‘They’re abducting everyone’

Torture after kidnap

David Lule, aka Selector Davie, a longtime friend of Bobi Wine, had been receiving calls and tips from friends about his impending arrest prior to the elections. He had been warned to stay alert. “Even Bobi had called me several times and told me not to go home,” Lule narrates to The Independent.

On Jan. 12, he went home and in the wee hours of the morning, the expected happened. He could hear boots and suspicious movements around his house in Kamwokya, a Kampala City suburb strongly associated with Bobi Wine. Lule says Bobi Wine was not happy when he learnt of his arrest because it could have been avoided.

In a move that was typical of Obote and Amin regimes many years ago, military men smashed his gate open in the dead of the night and pinned the watchman to the ground, Lule said.

“I stayed in the house because some of the men had already scaled the fence and were in the compound. I did not want to be killed like Zebra,” Lule recalls vividly in a phone interview.

Isaac  Ssenyange aka  Mando Zebra,  a celebrated a boxer allied to the NRM party was killed by security agents at night in a commando operation outside his home in Bwaise, a Kampala  City suburb on Dec.30, 2020,  after an internal  disagreement with security in dubious operations. .

Lule says he came out of the house after the watchman mentioned his name crying for help. “As soon as they got me, they pounced on me with blows, kicks and drew a saw-like weapon to my neck,” he narrates.

He says the men later conducted a search in his home. They had three drones and several patrol cars lined up outside his compound.

From Kamwokya, he was whisked off to Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) headquarters in Mbuya for interrogation. “They took me from one officer to another, asking unclear questions; what is Bobi planning, what is Plan B? From what I gauged, there was no plan on what to do with people they would abduct,” he says.

Lule told The Independent that he later recorded a statement at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Kibuli, Kampala, and in subsequent days, he endured torture, beatings and sheer humiliation under detention by military officers.

“I went to Makindye military barracks where there was a daily dose of caning, beating, endless and pointless interrogation,” he says. “They took me to a separate room where I would spend days without eating and could be dragged anytime for beating.”

According to Lule, anyone leaving Makindye military barracks after detention has to undergo treatment because of the physical depredation one goes through. He says he has seen kids who cannot walk or individuals who are just left for dead from the barracks.

The military court at Makindye charged Lule with wearing a military cap on November 19, 2020, the day protests broke out in Uganda after the arrest of Bobi Wine in Luuka District, at the height of the presidential election campaign.

Legal experts have penned enough literature on the illegality of trying civilians before a military court.

Lule says he only got bail from court after putting up a spirited case of why he should not be in further detention narrating to the judge, a military man, how he had been through enough horror already at the hands of men dressed like him.

“I told him how I had had bled enough, coughed blood, been sick for days and he sort of agreed,” he says, “and that is how I survived Kitalya Prison.”

Lule got bail on Jan. 28 but he is expected to report back to the military court on Feb.24. He says Kitalya Prison seems to have been designed for government critics because of who he is familiar with currently under detention there.

“I am not even a NUP mobiliser, I don’t have any position in the party. I have been helping Bobi with his music business which he is not even involved in any more to be honest,” Lule says.

Lule says he is lucky to have regained his freedom but is still worried due to the increased incidences of abductions.

For instance, Mike Muhima, was abducted from home by security operatives on Feb. 5 reportedly due to ‘cyber crimes’. His family have moved to several police departments searching for him, in vain.

This has triggered a Twitter hashtag #StopKidnappingUgandans but the government is yet to cave in to the pressure and release hordes of those missing.

Similarly, two aspiring politicians in Mpigi District on the NUP ticket; Abdul Rashid Nkinga and Ronald Sekajja went missing in early January, according to Daily Monitor.

Nkinga was aspiring mayor for Buwama Town Council in Mpigi while Sekajja was running as chairperson for Buwama sub-county.  The publication quoted the Katonga regional police as saying that they did not know who was behind the kidnappings and appealed for information from the public.

Nevertheless, Nkinga was declared winner of the mayoral race for Buwama Town council in spite of being a no show in his locale. However, almost all his associates are reported missing; from a driver to anyone who supported his campaign either through providing a public address system, posters, venue or supply of People Power branded T-shirts.

However, it is not only foot soldiers of NUP that have been abducted. High profile individuals like renowned human rights lawyer Nicholas Opiyo have experienced the same.

Opiyo was abducted last December by security forces as he was having lunch at a restaurant in Kamwokya, a Kampala Suburb. It was only after a national and international uproar that he was eventually charged in court with money laundering. Others such as Stella Nyanzi,, a Museveni critic, are now seeking asylum in neighboring Kenya.

Asuman Basalirwa, a president for Jeema Party and lawyer told DW that lack of information about those who have disappeared, as well as the manner of their abduction, means that the disappearances can’t be categorized as arrests.

“The reason why people are saying security is kidnapping Ugandans is because the mode of arrest is completely against the constitution,” he told DW. “I think that’s where the focus should be.”

Livingstone Sewanyana, the Executive Director at the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, told DW that Museveni’s government should swiftly bring those arrested before the courts of law in accordance with the country’s constitution, pointing to a troubling resurgence of violent intimidation in the past.

“The act of abductions, kidnappings and enforced disappearance is a relic of dictatorship,” he said. “It speaks of our past history and also developments and trends [seen] during the 1970s,” he said, referring to the brutal rule of former Ugandan President Idi Amin.

“This must be rooted out. Those held responsible must be punished,” he added.