if Uganda is a free and democratic society. Possibly I instinctively feel so.
Later that same day, President Museveni sounded out his warning at Kololo during a funeral of those Ugandans who died with former Sudanese Vice President, Lt. Gen. John Garang. “These newspapers,” the president said while the audience cheered him in loud admiration, “I am the elected leader of Uganda, I therefore have the mandate to run their affairs (sic). I will no longer tolerate a newspaper, which is like a vulture… I will simply close it! Finish! End! Gasiya tu!” To me this sounded like former dictator Idi Amin, not Museveni.
But the president was not done: “I have been seeing this young boy, Mwenda, writing about Rwanda, writing about Sudan, writing about UPDF, he must stop. Completely!” Again, the use of the words “stop” and “completely” each as a sentence is a very common Idi Amin expression if you have listened to the former dictator. The president went on, “He is an expert on SPLA, and he knows the minutes which took place where… he must stop.”
Two things struck me from the president’s speech. He was announcing a new law arrogating himself powers to close newspapers. But Uganda has a constitution which gives law making power to only one institution – parliament. There is no law in this country that gives powers to the president to close newspapers. The last president to rule by decree in this country was Idi Amin. To his credit, Amin’s actions were at least legal since he had suspended the constitution upon taking power and declared that he would rule by decree.
If you live in a country governed by the rule of law rather than the rule of a man’s ego, you would sleep safely and shrug at such a statement. This was not to be. I was determined to resist this attempt to establish an Aminist regime in Uganda. I was willing to die the next day than live under such tyranny. On my show that evening, I hit back saying Museveni has no legal power to close a newspaper, and joked that if he closed Monitor, I would run for president. To prove his point, the next day government shut down KFM radio – illegally. To demonstrate his paranoia about someone even joking about seeking his job, he threw me in jail.
President Museveni had claimed in Kololo that because he was elected president, he has “the mandate to manage” affairs of newspapers. Really? He then decreed what journalists can write or not write about. Although I know President Museveni’s propensity to disregard the rule of law, I still felt that he would respect some minimum standards. I was wrong. He closed KFM and threw me in jail. Possibly he and his handlers thought this would scare me. They were dead wrong. I have always held the view that democracy is not a gift from rulers. It is a result of struggle by the ruled. Indeed, most democracy movements have been struggles, not for power, but to create a self-limiting power.
My discomfort with opposition leader, Dr. Kiiza Besigye, has been to equate his struggle for power from Museveni as a struggle for democracy in Uganda. However well intentioned he may be, the trappings and imperatives of power can corrupt Besigye too. I was therefore certain that my role as a civil society person, located in the mass media, is to stand in firm, very firm defence of my right to free expression and to liberty. Museveni and his coterie of political hangers on were not going to scare me at all – not even by closing the KFM or even Monitor.
It was clear to me that Museveni and his group underestimated the length to which I am willing to go to defend my right to be a free human being. I had once had a meeting in 2000 at Nomo Gallery with Sunday Monitor’s acting editor, Charles Odoobo Bichachi, and two UPDF generals – Elly Tumwine and David Tinyefuza. They wanted to know my source of a story I had written about what had transpired in a High Command meeting chaired by Museveni. They wanted me to reveal my sources. They cajoled, tried to convince, and finally they blew it – they tried to threaten me. “You could be arrested for this,” Tinyefuza chipped in. I told them to organize a firing squad at Constitutional Square and promised to drive myself there for it in defense of the principle of not revealing my source. Possibly they thought I was joking. I wasn’t!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Prison Notes - Part 2: Preparation for jail
My sources at state house told me that on Thursday August 11, 2005 President Yoweri Museveni’s handlers had taken him the recording of my show of the previous evening. I was told that Museveni had raged about it baying for my blood and that of Monitor Publications Limited, the publishers of Daily Monitor, Sunday Monitor and owners of KFM radio. Although a lot of what I said on radio was in jest, Museveni and handlers wanted action. They wanted me in jail. The perfect day to achieve this is Friday so that I could stay in for the weekend.
On Friday morning August 12th, I called my girl friend Fifi then in Los Angeles, California, and told her I was sure I was going to jail. I had spent the previous three years preparing her for such an eventuality. Since I have sounded the alarm many times and it has not materialised, she still held hope that it would turn out to be like “all the other times”. “Honey,” I told her, “this time it is serious.” Though she sounded worried, she still seemed unconvinced. “Be careful,” she said. Fifi is the most culturally refined and calm human being you can meet. She has largeness of mind to see the big picture, and amplitude of comprehension.
The second person I worried about is my mother. She would be devastated. I knew how much pain it would cause her. She is a supporter and admirer of Museveni. “Baitu omusaija tomuleka?” She has always warned me in Rutoro meaning “why don’t you leave the man alone?” My mother thinks Museveni is a good man who brought peace to Uganda. She has remained oblivious of the crisis in northern Uganda where Museveni’s rule has been characterised by devastation for nearly twenty years now.
It has never been my intention to seek to change her views since many in my immediate family are Museveni loyalists too. We are a very liberal family and our political differences have never been a basis of any friction among us. On the contrary, they have deeply shaped our acceptance, tolerance and love of intellectual diversity. I always tell my mother that I criticise Museveni in order to correct him because he needs others to tell him when he does something wrong. “I am therefore his strategic allay, always letting him know his mistakes where many around him are afraid to tell him,” I tell her.
That morning I dressed in my cowboy boots, a black pair of jeans without a belt and a KFM shirt. I left my wallet, credit and debit card pack, keys and all at home. I told my neighbours that I was going to jail – most likely for four months, but if things are good at the very least for a weekend. I had a German television crew to interview me that morning on the politics of Africa’s development crisis. I told them that I was going to jail later in the evening for disagreeing with the president and that if they need me later, my address would be CPS.
“You don’t look worried?” one of them asked me. “Does David Berkam look worried when he is going unto the football pitch?” I asked ironically, “Jail is the home of any journalist in a dictatorship.” We laughed it off and they wished me “good luck” and left. I had spent almost seven years of my career as a journalist preparing for jail, but the government of Museveni had restrained itself. As my friend Andrew Rice was later to write in The New Republic, a New York magazine, when the police finally called, the question was: “What took them so long?”
At exactly 3.30pm on Friday, I was in the office of our Managing Director, Conrad Nkutu discussing the closure of KFM when a call came in. “Andrew, this is Charles Kataratambi,” the voice said after I had identified myself. I burst out laughing. Kataratambi sits in the “Office of Serious Crime” at CID headquarters. For the last four years, I have been severally summoned to CID to answer questions and/or record statements regarding articles I have written in Monitor or statements I have made on radio. Each time it is to Kataratambi that I report. And each time I leave with a warning to “watch my mouth”. I never have!
Over the years, a relationship of mutual obligation has developed between the two of us. When he called so late on Friday, I knew what the game was. Go to CID, be taken to court when it is late to get bail and then be sent to Luzira for a weekend. I informed everyone at my office that I was going to spend the weekend “at the beach”. By this time I was receiving calls from my friends in all the major western embassies asking me: “what can we do for you?” “Nothing,” I would say, “I am not planning to go to exile.” African embassies never seem to care.
The journey to CID HQ
I had spent the entire morning and afternoon on my computer in my office communicating to the outside world about the closure of KFM. Over the years, I have established vital networks with media organisations, academic institutions, think tanks and government bureaucracies across Europe and North America because of my constant interaction with academics, journalists and bureaucrats, aid experts and activists from these countries.
I sent an email to all those whose addresses I could find with one subject: “A new Mugabe emerging in Africa.” I told them about the closure of KFM, but did not refer to my impending arrest.
By mid morning, I was besieged with responses – phone and email – from BBC, CNN, Channel 4 Television News, The Economist, The Guardian, SABC Africa, Washington Times, Washington Post, New York Times, Newsweek, etc friends at western embassies, in academia, international organisations to protect journalists etc. I cannot recall how may interviews I gave to media organisations in Europe, North America, South Africa, the Middle East and even East Asia on that day. I learnt that the EU was meeting in Kampala to discuss the closure of KFM, the Americans and British were “concerned,” etc. But I knew that western governments have historically proved ineffectual in such situations in Africa.
The most important constituency were the people of Uganda whom I was confident were appalled by this action. They may seem quiet and even some may feign support for repression out of opportunism, but their sense of moral outrage, the desire to resist etc were all there. There is considerable demand for democratic rule in this country. What is lacking is the supply of political leadership and organisation. Individual and organisational agency is everywhere difficult to come by. Our people are not passive. Rather, they lack the supply of effective leadership and organisation to catalyse their spirit of resistance.
Thus, when Kataratambi called me to CID headquarters at 3.30pm, I had spread word on KFM closure to the international media – and world. “I will spread this to the British media,” Michela Wrong, former Financial Times Africa correspondent and author of the classic – In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, possibly the best book ever written by a western journalist on an African dictatorship wrote to me. “We do not have white farmers in Uganda to attract western attention,” I told my friends in media abroad, “But we can still do just a little.”
I drove from office to home with Simon Kasyate and a KFM car behind me. I packed my car and entered a KFM car to CID headquarters after calling my lawyer, James Nangwala, to find me there. At home, my neighbour Dina looked deeply worried and was in tears. A pretty young lady, Diana who was visiting me could not believe that I was leaving her in the house alone to go to jail. James was on the way to teach a class at Law Development Centre (LDC) but cancelled his journey there. At 4pm, I was in Kataratambi’s office. “Here I am,” I announced myself to the CID officers in Kataratambi’s office, “I am all here for you to bite, to chew, to swallow or to spit.” With that, the game began.
At CID headquarters, I was joined by our company lawyer, Ann Abeja Muhwezi, Nangwala and Kasyate. The police asked Kasyate to leave the room and join other reporters and photographers who had gathered outside to witness the event. I was taken to a nearby office where I waited for nearly two hours. At one point, our Managing Director, Conrad Nkutu came and asked to sit with me but was stopped by the police. I was becoming restless.
On Friday morning August 12th, I called my girl friend Fifi then in Los Angeles, California, and told her I was sure I was going to jail. I had spent the previous three years preparing her for such an eventuality. Since I have sounded the alarm many times and it has not materialised, she still held hope that it would turn out to be like “all the other times”. “Honey,” I told her, “this time it is serious.” Though she sounded worried, she still seemed unconvinced. “Be careful,” she said. Fifi is the most culturally refined and calm human being you can meet. She has largeness of mind to see the big picture, and amplitude of comprehension.
The second person I worried about is my mother. She would be devastated. I knew how much pain it would cause her. She is a supporter and admirer of Museveni. “Baitu omusaija tomuleka?” She has always warned me in Rutoro meaning “why don’t you leave the man alone?” My mother thinks Museveni is a good man who brought peace to Uganda. She has remained oblivious of the crisis in northern Uganda where Museveni’s rule has been characterised by devastation for nearly twenty years now.
It has never been my intention to seek to change her views since many in my immediate family are Museveni loyalists too. We are a very liberal family and our political differences have never been a basis of any friction among us. On the contrary, they have deeply shaped our acceptance, tolerance and love of intellectual diversity. I always tell my mother that I criticise Museveni in order to correct him because he needs others to tell him when he does something wrong. “I am therefore his strategic allay, always letting him know his mistakes where many around him are afraid to tell him,” I tell her.
That morning I dressed in my cowboy boots, a black pair of jeans without a belt and a KFM shirt. I left my wallet, credit and debit card pack, keys and all at home. I told my neighbours that I was going to jail – most likely for four months, but if things are good at the very least for a weekend. I had a German television crew to interview me that morning on the politics of Africa’s development crisis. I told them that I was going to jail later in the evening for disagreeing with the president and that if they need me later, my address would be CPS.
“You don’t look worried?” one of them asked me. “Does David Berkam look worried when he is going unto the football pitch?” I asked ironically, “Jail is the home of any journalist in a dictatorship.” We laughed it off and they wished me “good luck” and left. I had spent almost seven years of my career as a journalist preparing for jail, but the government of Museveni had restrained itself. As my friend Andrew Rice was later to write in The New Republic, a New York magazine, when the police finally called, the question was: “What took them so long?”
At exactly 3.30pm on Friday, I was in the office of our Managing Director, Conrad Nkutu discussing the closure of KFM when a call came in. “Andrew, this is Charles Kataratambi,” the voice said after I had identified myself. I burst out laughing. Kataratambi sits in the “Office of Serious Crime” at CID headquarters. For the last four years, I have been severally summoned to CID to answer questions and/or record statements regarding articles I have written in Monitor or statements I have made on radio. Each time it is to Kataratambi that I report. And each time I leave with a warning to “watch my mouth”. I never have!
Over the years, a relationship of mutual obligation has developed between the two of us. When he called so late on Friday, I knew what the game was. Go to CID, be taken to court when it is late to get bail and then be sent to Luzira for a weekend. I informed everyone at my office that I was going to spend the weekend “at the beach”. By this time I was receiving calls from my friends in all the major western embassies asking me: “what can we do for you?” “Nothing,” I would say, “I am not planning to go to exile.” African embassies never seem to care.
The journey to CID HQ
I had spent the entire morning and afternoon on my computer in my office communicating to the outside world about the closure of KFM. Over the years, I have established vital networks with media organisations, academic institutions, think tanks and government bureaucracies across Europe and North America because of my constant interaction with academics, journalists and bureaucrats, aid experts and activists from these countries.
I sent an email to all those whose addresses I could find with one subject: “A new Mugabe emerging in Africa.” I told them about the closure of KFM, but did not refer to my impending arrest.
By mid morning, I was besieged with responses – phone and email – from BBC, CNN, Channel 4 Television News, The Economist, The Guardian, SABC Africa, Washington Times, Washington Post, New York Times, Newsweek, etc friends at western embassies, in academia, international organisations to protect journalists etc. I cannot recall how may interviews I gave to media organisations in Europe, North America, South Africa, the Middle East and even East Asia on that day. I learnt that the EU was meeting in Kampala to discuss the closure of KFM, the Americans and British were “concerned,” etc. But I knew that western governments have historically proved ineffectual in such situations in Africa.
The most important constituency were the people of Uganda whom I was confident were appalled by this action. They may seem quiet and even some may feign support for repression out of opportunism, but their sense of moral outrage, the desire to resist etc were all there. There is considerable demand for democratic rule in this country. What is lacking is the supply of political leadership and organisation. Individual and organisational agency is everywhere difficult to come by. Our people are not passive. Rather, they lack the supply of effective leadership and organisation to catalyse their spirit of resistance.
Thus, when Kataratambi called me to CID headquarters at 3.30pm, I had spread word on KFM closure to the international media – and world. “I will spread this to the British media,” Michela Wrong, former Financial Times Africa correspondent and author of the classic – In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, possibly the best book ever written by a western journalist on an African dictatorship wrote to me. “We do not have white farmers in Uganda to attract western attention,” I told my friends in media abroad, “But we can still do just a little.”
I drove from office to home with Simon Kasyate and a KFM car behind me. I packed my car and entered a KFM car to CID headquarters after calling my lawyer, James Nangwala, to find me there. At home, my neighbour Dina looked deeply worried and was in tears. A pretty young lady, Diana who was visiting me could not believe that I was leaving her in the house alone to go to jail. James was on the way to teach a class at Law Development Centre (LDC) but cancelled his journey there. At 4pm, I was in Kataratambi’s office. “Here I am,” I announced myself to the CID officers in Kataratambi’s office, “I am all here for you to bite, to chew, to swallow or to spit.” With that, the game began.
At CID headquarters, I was joined by our company lawyer, Ann Abeja Muhwezi, Nangwala and Kasyate. The police asked Kasyate to leave the room and join other reporters and photographers who had gathered outside to witness the event. I was taken to a nearby office where I waited for nearly two hours. At one point, our Managing Director, Conrad Nkutu came and asked to sit with me but was stopped by the police. I was becoming restless.
African leaders still hostage to Stone Age politics
Presidential
pledges in Uganda today stand at a record Shs 120 billion. These are promises
of assistance the president makes to different groups, individuals and
institutions and are paid for by the state. They have been accumulating over
the years, some for over a decade. Intended beneficiaries have waited for years
only to see their hopes frustrated.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Prison Notes - Part 3: Playing mental games at CID headquarters
We are back in the office of Serious Crime at CID headquarters where I am awaiting whatever the state had in store for me. I was restless because the police were deliberately playing delaying tactics. I left the chair and sat on the floor to get the feel of what prison-cell life is going to be like. Kataratambi and company were shocked and asked me to sit on the chair, but I refused saying there is not going to be a chair for me in prison. Later, I lay down on the cold, dusty office floor – to taste how my night is going to be. Mental preparation is the key to success in everything we seek to do and achieve. I started anticipating the worst in jail – beatings, hunger, homosexual rape etc either at the hands of a brutal and callous dictatorship or at the hands of inmates or both.
After 6pm, the CID officers led by the Officer in Charge of Serious Crime, Senior Superintendent of Police, James Habuchiriro, began interrogating me. (Habuchiriro was later to become a friend. He was killed a few months later by an angry UPDF soldier two days after I had had a drink with him. I had learnt from him that the case of rape against Kiiza Besigye was never handled by his office. It was smuggled into court through the office that handles terrorism). He gave me a charge and caution statement. The charge was to be sedition i.e. that I had made statements, which were likely to cause public disaffection in the person of the president and the government as by law established. Then caution statement said that anything I said would be used against me in the courts of law and that I had a right to remain silent. I read both and signed on them.
The CID officers began to read me the statements I had made on radio and asked me to respond. Did you say that Museveni has totally failed to ensure security in northern Uganda? I said yes I did. For twenty years the northern region of this country has been under constant rebellion. This government, led by Mr. Museveni has failed to ensure security of person and property in that region. Did you say the president is a goon? They asked. Absolutely NO, I answered. Did you say that you Andrew Mwenda know security better than President Museveni? Yes, I said that on radio. It is my opinion that I am not just better, I am extremely better than him and I think he is a mediocre in that field.
Did you say government of Uganda killed Garang? I answered that I said that in my opinion, the government of Uganda should take political responsibility for the death of Garang because it allowed him to board a helicopter when it was already late in the evening, and was flying into bad weather, over a region that is rebel infested. That way government put Garang’s life in danger. Did you say that UPDF soldiers live like pigs? Yes I answered. I got that statement from comments made by the minister of defence Amama Mbabazi that UPDF soldiers live like pigs. It went on for one and half hours.
By this time, it was dark and past 7.30 pm. I played the game to the script, well knowing all the delay was meant to leave no time for me to go home. My destination was either CPS cells or Luzira. At 7.30 PM I was put in a saloon car where I sat in the rear seats with two CID officers – one in front, one behind with me to CPS. Throughout all this exercise, I did not want any favours from the state or anyone. If I am to be a free man, and Uganda a free country, then me, and many others must be willing to sacrifice our lives and our social and material comfort.
Inspiration
I knew that jail is a miserable and sad place to be – even for an hour. Yet because I know it to be part of the menu of being a journalist in Africa, I have spent seven years preparing my mind for it. I suppressed every feeling of resignation and appealed to my sense of purpose and mission, knowing that the cause for which I would be going to jail – freedom and liberty – is worth the sacrifice. Friends warned me about the cold prison floor, about the bad food, about possible beating, torture and homosexual rape – if not at the hands of the state, at least at the hands of inmates.
“African governments can be extremely brutal and inhuman,” many of my friends have warned me over the years whenever they asked me to tone down my language. I would tell them if African governments were not that brutal and inhuman, my freedom would not be under threat. To be free, I must be willing to sacrifice. “But the prison floor is very cold, and the food is very bad,” they would tell me. I am not seeking Sheraton Hotel standards in prison, I would answer otherwise it would not be prison. Then the threat: “they will sodomise you.” Well if that is the price to pay for freedom, truly it is a cheap price.
Prison breaks people’s hearts, cripples their morale and causes despair. To cope with these challenges, most prisoners tend to convert to religion, believe in the higher being called God in order to keep body and soul together. Unfortunately, I do not believe in God and have failed to have faith in the omnipotent. Pretentious Christians denounce me, but I remind them that Jesus Christ, whom they claim to follow, would embrace me. Jesus said he did not come for the righteous but the sinners; he sent his disciples to spread the gospel to non-believers like me, not to preach to the converted. But while I lack faith in God, I have it in human freedom and liberty. While Christians rely on the scriptures for inspiration, I rely on books of/on liberation.
As we drove to CPS, the words of Kwame Nkrumah in his book Africa Must Unite kept ringing in my head: “Freedom is not a commodity that is given to the enslaved upon demand. It is the precious reward, the shining trophy of struggle and sacrifice.” As a child, I had read about Mahtma Ghandhi, Martin Luther King Jn., Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Ahmed Ben Bella, Patrice Lumumba, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Amilcar Cabral, and other leaders of African liberation movements.
I had read Lumumba’s letter to his wife just before his death, and could recite it word for word when I was still in primary school. “Neither brutality nor cruelty nor torture will bring me to ask for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head unbowed and my faith unshakeable and with the profound trust in the destiny of my country, rather than live under subjection and disregard for sacred principles,” he had written. As a child, I used to recite these words to my self and even cry in admiration. “They have corrupted some of our compatriots and bribed others,” Lumumba had gone on in a defiant tone, “Dead or alive, free or in prison by order of imperialists, it is not myself who counts.”
I had also read with admiration Mandela’s concluding remarks during the Rivonia Trial. “Throughout my lifetime… I have cherished the ideal of a free and democratic South Africa in which all people live in harmony. It is the ideal for which I am prepared to live, fight for and achieve, and if need be, it is the ideal for which I am prepared to die.” I had met Mandela in 1990 when he was visiting here in Kampala and recited for him his speech, and he had hugged me and kissed me on the forehead. At 10 years I would recite it to friends in primary school, as I did to the speech by Nasser to the UN General Assembly after the assassination of Lumumba, and the speech by Col. Ojwuku when he was declaring the independence of Biafra from Nigeria, and his prayer.
“And if we must die,” Ojwuku’s prayer read, “let us die in the fatal effort of preserving our identity from absorption. Let our children eat garri and die of kwashakol. Let us be pressed to the wall and topple into the grave. We are better dead than living without a shadow.” I also remembered Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, when still a revolutionary in 1985 telling us that he would rather die on his feet than live on his knees. These words energised me as I removed my boots and prepared to go into the underground prison. At that point, there was nothing the state could do to me that would shake my faith in freedom and liberty. Neither jail, nor torture, not even murder would have changed my determination.
After 6pm, the CID officers led by the Officer in Charge of Serious Crime, Senior Superintendent of Police, James Habuchiriro, began interrogating me. (Habuchiriro was later to become a friend. He was killed a few months later by an angry UPDF soldier two days after I had had a drink with him. I had learnt from him that the case of rape against Kiiza Besigye was never handled by his office. It was smuggled into court through the office that handles terrorism). He gave me a charge and caution statement. The charge was to be sedition i.e. that I had made statements, which were likely to cause public disaffection in the person of the president and the government as by law established. Then caution statement said that anything I said would be used against me in the courts of law and that I had a right to remain silent. I read both and signed on them.
The CID officers began to read me the statements I had made on radio and asked me to respond. Did you say that Museveni has totally failed to ensure security in northern Uganda? I said yes I did. For twenty years the northern region of this country has been under constant rebellion. This government, led by Mr. Museveni has failed to ensure security of person and property in that region. Did you say the president is a goon? They asked. Absolutely NO, I answered. Did you say that you Andrew Mwenda know security better than President Museveni? Yes, I said that on radio. It is my opinion that I am not just better, I am extremely better than him and I think he is a mediocre in that field.
Did you say government of Uganda killed Garang? I answered that I said that in my opinion, the government of Uganda should take political responsibility for the death of Garang because it allowed him to board a helicopter when it was already late in the evening, and was flying into bad weather, over a region that is rebel infested. That way government put Garang’s life in danger. Did you say that UPDF soldiers live like pigs? Yes I answered. I got that statement from comments made by the minister of defence Amama Mbabazi that UPDF soldiers live like pigs. It went on for one and half hours.
By this time, it was dark and past 7.30 pm. I played the game to the script, well knowing all the delay was meant to leave no time for me to go home. My destination was either CPS cells or Luzira. At 7.30 PM I was put in a saloon car where I sat in the rear seats with two CID officers – one in front, one behind with me to CPS. Throughout all this exercise, I did not want any favours from the state or anyone. If I am to be a free man, and Uganda a free country, then me, and many others must be willing to sacrifice our lives and our social and material comfort.
Inspiration
I knew that jail is a miserable and sad place to be – even for an hour. Yet because I know it to be part of the menu of being a journalist in Africa, I have spent seven years preparing my mind for it. I suppressed every feeling of resignation and appealed to my sense of purpose and mission, knowing that the cause for which I would be going to jail – freedom and liberty – is worth the sacrifice. Friends warned me about the cold prison floor, about the bad food, about possible beating, torture and homosexual rape – if not at the hands of the state, at least at the hands of inmates.
“African governments can be extremely brutal and inhuman,” many of my friends have warned me over the years whenever they asked me to tone down my language. I would tell them if African governments were not that brutal and inhuman, my freedom would not be under threat. To be free, I must be willing to sacrifice. “But the prison floor is very cold, and the food is very bad,” they would tell me. I am not seeking Sheraton Hotel standards in prison, I would answer otherwise it would not be prison. Then the threat: “they will sodomise you.” Well if that is the price to pay for freedom, truly it is a cheap price.
Prison breaks people’s hearts, cripples their morale and causes despair. To cope with these challenges, most prisoners tend to convert to religion, believe in the higher being called God in order to keep body and soul together. Unfortunately, I do not believe in God and have failed to have faith in the omnipotent. Pretentious Christians denounce me, but I remind them that Jesus Christ, whom they claim to follow, would embrace me. Jesus said he did not come for the righteous but the sinners; he sent his disciples to spread the gospel to non-believers like me, not to preach to the converted. But while I lack faith in God, I have it in human freedom and liberty. While Christians rely on the scriptures for inspiration, I rely on books of/on liberation.
As we drove to CPS, the words of Kwame Nkrumah in his book Africa Must Unite kept ringing in my head: “Freedom is not a commodity that is given to the enslaved upon demand. It is the precious reward, the shining trophy of struggle and sacrifice.” As a child, I had read about Mahtma Ghandhi, Martin Luther King Jn., Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Ahmed Ben Bella, Patrice Lumumba, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Amilcar Cabral, and other leaders of African liberation movements.
I had read Lumumba’s letter to his wife just before his death, and could recite it word for word when I was still in primary school. “Neither brutality nor cruelty nor torture will bring me to ask for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head unbowed and my faith unshakeable and with the profound trust in the destiny of my country, rather than live under subjection and disregard for sacred principles,” he had written. As a child, I used to recite these words to my self and even cry in admiration. “They have corrupted some of our compatriots and bribed others,” Lumumba had gone on in a defiant tone, “Dead or alive, free or in prison by order of imperialists, it is not myself who counts.”
I had also read with admiration Mandela’s concluding remarks during the Rivonia Trial. “Throughout my lifetime… I have cherished the ideal of a free and democratic South Africa in which all people live in harmony. It is the ideal for which I am prepared to live, fight for and achieve, and if need be, it is the ideal for which I am prepared to die.” I had met Mandela in 1990 when he was visiting here in Kampala and recited for him his speech, and he had hugged me and kissed me on the forehead. At 10 years I would recite it to friends in primary school, as I did to the speech by Nasser to the UN General Assembly after the assassination of Lumumba, and the speech by Col. Ojwuku when he was declaring the independence of Biafra from Nigeria, and his prayer.
“And if we must die,” Ojwuku’s prayer read, “let us die in the fatal effort of preserving our identity from absorption. Let our children eat garri and die of kwashakol. Let us be pressed to the wall and topple into the grave. We are better dead than living without a shadow.” I also remembered Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, when still a revolutionary in 1985 telling us that he would rather die on his feet than live on his knees. These words energised me as I removed my boots and prepared to go into the underground prison. At that point, there was nothing the state could do to me that would shake my faith in freedom and liberty. Neither jail, nor torture, not even murder would have changed my determination.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
