Balaam’s problem over jailed NUP members

Playing games with lives of political prisoners

COVER STORY | IAN KATUSIIME | Can newly appointed Minister of State for Youth and Children Affairs, Balaam Barugahara, deliver on his pledge to parliament and country to secure freedom for several jailed members of the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP)?

The missing Ugandans were either arrested or kidnapped for supporting NUP in the 2021 elections.

In his first day in parliament on April 03, Balaam asked Joel Ssenyonyi, the Leader of Opposition, to provide a list of missing Ugandans to the chagrin of Ssenyonyi and who challenged the move on a procedural matter in the House.

However, the following day, Ssenyonyi re-tabled the list and demanded for the release of others like Olivia Lutaaya who were jailed three years ago and are under trial at the General Court Martial.

“We’ve tabled these lists in Parliament before, shared the same with UHRC, and the same records are in court where the matters are,” Ssenyonyi said in his statement. “So for those fellows in Government who say they agree with us that their Government is brutal and continues to illegally detain political opponents, they can access the lists, and stop pretending that they don’t know who these people are or where the lists are,” he added.

If Balam secures their release, as he has pledged, Balaam will be celebrated as a member of President Yoweri Museveni’s inner circle who uses his position to get things done. But if he fails, Balaam will join the growing pack of NRM apparatchiks who masquerade as having the President’s ear but are barking dogs that do not bite.

Balaam who has a business background appears to have an action and result-oriented mindset. He has not yet settled in with the new realty that he is now part of a bureaucratic maze of red-tape which implies that decisions are made at a slower pace than in the private business world.

That includes, for example, realizing that even if Museveni wants the jailed NUP members to be freed, getting them out could prove difficult for political reasons.

That is why when Balaam showed up at his swearing-in ceremony at State House Entebbe with a man he introduced to the President as Ali Kateregga; a member of NUP who is also a Masaka City local government councilor, he spoke at cross-purpose with Museveni.

In reference to the jailed NUP supporters, Balaam spoke a language of politics but Museveni spoke in terms of criminality. The difference between a political prisoner and a criminal might appear negligible to Balaam, but it speaks tons to Museveni.

Balaam spoke the political language and played the usual political gambits. He said, together with Kateregga, in total eight NUP councilors from Masaka had switched allegiance to the NRM.

“Your Excellency, those young men were misled by politicians,” Kateregga told Museveni. Kateregga also spoke politics. He made a pledge to support the NRM government.

But in his speech at the event, President Museveni stuck to criminality. He segregated the crimes of the jailed persons into three categories and said he would consider pardoning those jailed except those who are facing murder charges.

“If there’s anything short of murder, that one I can deal with,” he said.

Museveni appeared ill-at east standing next to Kataregga who was clad in a full chilly red suit of NUP colours complete with the red beret that the army claims is the very crime it is prosecuting some of the jailed persons for. It cites wearing of “government stores’ as the only reason the civilians are being prosecuted in a military court martial.

What President Museveni was stating was his position and that of his government. Museveni’s position is a stark departure from the promise he made in 1986 a she took the presidential oath vowing that no Ugandan would disappear under his watch like in the dark days of past regimes of Milton Obote and Idi Amin.

The Minister of Information, Chris Baryomunsi, made exactly the same point when the issue of missing persons, those jailed, and those killed by government operatives for alleged political motives came up for extensive debate in parliament on December 05, 2023.

The names of missing persons and the circumstances of their abduction, kidnap, and eventual detention were fleshed on the floor of parliament. Names mentioned included John Bosco Kibalama top on its list. Kibalama’s case has been widely debated in parliament and in public.

NUP is demanding for the whereabouts of eighteen missing people including Kibalama who disappeared in 2019. The other seventeen are; Ssesaazi Isma, Mustapha Luwemba, Hassan Mubiru, Martin Lukwago, John Damulira, Denis Zimula, Michael Semuddu, Muhammad Kanata, Shafik Wangolo, Musisi Mbowa, Vincent Nalumoso, George Kasumba, Moses Mbabazi, Yuda Sempijja, Alphat Muhumya, Peter Kirya, and Godfrey Kisemba.

Back then while summing up the debate about their fate, Baryomunsi told parliament: “We want to clarify that the Government has no political prisoners. Ugandans are arrested on the basis of suspicion for having committed a crime”.

When challenged on the issue, Baryomunsi continued his defense: “A political prisoner presupposes that Hon. Mpuuga is arrested because his party is the National Unity Platform. I am saying no, the people arrested by the State is on the basis of the suspicion of committing a crime.”

Baryomunsi also addressed the issue of release of such prisoners. “The concern being raised is that there could be Ugandans whose trials have been delayed. The Attorney-General undertook to check with the relevant authorities that in case there are people who are in jail and their trials are delaying, then action will be taken,” he said.

On that point, Baryomunsi was backed by the Minister of State for Internal Affairs, Gen. David Muhoozi.“I request earnestly that we go by the proposal of the Attorney-General. Instead of setting a bad precedent, which is not even practical that people can be released through Parliament,” Gen. Muhoozi said.

Balaam versus Mao

Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Nobert Mao who took the lead on the matter soon after he came into office in 2022 has now appeared to take a back seat, especially so with the emergence of his new colleague, minister in charge of youth and children, Balaam.

At a human rights convention in Kampala late last year, Mao, felt he had run out of patience. “It’s not my duty to come here and sanitise the human rights situation in Uganda. I am disgusted by it myself.” Mao was not done, “I want to tell you there is no more image to protect. The government in terms of human rights is stark naked.”

Mao added that he would not be defending the government on any abuse it commits but those in the audience felt the minister was speaking to himself.

Balaam, as Mao has done before him, might find himself at crossroads working with security agencies like the Police and Army who have routinely arrested and abducted persons for being members of the political opposition.

George Musisi, the lawyer of the detained NUP supporters, who was a speaker at the same event echoed Mao’s frustration. “I think in the last two to four years there has been a degeneration of human rights in Uganda. We have seen an increase in torture, an increase in incommunicado killings,” he told The Independent.

“The rights to freedom have been wiped away. There has been an attack on our rights by the police and security agencies,” Musisi said.

He also expressed disappointment at institutions that would be advocating for rights like the Human Rights Commission in Uganda (UHRC). “Government which is the principal duty bearer in protecting rights has been a big letdown,” Musisi said.

What Balaam is engaging in is the kind of horse trading with Museveni that has become commonplace as the agitation over those kidnapped boils over. Balaam, a campaign strategist for Museveni since 2016 has now resorted to using the issue of missing Ugandans as a tactic for the NRM to rile the opposition.

Those detained are mostly political opponents who were rounded up in the violent 2021 election period that also saw security forces kill over a hundred people during clashes with protestors.

“Many of them were abducted in 2019, 2020 and a few of them in 2021 meaning some of them have been missing for four years,” said David Lewis Rubongoya, the Secretary General of NUP during a High Court appearance on April 08.

Museveni requested for a list of those in detention and where they are jailed. Museveni’s request for the list of those missing was yet another episode of what the plight of missing persons has been. Asking for the list of the missing appears to have become a tactic of every authority involved; from the President to his ministers and government agencies.

The quest to free the missing NUP supporters has been plagued by disinformation, intrigue and an eternal fight between the NRM government and the NUP party which remains a formidable challenger to the ruling party as time ticks away to the 2026 elections.

This is another year and yet more wrangling and politicking over the thousands of Ugandans who were disappeared by security forces in relation to supporting NUP during the 2021 election.

After several rounds of negotiations between the opposition and government in past years on how to free those who are still missing, it appears the country may head yet into another election with families still in agony over their kin; some of who may never be seen again.

Lost hope

Following Balaam’s pledge of freedom, relatives of the jailed persons appeared upbeat as they headed for the most recent court appearance in Kampala on April 8. The day of the court appearance was a week after Balaam’s antics at State House.

But they were disappointed when it turned out to be yet another day of what families have gone through in a fruitless search for their missing loved ones in a maze of court appearances, inquiries to numerous government agencies, searches at police stations and security organs.

Accompanied by their lawyer, George Musisi, the families were told to wait a little longer as the government dilly dallies on its next step. They had gone to the High Court for a petition hearing where they want the court to declare the detention of their kin unlawful and term it a violation of their fundamental freedoms.

Instead court adjourned the matter to April 24 for the Attorney General to file more paper work in another agonising and long wait for justice.

The new minster continues to brandish Kateregga’s appearance at State House as a mark of progress in his efforts. As Balaam carries on with his maneuvres, the reality remains different for the actual victims. He is already being pummeled for allegedly politicising the issue.

The president of the NUP, Robert Kyagulanyi, ripped through him on April 10 in an Eid al Fitr message.

Balaam has accused Bobi Wine of using the missing supporters for political gain and fundraising. But Bobi Wine, who was hosting children and spouses of detained NUP supporters at his residence in Magere, Waksio district, sent Balaam a direct message.

“Release them, release them so that my business fails,” he said.

Friends and relatives of those missing and are writhing away in ‘safe houses’ and dungeons estranged from their families for five years continue to cry out for their freedom.

Harriet Nalwanga, a woman whose husband was disappeared years ago told journalists that she has done everything possible to locate him but to no avail. She is not alone.

The case of John Bosco Kibalama who was disappeared by state agents on June 3, 2019 (Martyrs Day) caused a standoff between the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja and then Leader of Opposition Mathias Mpuuga in 2023. Kibalama has been a no show ever since and he is now a political martyr at the heart of the government’s strategy of dealing with opposition activists.

Last year Nabbanja revealed in parliament that Kibalama was being held for allegedly killing police officers yet he had disappeared years ago. The Prime Minister made the allegation to the shock of his relatives, MPs, lawyers and others pursuing the matter.

On the day of the latest court hearing, Monica Nabukeera, Kibalama’s wife, was present and she expressed more desperation and disappointment on the inactions of the government on her husband and the others missing. “Today we thought they would just bring our people,” she told journalists.

Nabukeera said she had been to several police stations, CMI offices and other security agencies in a debilitating search for her husband.

For government officials, the issue of missing persons has been like a shuttlecock that is tossed from one side to another. In November 2023, during a plenary sitting, the Speaker of Parliament Anita Among directed the government to account for the whereabouts of missing persons and the Vice President Jessica Alupo and third deputy prime minister Rukia Nakadama had different views on how government should respond.

Nakadama responded by saying the government would respond through the ministry of internal affairs while the VP said the executive should be given ample time to carry out due diligence on the matter.