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A doer, not a dreamer.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

New years' unexpected bounty!

There was no better way for me to usher in the New Year than to receive an unexpected cheque for an article I could barely remember writing. The article, about the little known martrydom of Ugandan Muslims long before their more famous 45 Christian counterparts, was retrieved, dusted off and reproduced in the Uganda Jubilee commemorative magazine published in October 2012 by the Daily Monitor Newspaper, where I cut my journalistic teeth. I could use more such unexpected royalty pay-outs as every little helps!

Reading the article however, I couldn't help tripping down memory lane when, as a rookie straight from uni, I had jumped through hoops and nooks to impress my editors and make it as a professional journalist. I could remember the rush of adrenaline every morning when I opened the pages to see my byline smiling back at me.

This morning I gave in to a little self-vanity and decided to google myself (ahem!) and was pleased to see plenty of my articles, some going back as far as 2005 still making the rounds in cyber space. After posting some on the blog to make it easier to access them, I got an idea to try and compile all my articles in to a scrap book of sorts and perhaps pass it on to my children someday - a wonderful reminder of the joys of writing, when all that mattered was "The Story"!

I am hoping to do more writing this year as I settle more comfortably in to my position. I am confident I'll soon shake off the cobwebs of writers bloc and pen something decent and hopefully award-winning. Hope springs eternal, no?

Several of the Ugandan participants at the 16th International AIDS conference in Toronto were not genuine, but seeking kyeyo (odd job) opportunities.

Just days after arriving in Canada, Emmanuel Ndyanabo, a 22-year-old gay man, applied for refugee status for fear of being persecuted if he returned to Uganda.

Ndyanabo said he had been threatened by a customs official at Entebbe Airport while on his way to Toronto to attend the 16th International AIDS Conference. “He (still) stamped my passport, looked at me and said, ‘I wish you luck. But do not come back if they (security) let you through,’” he told a Canadian daily newspaper The Globe and Mail.

Ndyanabo is not the only Ugandan who will not be returning home after the International AIDS Conference — the largest gathering of AIDS activists, experts, workers and government officials held every two years.

Many more Ugandan participants are planning to remain in Canada in search of greener pastures. Sunday Vision went undercover at the conference and discovered that almost half of the Ugandan participants attended the conference under false pretences.

For many, the conference was a perfect opportunity to sneak in to Canada to do kyeyo. Most immigrants end up doing lowly paying jobs.

A few, like Ndyanabo, managed to find their way to Canada through bursary schemes provided by some of the conference sponsors, but the majority travelled to the conference masquerading as representatives of respectable civil society groups, government employees and from faith-based organisations.

An NGO based in eastern Uganda, whose director is married to a Canadian national, is reported to have ferried more than 20 people to participate in various conference activities but who ultimately remained in Canada once the conference ended.

Josephine, a single mother of three in her mid 30s said she could barely survive on her sh150,000 salary as a primary school teacher in Iganga. The conference, she said, was the chance of a lifetime to find a better paying job and provide for her children.

For Ben, a 28-year-old Bachelor of Arts graduate, attending the conference was his ticket out of unemployment after spending two years searching for a job without success.

Aida, a housewife in her early 30s, used the conference to bail out of a failed eight-year marriage that turned sour after her husband took a second wife. “This is an opportunity for me to forget about him and start a new life,” she said.

Information gleaned from the trio as well as several of their colleagues indicate that they started preparing for the journey to Canada four months before the conference after getting word from the director of the NGO. It is said the director even helped some of the fake participants to fill in the visa applications.
What remains unclear is whether the AIDS conference was a one-off or the NGO has been a conduit for smuggling Ugandans into developed countries.

Further investigations by Sunday Vision revealed that most of the members in the group are relatives of the director, some are friends while others work with him in the NGO. Each of the travellers, however, was required to raise money for their airfare, but with the understanding that in future they would give some token of appreciation to the NGO owner once they settled in Canada.

There was panic, however, when some of the fake participants missed their connecting flight from Amsterdam to Toronto after they took a nap at the airport and overslept only to wake up to find the plane had already left for Canada.

Sunday Vision established from sources that Dutch airport officials had decided to send the whole bunch home, as the conference by then only had two days to go, but the NGO boss successfully secured their transfer to other flights claiming that they were required to perform at the closing ceremony.

“He told them they were coming specifically to perform at the closing ceremony, so it didn’t matter that they were late,” said one.

One man who arrived late one evening had to walk all the way to Toronto’s Metro Convention Centre, where the conference was taking place — about 25 minutes’ drive from the airport — because he had less than $10 with him and could not afford to pay for a cab. It costs between $30 to $40 Canadian dollars to travel by cab from Toronto International Airport to the city centre.

A Canadian woman married to a Ugandan was heard complaining that she had been forced to provide temporary accommodation for some of the fake conference participants who had missed their flights, as most of the hotels in Toronto had been fully booked. The majority, however, had arranged to stay with friends and family and then relocate elsewhere after the conference or apply for refugee status.

It was clear that like Ndyanabo, most of the fake conference participants were planning to claim that they were being persecuted back home for being gay.

Sunday Vision was present in one of the private coaching sessions where a Ugandan immigrant in his mid 30s gave participants some tips on what to expect from the immigration officers, what to say when asked certain questions and how to avoid contradicting oneself during an interview.

One woman, who had left a husband and two children back in Uganda, was coached to say that she had been repeatedly beaten by her husband after he discovered that she was a lesbian. “You tell them that he became so violent you had no choice, but to abandon the marriage. And if they ask you why you did not leave and seek help amongst your relatives, you tell them that you were scared because he had threatened to go to the Police and tell them that you were a lesbian,” counselled the coach.

Sunday Vision was told that many Ugandans have been awarded Canadian refugee status after citing homosexuality and insecurity caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army in the north.

“Once you say you are a homosexual or from northern Uganda, then it’s a sure deal,” assured the coach. Similarly, the increased media coverage of the northern conflict as well as sexual discrimination has also opened more windows of opportunity. In October last year, for instance, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) blacklisted Uganda as one of the countries that persecute gays.

The gay rights body stated, “Uganda is engaged in an active campaign of legislative overkill and coercion to silence an emerging community.... (gay) people live in fear because of aggressive government intimidation.”

In Uganda, homosexuality is illegal and is punishable by life imprisonment. However, court records show that no one has been given such a sentence.

Many fake participants in Toronto were excited by Ndyanabo’s touching but wildly exaggerated story in The Globe and Mail, saying it was bound to make it much more easier for them to apply for refugee status without much hassle.
“How can they accuse me of lying when it’s all in the papers, “ asked Josephine excitedly.

The Canadian daily also gave prominence to an article in The Red Pepper, published on August 8 listing names of 45 alleged homosexuals, whom the paper characterised as “men who like to give it to other men from behind.”

According to The Globe and Mail, “The Ugandan tabloid denounced homosexuality as ‘an abominable sin, in fact a mortal sin that’s against nature,’ and said it wanted to “demonstrate how rapidly this terrible vice known as sodomy is eating away at our society.’”

By the time this writer left Toronto, it could not be readily established whether Canadian officials had discovered the racket or whether they had put in place special measures to ensure that participants returned to their native countries.

Some government officials, however, were worried that if Ugandan participants remained behind, it might set a bad precedent for future conferences with host countries imposing stringent requirements for participants from countries whose citizens are notorious for not returning home.

“Such things give our country a bad reputation. And in future, we might find it difficult to secure visas to attend some of these conferences,” noted Dr. Sam Zaramba, the Director General of Health Services, who also headed the Ministry of Health’s delegation to the conference.

First Published as a special report in the New Vision on: 26th August, 2006
Written by: SHEILA C. KULUBYA

When he came to Uganda in 1876, Scottish missionary Alexander Mackay knew he would not have very long to live.

ALEXANDER Mackay liked to tell the truth. Even when it hurt. Or shocked. Or saddened. Just days before he set sail for Uganda in 1876, he made an unusual observation which was to come true.
"I want to remind the committee that within six months, they will probably hear that one of us is dead," he told the committee of the church missionary society at a send-off party for him and eight other missionaries.

Everyone was shocked. People could be seen whispering amongst themselves, according to a report in the CMS Gleaner.
"Yes," he continued. "Is it at all likely that eight Englishmen should start for Central Africa and all will be alive six months after? One of us at least - it may be I - will surely fall before that."
"But," he added, "when that news comes, do not be cast down, but send someone else immediately to take the vacant place."

In less than two years, Mackay wrote home to say that of the eight missionaries, two had died of tropical disease, the natives had murdered two and two had returned to England very sick. Others followed in their footsteps, and some met the same end.  Bishop James Hannington was murdered on his way, as was Bishop Parker.

Alexander Mackay outlived them, but only for a little longer.
His story is a fascinating tale of purpose and perseverance amidst persecution. And for this, it has been told and retold by a whole generation of authors in the last century.

In The Story of the Life of Mackay of Uganda, Pioneer Missionary, his sister J. W. Harrison sheds light on his childhood and the events that shaped the man who is sometimes referred to as the modern-day John the Baptist.

Mackay was born on October 13, 1849 in Rhynie Aberdeernshire in Scotland. His father, Alexander Mackay, was a church minister in a remote parish of the eastern highlands in Scotland. Mackay was unusually bright, and by the age of three, could read the New Testament.

Mackay's father was a friend of a number of academics and scientists, one of whom was Sir Roderick Murchison, David Livingstone's sponsor and after whom the Murchison Falls is named. At 14, as he was about to join grammar school, Mackay lost his mother and he was never the same again.

His sorrow and loneliness kindled a thirst for adventure in him and a deep fascination with machines. It is said that he would often walk for miles just to see a railway engine. His parents had hoped he would follow in his father's footsteps and become a church minister, but while at Edinburgh University, Mackay begun to concentrate on engineering and soon, he was studying higher mathematics and surveying.

In 1873, he went to Germany to study German. While here, he got a job as a draughtsman at the Berlin Locomotive Works and invented an agricultural machine, which won first prize at an exhibition of steam engines in Breslau.

At the teacher training college in Edinburgh, he had had a reputation as a loner and he did no better in Berlin although he wrote frequently to his family.
"Here I am," he once wrote, "among all these heathen people; almost all are infidels, but agree in so far acknowledging the existence of God as to continually use the expression `Ach Gott (Oh God)' often more than once in the same sentence.
"On this account, I am obliged to have as little conversation with them as possible and hence cannot have the advantage of German conversation as I would like."

During his stay in Berlin, Mackay resided with the family of Hofprediger Baur, one of the ministers of the cathedral there. Under Baur's influence the fascination of missionary life, which he had felt in his youth, was revived in him and he begun to study the Bible.

It is while he was in Germany that his sister wrote to him, and told him about a missionary expedition to Madagascar, which Mackay decided to join as an "engineering missionary". His vision was to connect Christianity with modern civilisation and he hoped to do so by establishing a college to train young men in religion and science.  He also wanted to build railways and roads, which he described as "an enormous enterprise for one single-handed".

Months before he was due to set off for Madagascar, the mission fell through, and he was asked instead to go to Mombasa to oversee the settlement of liberated slaves.  This journey too, hit a dead end, and someone else got the job before Mackay's formal application went in. It was around this time that the London Daily Telegraph published a letter from the explorer Henry Morton Stanley asking for missionaries to be sent to Uganda.

Mackay applied to the CMS to be part of the Uganda mission, also known as the mission to Nyanza, and on April 27, 1876, set sail on the steamship, the SS Peshawar, from Southampton.
Arriving at Zanzibar on May 30, 1876, Mackay and about eight of his colleagues set off for the interior. It took him well over two years to travel from the coast to Buganda. One after another, his colleagues died along the way until he was the only one left.
All through his travels, he kept a journal (currently kept at the CMS archive library in London) in which he jotted his impression of the people and the culture and lifestyle of the various African tribes he visited on his journey.

In one of his entries he observes: "Go where you will, you will find every week and, where grain is plentiful every night, every man, woman and child, even to suckling infants, are reeling with the effects of alcohol."
Because of this, he writes, he became a teetotaller from the moment he left the coast.

In November 1878, Mackay arrived in Buganda and established his headquarters at Nateete, where he set up his printing and engineering workshop. In time he built a medium-sized storeyed bungalow.
His was the first house ever in Uganda to be built with bricks. The house's foundation was made of burnt bricks while the walls were built with sun-dried bricks.

Mackay Martyrs church Natete, the oldest Anglican church in Uganda
In March 1882, Mackay baptised his first five converts among them Sembera, and three of the king's pages, named Mukasa, Kakumba Lugalama. Others soon followed.
It is said Mackay would print large letters on sheets of paper, which he used to teach his young converts to read and write Swahili. He also translated the gospel of Matthew into Luganda.

His first printing press, a small hand-operated machine, is on display at the Uganda Museum, while a church and school (Mackay College) now occupy the place where his workshop once stood.
Mackay was not only keen on winning more souls for God, he also put in long hours teaching his new converts new skills such as building roads, houses, machinery, and boats as well as reading and writing.

It is evident from Mackay's journal that he was a good friend of Kabaka Muteesa's and the two would talk often. In one of his entries, he recounts that the Kabaka once asked him to help him obtain an English princess, so that he could add her to his numerous collection of wives and was astonished when Mackay told him that in England "no woman could be given in marriage without her consent".

Another time, Muteesa said: "Mackay, when I become friends with England, God in heaven will be the witness. God will be the witness that England will not come to make war on Buganda, nor Buganda go to make war on England.
Everyone will say: `Oh Muteesa is coming,' when I reach England, and when I return: `Oh Muteesa is coming back again.'"

Although the Kabaka never did make the royal journey, three of his emissaries eventually did, one of them Ham Mukasa Mulira.

But despite their friendship, Mackay despised the "heathen" practices of the king which prevented him from being baptised. He writes how the unfortunate victims of Muteesa's displeasure would be slowly tortured to death, their noses, ears and lips cut off.  For others, he says, the sinews of their arms and thighs would be cut out and roasted in front of their eyes, before these were put out and the body itself burnt alive.
"The wretch who orders all this to be done for his own gratification is he who is called in Europe `the enlightened and intelligent king of Buganda'".

He also writes about some of the barbaric practices of the king such as the kiwendo (a great human sacrifice to secure blessings from a departed king). For instance his journal entry of February 6, 1881 reads thus: "Two years ago the king gave orders for a kiwendo and 2,000 innocent people were slaughtered in one day.

Less than a year ago a similar atrocity was committed. Two thousand poor peasants were caught, fastened in forked sticks, kept in pens and murdered on the set day, as an expiatory offering to the departed spirit of the former king, Suna.
Now another kiwendo is about to take place, because the king is ill and a sorcerer has told him that only a great slaughter can heal his sickness." Risking his life, Mackay wrote the king a letter, pleading for their lives, but his plea was disregarded.

Muteesa, for political reasons, played off Catholics, Protestants and Muslims against each other, and played all three new religions off against the traditional priests, working them all to his own advantage.

Mackay and the White Fathers played directly into Muteesa's hands, spending more time maligning one another than they did working together.

Life, however, became increasingly difficult for Mackay after Muteesa's death. He writes that the new Kabaka, Mwanga II, had a cruel streak and was easily influenced by his chiefs. "Our young king has some good points, but I fear few. He is much afraid of his older chiefs when it is a question of doing anything in what we would call a right direction. No such scruples seem to come in way when he wants to kill a score or two of his subjects."

The new king was also under the influence of Arabs at court and he had become addicted to smoking bhang like them. Much worse, he had acquired a taste for sodomy.
Indeed, Mackay writes that the martyrdom of Christians in Buganda was sparked off by a related incident after one of the pages, Apollo Kaggwa, refused to service the king. In his journal, he describes the incident as "an act of splendid disobedience and brave resistance to this Negro Nero's orders to a page of his, who absolutely refused to be made the victim of an unmentionable abomination".

Mackay says that the king went berserk and summoned every page at court. He then asked those assembled which of them was a Christian. Thirty stepped forward and thus began the Christian martyrdom.
And when his palace burned down one day, all blame was laid squarely on the Christians (the thatched roof had accidentally caught fire when one of the pages was out praying). Three Christian boys - Seruwanga, Yusufu, and Lugalama - were arrested, tortured and burned on a slow fire for their negligence. Another Protestant page was speared to death.

Then three Catholic pages were beheaded. The next day, two more Protestant lads were castrated and died, while a couple of Catholics were hacked to pieces. Others were picked off in ones and twos.
For a few months, there was a halt to this carnage. Then in 1886, 26 of the pages - 13 Catholics and 13 Protestants - were marched 16km from the capital and burned alive in a huge bonfire at Namugongo.

In all, about 200 Christians were tortured and burned. Their death and Mwanga's continued persecution of Christians weighed on Mackay's conscience as he could only watch helplessly as his former pupils and friends were murdered.

In 1888, it seemed the persecution would stop when Mwanga was driven from his throne by the Muslims and replaced by his elder brother Kiweewa, during the inter-religious wars. Mackay held on, despite the bloodshed and the civil war, and was always hopeful of establishing a permanent station.
Months later, Mwanga was re-installed by the Christians after defeating the Muslims, his suspicion and growing dislike of Mackay continued and he decided to leave.

Twice, Mackay and Ashe tried to leave, but they would always be intercepted and marched back to Nateete by the king's chief warrior. A year later, on July 21, 1887, Mackay was allowed to leave Buganda and he travelled to Usambiro on the southern shores of Lake Victoria, where he stayed for the remaining three years of his life.

A great deal of his time was spent urging the British government through the consul at Zanzibar to annex more territories in Africa to prevent "dictatorial rulers" such as Mwanga from "inflicting atrocities on their own people."

Mackay was also shocked at the apparent indifference of Christians in Europe to the martyrdom of black Christians in Africa when at the same time, they could be roused to a fury at the murder of a white Christian bishop like James Hannington.

On February 14, 1890 Mackay caught malaria and four days later he died at Usambiro, the last survivor of the little band of eight that had set out for Uganda in 1876.
He was buried at Usambiro and his remains were later transferred and buried at Namirembe Cathedral.

Published in the Sunday Vision on: Saturday, 6th October, 2007
Written by Sheila C. Kulubya

The untold story of the Uganda Muslim martyrs


Kabaka Mwanga, one of the most feared Kings in Buganda.
The history of the Uganda Christian martyrs is a well-known tale of intrigue and murder. It tells the story of 45 young men, mostly from Buganda’s eminent families, who willingly surrendered their lives for the sake of their religious beliefs. We are told that they defied their king by refusing to denounce Christianity, a religion that had been newly introduced to Buganda by Catholic and Anglican missionaries.

We are further told that the Kabaka, Mwanga II, construed it as treachery and had them arrested. In all, a total of 45 Christians made the long trip to Namugongo, where they went up in flames on a funeral pier.

But there is another story of martyrdom, equally as inspiring as it is gruesome. Not many people know it. This is the story of the Uganda Muslim martyrs. Ten years before the Christian martyrs, men had made the same long tortuous journey to Namugongo where they were burnt in an inferno on the orders of Kabaka Mutesa I. Their exact number is not known, but some historians have put the number to more than 70.

Events leading to their death begun in 1857 when Kabaka Mutesa I ascended the throne after the death of his father, Kabaka Suna. By the time of Suna’s death, Islam had started taking root in Buganda. It had been introduced by Arabs and Swahili traders from the coast.

Like his father Suna, Mutesa was fascinated by Islam and took great pride in studying the Quran and its teachings. Although the king did not impose the new religion on his subjects, it is said that normally once something took the king’s fancy, all his subjects were naturally expected to adopt it. And so it was with Islam.

Before long, many people started learning the new religion. Reverend Batulimayo Musoke Zzimbe, writes in “Buganda Nne’ Kabaka” that Mutesa was so committed to Islam, he even ordered a mosque to be built at his palace in Kasubi, then known as Nabulagala.
Such was his devotion that five times a day, a Muezzin, would summon the faithful for prayers, led by the king himself.

A brilliant man, Mutesa had by then learnt to read and write Arabic and bestowed upon himself the title of Imam. “He was very well loved by his subjects. Because he was unusually intelligent, his Katikkiro (prime minister) Kayira called him Mutesa which means the one who is wise in council”, writes Sir Apollo Kaggwa, a regent of Kabaka Daudi Chwa.

But just as he was much loved, he was equally loathed, for his cruelty and soon, the new king came to be also known as Mukabya, which means “one who makes others cry”.

History records reveal that Mutesa maintained at least four punishment sites in Buganda where insubordinate subjects would be carted to be punished for real and imagined crimes.

A subject could be killed for something as ‘small” as not properly addressing the Kabaka by his rightful titles. Surprisingly, for one schooled in Islam Mutesa did not completely fulfil all that was required by the Quran.Katende, a former eminent Buganda judge and current leader of the Olugave clan writes in one of his unpublished memoirs that the king continued to eat meat from animals slaughtered by non Muslims. He also refused to be circumcised, on the advice of his powerful chief administrative officer, Katikkiro Mukasa.

Mukasa, a former Saaza chief, was renowned for his cruelty and was said to exert much influence over the king. J.F. Faupel writes in the “African Holocaust”, Mukasa contrived to render his position almost unassailable by means of a blood pact with Mutesa, which made him both blood brother to the reigning monarch and ‘father’ to his future successor”.

Katende writes that Mukasa was afraid that if the king accepts to be circumcised, he would compel the rest of the Muslim subjects including him to do likewise.

In those days, circumcision was carried out using sharpened reeds. It was a long and slow painful surgical procedure that would sometimes last a whole day. Back then there was no anaesthesia to dull the pain, as it is today. It is not surprising therefore that the katikkiro was fiercely opposed to circumcision.

Katende writes that Mukasa sought audience with the king and told him that Buganda traditional royal custom forbade the king to shed his blood. The king, therefore, could not be circumcised, as demanded by Islamic law.
This meant that religious observances that had been led by the king under a more easygoing Muslim regime, including the slaughter of animals could no longer be accepted as being carried out by a true Muslim.

At about this time, a group of Muslim fundamentalists from Egypt visited the Kabaka’s court at Kasubi. However, whereas they were impressed by the spread of the new religion, they were unhappy at the king’s un-Islamic conduct and reluctance to be circumcised.

The visitors reportedly started criticising the king and very soon, they incited the rest of the king’s subjects to rebel against the Kabaka. It was not long before the Kabaka’s subjects started challenging him openly about his lifestyle. Where once hundreds would turn up for prayers, only a few would now show up. Most found excuses to be away from the palace while others simply decided to pray on their own.

Mutesa noticed the dwindling number of worshippers and decided to investigate. It is said that one day the Kabaka summoned one of his most loyal servant, nicknamed Muddu Awulila (the obedient servant) to inquire why he was not turning up for prayers.
Muddu Awulila answered: “My Lord, its because we feel you should not lead the prayer because you are not circumcised”. “But I am your King. You are supposed to obey everything I tell you to do”, argued the Kabaka.

“My Lord, our actions are not meant to disobey you, but in this case, we are not looking at you as our king but as a fellow Muslim worshipper”.

Katende writes that Mutesa was so angry at his servant’s casual and almost insolent response. He stayed in a foul mood for the rest of day. Several weeks later, Mutesa held a grand feast to celebrate the opening of a new mosque. Several cows, goats and chicken were slaughtered for the occasion.

It is said several of the Muslim courtiers ate just the food and refused to touch the meat, because uncircumcised Muslims had slaughtered the animals.

Angry, the Kabaka construed it as an act of treason and ordered all those who had refused to eat the meat to be arrested. The group was rounded up and taken to jail in Bukeesa, near Nakulabye where they were confined for four days without food.

On the fourth day, the Kabaka sent them some food and meat. They ate everything except the meat. When the King’s officers inquired why they had not touched the meat, they told them to go back and ask the king to send them a live cow and goat so that they could slaughter it themselves.

The Kabaka had them transferred to another jail in Nansana, hoping they will come to their senses sooner or later. On the fourth day, Mutesa again sent them food and meat. It was the same story. They were then relocated to Bukoto where again they were given a last chance to repent but again, they ate everything else apart from the meat.

When they refused to budge, the Kabaka ordered his chief executioner to kill them. The exact date and month of their martyrdom is not known but it said, they were marched to Namugongo and killed in 1877.

More than 70 martyrs were burnt to death that day. Only three of them; Yusuf Sebakiwa (Elephant clan), Amulane Tuzinde (Mushroom clan) and Musirimu Lwanga escaped the inferno. It is said they died of natural illness, a result of the long trek to Namugongo.

Commemorating the martyrs

While the both the Ugandan Catholic and Anglican churches mark June 3, in pomp and prayer in commemoration of the death of the martyrs, hardly anything is held to remember the Muslims.

It’s only after Idi Amin Dada came to power in 1971, after overthrowing Milton Obote that the history of the Muslim martyrs started to come to light.

It is said that president Amin was typically irked that it’s only the Christians martyrs who had been honoured and ordered a memorial to be erected in recognition of the Muslims as well.

Land was acquired just opposite the present Anglican Church Martyrs, and a foundation was laid for a mosque. A small mosque made of mud and iron sheets was reportedly built at the site, to coincide with the Christian martyrs celebrations that year.

It is said Amin had planned to build a huge mosque later but he was ousted before he realised his dream. In 1979 after the fall of Amin, soldiers of the Obote II regime reportedly occupied the mosque and desecrated it by slaughtering several pigs in it.

The mosque was knocked down and another was built a few meters from the original site. “The mosque has never been officially opened due to various wrangles. We hope it will be opened one day to commemorate our Muslim brothers,” says Sheikh Muhammad Guyidde Kivumbi, the current Imam of the Mosque.

Kivumbi says, the original foundation stone laid by Amin was dug up by mercury prospectors. The stone’s bronze plaque that contained the inscription was stolen too.

“They completely uprooted the stone, hoping to find mercury underneath, but there was nothing,” recalls the Imam. The present mosque is a small affair, seating about 200 worshippers. Over the years however, it has slowly become dilapidated and is a painful eye sore in the surrounding community. When Sunday Monitor visited the site early this week, the paint had noticeably peeled off, leaving some parts of the walls exposed to the harsh elements of weather.

A few old dirty mats lay inside of the mosque carelessly strewn all over the cement floor. But despite its dilapidated state, the mosque is not short of daily worshippers. The Imam says about twenty or more worshippers come to the mosque to pray, mostly in the evenings. But the numbers increase during the Muslim holy month of Ramathan.

Sheikh Kivumbi says there has not been any special celebrations for the Muslim martyrs since the ouster of Idi Amin, in part because of lack of funding and also because unlike Christians, Muslims do not ordinarily mark such days.

“All we want is for the mosque to be renovated so that it is a fitting memorial to those who died for the sake of Islam”, says Sheikh Kivumbi.
 
First published in the Daily Monitor, 2005.
By SHEILA C. KULUBYA

President Does Not Give Out Land - Nkangi

JEHOASH Mayanja Nkangi is the chairman of the Uganda Land Commission, which is in charge of all government land. He explained to Sheila Kulubya why the Government is suddenly leasing a lot of its prime land to investors.

Qn: Why is there suddenly a rush to allocate prime land to investors, and especially land already in use?
Ans:It all comes down to the economic value. You might be using land for a certain purpose, but if something more economically valuable comes up, then you can change.

Qn:From where do you derive your mandate to re-allocate this land?
Ans: According to the 1998 Land Act, we are the custodians, managers and legal owners of all government land. So, whoever wants land must come to us because we are the only ones who can transfer this land. So, when you say Shimoni, the beneficiary is the Ministry of Education and not the people who are there or those who run the school. Similarly, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is the beneficiary of the land where Nsambya Police Barracks is located.

Qn:What factors do you take into account when re-allocating land?
Ans: If a piece of land was being used less optimally than its potential dictates, then we can do so. It's a question of looking at economic potential vis-a-vis the different uses of land.

Qn: Why don't you allocate the investors land elsewhere, instead of school land?
Ans:At the time when the schools were built there was no investor who wanted to use that land. But now, the circumstances have changed. We have to serve the two demands putting into consideration which one has a higher value. If you want to set up a hotel, you would want your hotel to be accessible to tourists because tourists don't want to travel long distances.

Qn: Why don't you advertise this land so that you get the best possible offer, instead of giving it to handpicked investors?
Ans: We do not really consider it economic to advertise because we have no shortage of applicants. In fact, we have more applications for land in the towns than land.  We sit as a commission and consider the relative social and economical importance of the proposed projects before allocating any land.

Qn: Have you only been leasing the land or selling it as well?
Ans:Normally, we don't want to sell. I think we could lawfully do it. But we don't do it, but we have not sold any land yet.

Qn: For how long do you usually lease the land?
Ans: Initially, it's supposed to be five years. Suppose you say you want to have this land for a hotel then, we give you five years to make sure you do it because there is a danger that once you get a title, you might go and sell the land to someone else and get a difference.  If after five years you have done what you said you wanted to do, then we extend the lease to 49 or 99 years.
 
Qn: What happens, if after the leasing, the investor changes his mind and decides to do something different from the that which he/she originally applied for the land?
Ans: If he did it without letting us know, we could revoke the application and consider other applicants for the land.

Qn: About how much land have you leased out over the last five years?
Ans: I do not know. I would need to check, but I know that we have leased out a lot of land.

Qn: How much money has been collected from the leasing of this land, and where does it all go?
Ans: I don't know how much money, but I know that it goes to the consolidated fund, which is the treasury of the Government.

Qn: How often do you meet to lease out the land?
Ans: We meet about once a month. We usually receive many applications for land, but mostly about residences and then investments.

Qn: How long does it take to process an application for land?
Ans: It takes a minimum of about 30 days.

Qn: How does one know whether there is land available?
Ans: We have an inventory. You can come to our offices, look through it and make an application.

Qn: There have been fears that some of this land is being given out to investors free of charge.
Ans: That is not true. Normally, when we offer a lease to someone, the government valuer values the land and that is the premium the leasee must pay.

Qn: Does the commission have the power to waive the premium?
Ans: I am not aware if we have the powers to do so. If we can, then we have never used it before, as far as I can remember. But if we do have that power, we must be very careful because this provision can be misused.

Qn: Is the premium a one-off settlement, or are there other charges?
Ans: The premium is a one-off and thereafter the leasee only pays annual ground rent.

Qn: Who determines the ground rent?
Ans: The Chief Government Valuer does that as well.

Qn: How different is your role from that of the Uganda Investment Authority in as far as procuring land for investment is concerned?
Ans: When it comes to land for investment, the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) is the first port of call. UIA gives investors licences after appraising the value of a projects. But that does not stop us from examining the projects because we may also have alternative projects.  Let's say someone has been given a licence to set up a mushroom farm and yet we have someone who wants to set up a university. We can overrule them depending on the circumstances.

Qn: Lately, the President appears to be involved in helping some investors acquire land. Is he allowed to do that?
Ans: The President has not leased out any land. The President may suggest an investor and may even talk to us, but ultimately, it's the Uganda Land Commission to sign away this land.

Qn: Why, then, do you allow the investors to bypass the commission instead of dealing with them directly?
Ans: You see, some of these investors probably don't even know that Uganda Land Commission exists. So, they go to the President and tell him what they want to do.  He thinks about it and ultimately contacts us because there cannot be any lease without our involvement.

Qn: Have there been instances where the President has recommended an investor and you have turned him down?
Ans: Not that I know of. But that's because he has not been doing so as much as the media claims.

Qn: There are allegations that there are government officials who have acquired government land purportedly acting on behalf of the President or some big shot investors.
Ans: The problem is, I have not been here long enough to know of such things, so I cannot tell you as much as you may want from me.  But I think the President should be on the lookout for people who claim to act in his name. Personally, when I am confronted with such a situation, I simply ask whoever is talking to me whether he or she has a legal position. If they don't, then I say I am sorry I cannot do that.

Qn: It would appear that there are more foreigners than locals acquiring land for investment. What are you doing as a commission to enable ordinary Ugandans to acquire land?
Ans: We have given many leases to Ugandans, although they may not be known. Each time we meet as commissioners, we lease land to people, many of them Ugandans.

Qn: How much land does the commission hold on behalf of the Government?
Ans: I cannot tell you offhand. But we have an inventory throughout the whole country. A lot of up-country land now belongs legally to district land boards rather than the Uganda Land Commission.

Qn: What is the relationship between the commission and the district land boards?
Ans: By law, we cannot give them orders. They take their own decisions and have their own land.
Therefore, if you want land that belongs to us, you come to us, if the district owns the land, you go to the district land board.

Qn: How then do you know who owns which land?
Ans: You can find out by going to the land registry in the Ministry of Lands. They will tell you who the owner is if the land has been surveyed and has a title deed.

Qn: Part of your mandate is to acquire land for the Government. How often do you do this?
Ans: Rarely. But it's true that sometimes we acquire land for the Government. And sometimes, we acquire it to give to some other people.  Suppose there is a catastrophe, like heavy rains etc, and people are homeless and the Government urgently needs land to resettle them, we can buy land. For instance, we have been buying some land in Kibaale District and we are going to pass it on the Banyoro in the area.

Qn: What are the main challenges for the commission?
Ans: One of the difficulties we have is to make sure that we use the land without having it all being used up.   But we may have to think about what type of land use we should have. Should we build horizontal or vertical? Otherwise, the population is growing so fast, but the land does not increase.

First published in the Sunday Vision: August 6, 2007
By SHEILA. C. KULUBYA

The last Obote saw of Uganda

THE story of Dr. Apollo Milton Obote’s narrow escape reads like a script out of a movie. The only difference is the plot of escape from Kampala to Nairobi involved real people, not fictitious characters.

Several rumours have been doing the rounds over the years, especially one alleging that Obote, who died in a South African hospital on Monday, was smuggled out of the country in a coffin during his daring escape after being ousted in a military coup.

But according to one of his trusted bodyguards, who spoke to Sunday Vision on condition of anonymity, nothing could be further from the truth.
“We never took that man in a coffin. We took him in broad daylight,” says the bodyguard, who stayed for many years with Obote in exile before returning to Uganda.

                                                  Early reports
The drama of Obote’s escape started unfolding early on the morning of July 26, 1987. Obote reported for work as usual at his office on the fourth floor of Parliament Building, where he continued to receive news of a mutinous section of the army led by Chief of Defence Forces Lt. Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa.

The force had overrun Lira town on July 25 and was advancing on Kampala to capture power. But in spite of the imminent danger, he still had hope that some sections of the army still loyal to him would squash the coup. His Chief of Staff, Brig. Smith Opon Acak, was put in charge.

                                             Crisis meeting
A flurry of activity filled the President’s Office at Parliament till late in the evening. At about 10:00pm the Minister of State for Security, Chris Rwakasisi; the Minister of Public Service and Cabinet Affairs, Wilson Okwenje; Brig. Acak, Col. John Ogole, Maj. Olwol, Lt. Col. John Opor and Col. Orotha met to map out a strategy to contain the Okello troops.

Col. Ogole was assigned to set up ambushes along the Kampala-Karuma road to beat off the mutineers. Shortly after midnight Obote retreated to Nile Mansions (present-day Serena Kampala Hotel) to sleep.

                                         More defections
At 2:30am, he was woken up and informed that the soldiers who had been deployed to squash the coup had thrown in their lot with the plotters.

Obote summoned his bodyguards. “Let’s go,” he said. Fearing for Obote’s life, his protection unit whisked him off to the residence of his personal doctor, Henry Opiote, where he held marathon meetings with Brig. Acak, the commander of the Special Forces, Ahmed Ogeny, Senior Superintendent of Police Okoth Ogola and Ogole, the commander of the 50th Brigade. Some ministers, including Rwakasisi, also attended.

It was decided that the President should be moved out of Kampala. When it was suggested that he leave the country, Obote objected vehemently. Rwakasisi convinced him that it was important for him to stay alive. An agreement was reached that he be relocated to Jinja.

At 5:30pm, Obote was heading out of Kampala. Silently, his bodyguards — the Presidential Escort Unit, an elite outfit with a superb system of gathering information and analysing threats to the President — had different plans. The destination was Kenya via Busia.

Obote’s bodyguard says a contingency plan of travel was hatched, and was supposed to “draw as little attention as possible”. The highly trained bodyguards took control of the lead car since they had mapped out the route and destination.

His usual convoy was scaled down from 10 to four cars, including the big Mercedes Benz (model 600) in which Obote normally travelled, two smaller Benzes (model 380) and a Jeep, which was mounted with a large anti-aircraft gun.

Likewise, his usual team of nine bodyguards was reduced to six and it was agreed that they wouldn’t use the walkie-talkies so as not to alert the coup plotters of Obote’s whereabouts. The team visibly had fewer guns but there were extra weapons in the boots of the cars.

“We set off for Jinja at breakneck speed,” says the former bodyguard, who laughed heartily when asked whether Obote was worried that his escape would be detected.

                                                     The roadblocks
However, when the convoy arrived in Mukono, it was detained for 15 minutes at a roadblock manned by heavily armed soldiers who were under orders not to allow anyone through, especially not Obote. “Sisi yote takufa hapa, akuna anakimbiya,” they said in Swahili, meaning “All of us should die in the country”. Surprisingly, the soldiers did not bother to search the presidential convoy for Obote, who was huddled in the back seat of the big car with a bodyguard. The car’s windows were heavily tinted and the curtains had been drawn for added protection.

“We had all decided that we would fight and defend the President, if the soldiers attempted to search the car,” recalls the bodyguard.

After a lot of haggling, Opiote lied that the convoy was going to the border to pick up Obote’s wife Miria, who had been in Nairobi attending a conference for first ladies.

But they were let off the hook mostly because the soldiers were convinced Obote wouldn’t possibly have travelled at such an ungodly hour without his full presidential security detail.

The convoy once again ran into another group of soldiers at the bridge in Jinja, but was left to go on without further incident until they got to Busia.
The convoy drove into Jinja town, avoiding Kyabazinga Way, which is close to Gadaffi Garrison. In Jinja, Obote protested when he learnt that he was not being driven to the Presidential Lodge, but was heading out of the country.

By the time they reached Busia, the news had already spread that Obote had escaped from Kampala and all army units had been put on alert to look out for him. An Acholi officer, working with the National Security Agency, had locked the gates at the border crossing, one with a padlock and the other with a sisal rope, which was quickly loosened to allow Obote and the bodyguards safe passage to the Kenyan side.

                                                                Safely across
According to the bodyguard’s testimony, all weaponry and ammunition, which they had carried with them during the escape, was left on the Ugandan side of the border. It was deemed wrong to cross dressed in military fatigues and some of the escorts had to take off their shirts.

“We never took any guns of Uganda with us, we left everything behind. Some people crossed without shoes,” says the bodyguard who also claims that Obote did not carry any money with him at the time of escape.

Obote stayed for a few days at the dingy Teachers Hotel in Busia before finally leaving for Kakamega. His bodyguard says Opiote and one of the bodyguards raised $600 between them to buy fuel for the cars.

Later Obote and his entourage were transferred from the Kakamega Golf Course Hotel to the State Lodge. By then, Obote was still holding out in the hope that his loyalist forces might still pull it off. But all his hopes went up in smoke when he received word that Brig. Smith Opon Acak, James Odong Oduka, Maj. Olwol, Col. Ogole and two Air Force pilots, Lt. Okello and Maj. Peter Nyakairu had landed at Embakasi Military Base with two helicopters.

“When Obote heard this, he knew the game was over,” says the bodyguard, who could not say whether Obote had been heartbroken at being ousted twice in a military coup. Obote reportedly consoled his despirited men, saying, “We have lost a government, but there is nothing to do. It happens.”

                                                          Seeking sanctuary
The following day Obote met with Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi at Nakuru State House. Moi considered giving him a place to live but Obote opted to go to his friend, former Kenyan Attorney General Kitili Mwenda, in Nairobi.

Both Moi and Ethiopian President Haile Mengistu Mariam are said to have offered him sanctuary, but Obote opted for Zambia arguing that he wanted to stay out of the region. He left for Zambia with about 150 people 10 days after the coup.

Before he left Nairobi for Zambia, another battle had been going on to re-unite the family, as two of the children — Benjamin Opeto and Tony Akaki — had been left behind in Uganda when Obote escaped.

Opiote had been left at State House Entebbe and Akaki was at Namasagali College, where he studied. The Indian High Commission and the headmaster of Namasagali, Fr. Damian Grimes, assisted in re-uniting the two boys with the rest of the family.

                                                         Obote’s security
That Obote was able to slip through two army roadblocks undetected was not only down to sheer luck, but a combination of good intelligence, proper planning and training of his elite Presidential Protection Unit.

Before his escape, Obote had survived several daring assassination attempts, some orchestrated by very senior officials in government. The bodyguard recalls an incident in 1984, during Labour Day Celebrations in Jinja, where Obote was officiating. One of the women dancers entertaining the guests moved close to Obote and, when apprehended, was found with a knife in the folds of her clothing.

In the same year there were other incidents. Someone sent the President a book which, when x-rayed, was found to contain explosives. Another present of a Kenwood food processor was laced with radioactive material. Then a soldier was caught with a stick grenade in a paper bag, which he had planned to haul at Obote during a function at Fairway Hotel.

The unit uncovered a plot to down Obote’s plane on return from Italy. A Pakistani assassin had camped for days in a swampy location in Entebbe and was planning to shoot down Obote’s plane as it came in to land at Entebbe. He was locked up in Luzira.

According to Obote’s bodyguard, although security for the president would often be shared amongst all the security agencies, the elite Presidential Protection Unit would always take the lion’s share of responsibility.

The bulk of the team had received their training in North Korea, Italy and India and were skilled in the art and craft of VIP protection. The unit also had a state-of-the-art German-made Telefunken telecommunication system, which had telephones and a fax machine to enable the President to stay in constant touch in any part of the country.

“We were the ones who were keeping the pot, as we used to call him then,” the bodyguard recalls.

Published on: Sunday, 16th October, 2005
Written by SHEILA C. KULUBYA