Tortured in Uganda

Volume 3 1992

The first time I met Charles Lubwama it was while ministering in prison. He had escaped from Uganda only to be imprisoned in Zambia. The fall of Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia brought freedom for Charles - but not stability. He is still a refugee - separated from his family and his home - and in danger of repatriation. Charles Lubwama is a Ugandan journalist, a graduate of Makerere University, Kampala, and Old Westbury in the USA. He has worked for the Financial Times of London and the Financial Times of Uganda. Before his arrest Charles was the editor of “This Week”. He is married, with four children. This is his story:

My ordeal, started on a Sunday morning, May 12, 1991, in Kampala (the capital city of Uganda). I had just returned home from church. My wife was out of Uganda at the time, and our children had gone up-country with family friends for the first term holiday. Several armed men, in plain clothes, stormed my home to arrest me and confiscate every document and article.

On arrival at the secret police building I was quickly dragged inside a cell. The floor was covered with blood, and bones were scattered around the room. The stench made me sick. A soldier ordered me to take off everything I was wearing except my underwear. I felt as if I was among the dead. Before shutting the huge door behind me, the soldier shouted at me to sit down and make no noise at all. Now, in complete darkness, overcome with the strong smell and silence, I heard many rats running across the room and apparently feeding on objects I could not see. Because I had sat in wet blood I tried to find a better place far from the door.

As I stretched out my hand it landed on something I was convinced was a dead body. I was at first terrified but later I gathered the courage to make sure. I tell you the truth, although at the time I could not know whether I would live to write again. I touched the object again only to realise that it was actually a body of a human being lying on it’s back. That person might have been killed, possibly in that very place, a day or two before. The body was very cold and apparently swollen. I stepped in fluid or water that was draining from the dead body, contributing to the already terrible stench within the room which was without windows. I realised I was also likely to soon end up in the same way.

After an hour, a very cruel looking soldier opened the door, and ordered me inside another, also dirty, room but the smell was tolerable. This is where I found three men eagerly waiting to interrogate me.

They told me to understand that if I failed to answer their questions the way they wanted, they would return me into the room where they tortured stubborn people. They also warned that what I had seen there was nothing compared to what I would be subjected to. They demanded that I tell them who was sponsoring the newspaper. In reply I told them that the newspaper I was editing was entirely financed by the two directors of the registered company publishing it.

They alleged that I was collaborating with the enemies of President Museveni. They also expected me to disclose my sources of information. The controversial stories for which they asked for the sources were about:-

The interrogation was punctuated by a vicious beating. When I tried to explain why it was against my profession to disclose my sources of information, I was silenced as a piece of iron struck my head. Another piece of iron landed on my mouth knocking out one tooth, and seriously injuring a number of others. My interrogators then drew near to slap, kick and beat me everywhere they thought would cause me the most pain. They insisted that I had to write down everything I knew or else they would kill me there and then. With the kind of pain I was feeling at that time, I could hardly fill two pages within the two hours I was given. This angered my interrogators so much that they deemed me only fit to die. They pulled me off the chair and I fell onto the hard floor. They kicked me repeatedly on my head and chest, stomach, back and lower parts until I fell unconscious.

Days and weeks went by but the state did not produce any charge against me. They also failed to even produce a warrant of arrest. Members of the Special Branch who interrogated me also failed to even frame up some charge. However, what worried me most were the rumours that there were plans to dispose of me.

To my great surprise, on a Monday morning, at about 10:00am, a policeman opened the cell door and told me to go to the officer in charge of the Special Branch. The officer had sent for me after a telephone call from the president himself had ordered my release.

As the officer was breaking the good news to me, Museveni phoned again to ask whether his orders, given merely thirty minutes ago, had been put into effect. As he put the receiver down, the officer said to me “Charles you are very lucky. The only man who can release you has been on the line. You go quickly now, but report here again in ten days.”

He quickly wrote a note in the form of a Police Bond, which he forgot to sign, and handed it to me. From the police station I hurried out into the streets of Kampala to mix with the morning city traffic. I feared that Museveni would abruptly change his mind. I had not yet been informed how journalists had co-operated to pressurise the President for my immediate release.

The story about my illegal detention, that came out in a local daily, roused the strong concern of every local and foreign journalist present in the Kampala International Conference Centre for the All Africa Journalists Association, “Media Week”. It was unanimously agreed that a resolution condemning the government for illegally arresting and detaining me, be published. Museveni was about to fly to Abuja, Nigeria to attend the 1991 O.A.U. Summit and hand over the O.A.U. (Organisation for African Unity) Chairmanship. So, to avoid embarrassment he decided to release me, knowing that nobody would prevent him from detaining me again after the Media Week.

Amid camera flashes I received much applause from well over 300 foreign and local journalists, as I entered the Conference Centre to join them in the Media Week. Later on I talked to a number of international figures, and I was also interviewed by representatives of various foreign organisations. But my liberty could not last, and I found out that I was yet to undergo an even tougher time than I had just survived. Just as the Media Week was concluded by the Vice- President, Dr Samson Kisseke, and as the foreign journalists were travelling back to their respective countries, Museveni sent his men to me. The message they delivered was “You are required by the President right now”. From the Conference Centre, I was hurriedly driven straight to the President’s Office.

The President, who was apparently busy, simply remarked emotionally, “You man, you are in big trouble." He then ordered his men to hand me over to Col. Kakinda Otafire and Lt. Kasigazi whose offices were one floor below Museveni’s. Lt. Kasigazi had recently been accused of killing one of Museveni’s critics. And this was the man who was to look into my case! Days of interrogation followed.

For the safety of some kind and innocent people I will not continue with how I managed to finally escape.

After going through very many problems to get to Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania), I fell sick. Worse still it was reported that President Museveni was to visit Tanzania for four days. Two days after his arrival, the owners of the lodge I was sleeping in informed me that some policemen were looking for me.

Panic-stricken I left at once for Malawi only to be refused entry at the border. I felt very reluctant to enter Zambia which I suspected would not only deny me entry but might even return me to Uganda. However, there was no alternative. Only about 100km inside, one Ugandan on the train noticed me and told the immigration officers. I was arrested and deported back to Tanzania after three days. Tanzanian authorities denied me entry, and I was by now completely without money.
I then decided to sneak through Zambia to Botswana. But I was caught by the Police at Kapiri Mposi. After a few days in detention I was taken to Kamwala Remand Prison in Lusaka, on 9th July 1991. No explanation was ever given for my detention.

On leaving prison on 28th October 1991, one Ugandan, who had come to the same prison three months before, also left. Before going back to Uganda in January 1992, he was seen spending most of his time in the Uganda High Commission in Lusaka, from where he was heard telephoning his employers in Kampala. He also tried to study my activities and whereabouts in Zambia. I strongly believe he was sent by the regime in Uganda to follow me.

In a note from Kampala in February 1992, I was warned to leave Zambia as quickly as possible. Despite several reminders and appeals for six months now, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Lusaka has not been able to even give me forms for resettlement (application forms one fills in when applying to settle in another country as a refugee). Among countries which I hope might accept me are: U.S.A. Canada, Australia, and Sweden. I cannot guess why I am being ignored, but there is a growing need for me to leave Zambia.

Charles Kasujja Lubwama (25/4/92)

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