PRESS RELEASE

Uganda: Troops Killed Unarmed People in Riot Period
No Lethal Force Necessary in at Least 13 Fatal Shootings

(Kampala, October 1, 2009) – The Ugandan government should immediately order an independent investigation into the killing of unarmed persons during and after riots in Kampala on September 10 and 11, 2009, Human Rights Watch said today.

A Human Rights Watch investigation found that at least 13 people were shot by government forces in situations where lethal force was unnecessary. The Minister of Internal Affairs reported to parliament that 27 people had died during the riots and that seven were uninvolved in riot activity.

“Shooting in self defense is one thing, but we found that some soldiers shot at bystanders and shot through locked doors,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to put an impartial investigation in motion now.”

The riots in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, began on September 10, when police blocked a delegation representing the Buganda kingdom from visiting Kayunga district. The cultural king of Buganda, known as the kabaka, was planning to visit Kayunga for National Youth Day two days later. The visit was opposed by leaders of the Banyala ethnic group in Kayunga, who reject the kabaka’s authority. The kabaka’s supporters took to the streets to protest the police action, and violence began soon afterward.

Sources at Kampala’s main hospital, Mulago, indicate that 88 victims of the violence were admitted for treatment over this period, most for gunshot wounds. Victims were taken to other hospitals as well. According to the minister of internal affairs, at least 846 people were arrested for alleged crimes committed during the riots, and the arrests continue. At least 24 of the alleged rioters have been charged with terrorism for destroying government property, and many others have been charged with unlawful assembly and inciting violence.

During and after the unrest, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 50 victims and their family members, witnesses, doctors, and local and senior government officials. On-the-ground research was conducted into the circumstances surrounding the violence in the Kampala neighborhoods of Nateete, Kasubi, Busega, Ndeeba, Bwaise, Bunga, the Salaama Road at Nakinyuguzi zone, and in Mpigi town.

Human Rights Watch investigated several fatal and non-fatal shootings by security forces on September 10 and 11 that raise serious questions about the level of force employed in response to the riots. In a number of cases throughout the city, there is strong evidence that security forces shot individuals who were not threatening them or others.

This challenges statements by some government officials that live ammunition was only fired into the air to clear the streets of protesters.

However, President Yoweri Museveni, addressing parliament on September 10, after the riots broke out, contended that “initially police acted slowly” in response to the unrest. “Looters,” he said, “will be shot on sight, as will those who attack civilians.”

Human Rights Watch said that investigations should look into the circumstances of the rioting and into how to improve policing during demonstrations. Thus far, there is no clear evidence to support the contention of some Ugandan government officials that the Kampala riots were organized in advance. The Buganda kingdom government has denied any role in organizing the riots. Some rioters do appear to have employed parallel tactics, such as burning tires to block roads in several areas of the city, especially on the afternoon of September 10.

Human Rights Watch urged the police and other security forces to abide by the United Nations Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials. The principles call upon law enforcement officials, including military units responding to national emergencies, to apply nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force, to use force only in proportion to the seriousness of the offense, and to use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life. The principles also provide that governments shall ensure that arbitrary or abusive use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials is punished as a criminal offense under their law.

“Much of the attention has focused on the politics surrounding recent events,” said Gagnon. “But the real tragedy is that families have lost loved ones in entirely unnecessary circumstances. They deserve to see justice done.”

Violence and the Response

Human Rights Watch found that in the early stages of the demonstrations on September 10, some protesters resorted to violence in some areas of Kampala, burning at least five cars, one passenger bus, and one delivery truck, blocking some main roads with burning tires and debris, looting shops, and throwing rocks at police and members of the armed forces. In Nateete, protesters burned a police station. In Bwaise, a factory was set on fire. No one was reported injured in either fire, and local hospitals did not report any burn victims. Police, some in riot gear, used teargas in several areas of the city.

Uganda’s inspector general of police (IGP), Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, told Human Rights Watch that military police and the army’s Presidential Guard Brigade were deployed under his orders to support the police beginning at around 4 p.m. on September 10, and that infantry soldiers were deployed in support shortly thereafter. Kayihura said that these units fired live ammunition into the air to scatter rioters.

Human Rights Watch’s research indicates that the security forces faced some situations in which the use of firearms may have been warranted. One witness described seeing a rioter steal a civilian security guard’s gun near Kampala Bus Park on September 10 and shoot a policeman in the leg. Kayihura provided two other instances, in Nateete and Sseta, where rioters fired on the security forces. It remains unclear if anyone was injured in those two instances, and those events were not investigated by Human Rights Watch.

Kayihura told Human Rights Watch that, while all government forces had been ordered to use minimum force, non-lethal options such as rubber bullets and pepper spray are not standard issue in all police posts. He claimed that the security forces had few alternatives to shooting live ammunition into the air. Other knowledgeable sources in the police told Human Rights Watch that the police stocks of tear gas had run low and that officials feared they lacked the means to secure the city without using firearms.

Where Lethal Force Was Not Necessary

However, among the episodes that raise serious questions about the use of force, in Bwaise on September 10, local people gathered to observe the fire brigade fight a fire set by rioters earlier that afternoon. An army armored personnel carrier drove by the crowd and the troops on board fired, striking Hussein Mujuuka in the back of the head and killing him instantly. At least 10 others were wounded by the gunfire. Several witnesses told Human Rights Watch that local residents responded by burning tires along the Bwaise-Kampala Road. They said that shootings by the military continued during the evening hours in Bwaise and that many other people were wounded. Deaths from military gunfire also occurred the same day in Kawempe, Nakulabye, Mulago, and the Ndeeba areas of Kampala.

Security forces using live ammunition caused many injuries and at least six deaths on September 11. Witnesses and victims told Human Rights Watch that most Kampala communities were trying to return to normal business after the previous day’s unrest. However, soldiers heavily deployed both on foot and in armored personnel carriers in some areas of the city fired live ammunition. There is evidence in some instances that they deliberately shot and killed or wounded people who were not actively involved in demonstrations or unrest.

For example, military units, some accompanied by police forces deployed in Ndeeba that morning, apparently ordered people on the roads to return home. Over several hours, soldiers shot and killed one person and seriously wounded two more. In each case, the victims were shot after they had entered their homes or workplaces. Witnesses said that soldiers apparently pursued people several hundred meters from the main roads and fired their weapons through locked doors. However, no official curfew had been imposed.

Kinaalwa Sseddulaaka Jackson, the owner of a dry cleaning shop about 100 meters from the Masaka road in Tomusange zone, Ndeeba, hid in his back storage room and locked the back door when an army armored personnel carrier entered Ndeeba and soldiers on board began shooting. A few minutes later, a uniformed soldier walked through the area and fired his AK-47 through Sseddulaaka’s back door, killing him instantly. Human Rights Watch researchers saw two bullet holes in that door, as well as five other bullet holes in doors and walls in the neighborhood. All were in the lower half of the doors and walls.

Soldiers and police also deployed around Nateete market that morning, closing the main gate even though the market was filled with food vendors and customers. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that uniformed soldiers, some wearing the red berets of the military police, began to attack people with sticks and batons, and ordered them to clear the streets and return home. Several women selling matoke (plantains) showed Human Rights Watch large contusions and bruises from having been beaten while trying to flee.

The witnesses said that the soldiers then began firing their weapons, both in the air and into the crowds. One customer was killed and another wounded. One female vendor showed Human Rights Watch where she had been grazed by a bullet on her hip, requiring medical treatment. Human Rights Watch saw three bullet holes in the market walls and three others through its iron roof sheeting.

In Busega, an area dense with open-air shops and stalls, soldiers shot and killed two people in separate incidents that morning. Residents and officials reported that on the previous day, rioters in the area had blocked roads with fires and demanded money from those trying to enter Kampala by car. Rioters had looted a Coca Cola truck and burned it. The situation calmed by 7 p.m. that day, and the shops along the road had reopened. Witnesses said the area had remained calm the next morning until a military armored personnel carrier and military and police trucks drove through, in some cases telling people to clear the streets and return home. The shops closed quickly when soldiers in the personnel carrier began firing live bullets, but 13-year-old Daoudi Ssentongo was struck in the head and killed inside his family’s shop when a bullet ripped through a refrigerator next door. His death triggered more demonstrations, and members of the community tried to block the personnel carrier from re-entering the area by burning debris in the road.

Near where the youth died, soldiers on foot chased people away from the main roundabout, evidently to arrest or deter rioters. Soldiers pursued several young men who ran away. Ronald Kasagga, who supplied ice to the area’s fish vendors, was fatally shot in the chest at close range by a soldier. Witnesses said that the soldier yelled “Stop!” and that when Kasagga turned around, the soldier fired.

Around 11 a.m. on September 11 in Kasubi zone 4, rioters had been taunting nearby soldiers and throwing rocks near a gas station on the main road, witnesses said. When the soldiers pursued them, they ran up the hill, past the home of Stella Kabasinguzi, who had left her house briefly, seeking bread for her three children. The soldiers approached her home, and Kabasinguzi immediately raised her hands in the air. A soldier shot her, in front of her children. She died on the way to the hospital. Human Rights Watch observed three bullet holes through doors in other homes in zone 4, more than 100 meters from the main road where riots had occurred. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that a soldier on foot demanded that people go inside their homes, and shot through the doors when some hesitated.

Throughout the city on September 11, soldiers and police threatened and beat people to obtain information about the whereabouts of alleged rioters. A woman making tea outside her restaurant in Ndeeba was questioned by a uniformed soldier carrying an AK-47. According to several people interviewed separately, when she did not have answers to his questions, he poured the hot tea on her back. He then stuck the gun barrel into her mouth and demanded to know where rioters were hiding. She escaped only after bystanders diverted his attention.

Nile Broadcasting Services broadcast video of police and military patrolling areas on September 11, beating people sitting and standing near their homes in Kazo and throwing them into the backs of police trucks. The authorities did not request names or identity documents before arresting them. In one instance, when a man protested being forcibly removed from his home, he was beaten repeatedly. Police took truckloads of suspects to Kawempe police station. Human Rights Watch researchers observed similar actions on Salaama Road that afternoon.

On September 10, government officials told television stations to stop broadcasting live pictures of the violence. In some instances, government forces forcibly removed video footage from TV stations, appropriated journalists’ cameras and videotapes, and deleted photographs of dead bodies. Some journalists were beaten attempting to report on the unfolding events. The state-owned newspaper, The New Vision, inaccurately reported that mobs had on September 11 burned two people to death in Ndeeba. Local officials from Ndeeba and other knowledgeable sources informed Human Rights Watch that no rioters had burned people, but The New Vision has yet to issue corrections.

The Police Explanation

Police Inspector General Kayihura told Human Rights Watch that the police lacked capacity to respond to the speed and geographical breadth of the events of September 10. Unrest in previous years had centered on Kampala’s Central Business District and had not extended into the populous residential neighborhoods. He said that Uganda’s military police, the Presidential Guard Brigade, and regular army units had both the equipment and the mobility to respond to the unrest. He said that the military police, like the civilian police, have had training in riot control, and that the armored personnel carriers were deployed to help move units around the suburbs where riots were taking place. He said the Ugandan military possesses four of these vehicles – two Gila and two Mamba anti-riot vehicles, which can also be used for “fighting terrorism and insurgency.”

Kayihura said that seven of the 27 reported killed during the riots were not involved in the riots at the time of their deaths, and that they were hit by “stray bullets.” He told Human Rights Watch that the deaths were unfortunate and regrettable, but that the security forces had shown restraint in their response to the unrest. He said that two policemen had been arrested for shooting in the air in Kasubi (the arrests appear unrelated to the death of Kabasinguzi). He said that investigations would be conducted into the circumstances of all the deaths during the riots, but also cited section 69 of Uganda’s penal code, which states that police may use “all such force as is reasonably necessary for overcoming” a riot and police “shall not be liable in any criminal or civil proceeding for having, by the use of such force, caused harm or death to any person.”

According to statements quoted in The New Vision newspaper by the army spokesman, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, military units were deployed under article 209(b) of the constitution, which states that the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces shall “cooperate with the civilian authority in emergency situations” and that once deployed, they act under orders of the inspector general of police.” Kulayigye contended that the situation was “a war” and that the riots had had “genocidal tendencies.” He placed blame for the deaths on the alleged organizers of the riots, but admitted that “the moment the bullet leaves the barrel, anything could happen beyond there.”

Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned that Kulayigye’s statement might encourage members of the security forces to use unnecessary and unlawful lethal force during future encounters with demonstrators.

Museveni told an emergency session of parliament on September 15 that the government will compensate those who lost their properties and vehicles, and it will also assist those who lost family members.

Recommendations

Human Rights Watch urged the government of Uganda to take the following actions:

• Publicly acknowledge and condemn recent shootings of unarmed people by members of the security forces.
• Undertake an independent and impartial investigation into the actions of all soldiers and police alleged to have perpetrated human rights abuses during the September riots. Prosecute those against whom there is sufficient evidence in accordance with international fair trial standards.
• Issue clear public instructions to all government forces involved in policing to use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect human life.
• Seek out non-lethal options for police and military responding to demonstrations and protests, and ensure those options are standard issue for police stations.

Human Rights Watch urged donors to the Ugandan government, especially members of the Partners for Democracy and Governance Working Group, to take the following actions:

• Publicly express concern about human rights abuses committed by members of the military and police during the September riots.
• Urge government leaders to hold accountable, in accordance with international fair trial standards, members of the security forces implicated in human rights violations.
• Support the police in acquiring non-lethal options for riot response and ensure that relevant personnel from the police and military receive adequate training.

Background

The role of cultural royalty such as the kabaka in Uganda has been the source of debate historically. President Milton Obote outlawed all cultural leaders in 1966, but Museveni permitted them to return in 1995. Under the constitution, cultural leaders are barred from politics, but they still wield influence over their communities. The kabaka is the king of the Baganda people, the largest ethnic group in Uganda and a key constituency in the upcoming 2011 elections. Since independence, some Baganda political leaders have argued that the Buganda kingdom should be a federal state within Uganda.

Accounts from Victims and Witnesses of Shootings during Recent Kampala Riots

“It was 9 a.m. when I was returning from the village where we buried my friend Deo, who was shot and killed in Ndeeba on Thursday during the riots. When I arrived back to town, I saw a group of soldiers and men in civilian clothes with guns and sticks walking along the road. I ran to the other side of the road and to find a place to hide. The soldiers began to hit us with batons and kick us. They were beating other people in the road as well. I ran away and noticed I had a cut on my head from the baton, and I was bleeding. My friend and I went off the main road and hid by locking ourselves into a storage room near a friend’s shop. We heard the soldier’s footsteps and then he yelled, “Open the door!” I said, “But if we come out, you are going to beat us again.” He said, “You think bullets cannot reach you in there?” Then he fired his gun through the door. A bullet hit the inside of my arm and then entered my stomach and I fell down.”
- Gunshot victim in Ndeeba, September 11

“Things were calm in Mpigi that day. We heard about what was happening in Kampala and someone had lit two tires on fire, but the cars could pass. Faisal and I were standing on the veranda. The soldiers came in a government vehicle and started caning people. One soldier came carrying a stick and a gun. He threw the stick at a boy and then got out the gun. He pointed the gun towards us, and then fired at us two times. I ran and hid at a house nearby. And later, someone said that a man was killed. A bit later, I learned it was Faisal. He had been shot in the neck.”
- Witness to killing of Faisal Bukenya, September 10

“On Friday morning, I saw the boys throwing a few rocks at the soldiers, and then the soldiers started shooting in their direction. Eventually the soldiers rounded up a group of boys and held them at the petrol station. The soldiers were forcing the boys to jump up and down as punishment for throwing rocks. When they tried to move the group of unruly boys, some scattered and the military began shooting at them again. The woman with the three children was killed just then.”
- Witness to the killing of Stella Kabasinguzi, September 11

“She was just on the steps of her home on Friday morning. She had gone to collect some bread for the children. When she saw the soldiers, she threw her hands in the air, but he fired right at her and she fell. He was standing just a bit down from her.”
- Another witness to the killing of Stella Kabasinguzi, September 11

“I was here in the market, selling matoke on Friday morning around 8 a.m. Suddenly, the military came in and started beating people, telling everyone to leave the market. Even the security officer for the market was hit by batons from them. They even beat me very hard on the buttocks, while I was trying to run away. Some of them stole the money I had on the ground. Others started shooting into the market and a boy was hit and a man was killed.”
- Witness to killings and shooting in Nateete, September 11

List of fatal shootings investigated by Human Rights Watch
On September 10

1.            Hussein Mujuuka, shot through the eye by military in personnel carrier, in Bwaise

2.            Robert, Congolese national, shot by military near Qualicell Building in Kampala Bus Park

3.            John Bosco Kaagwa, shot in the back by military near Nakulabye trading center

4.            Ssadam Katongole, shot in the chest by the military at “Kubirri” – Mulago roundabout

5.            Deo Lutaaya, shot in Kabuusu by military in personnel carrier, near Petrol City, on Masaka Road

6.            Muganga Huzairu, shot in the abdomen in Nateete; died at Mulago hospital

7.            Faisal Bukenya, shot in the neck by a soldier in Mpigi Town

On September 11

8.            Ronald Kasagga, shot in the chest by military on foot near Busega roundabout

9.            Kinaalwa Sseddulaaka Jackson, killed by military on foot in Tomusange zone, Ndeeba

10.        Mustaifa Basajjabalaba, shot by military in Kitaka zone, Kibazo road, Busega

11.        Daoudi Ssentongo, killed by military in Busega roundabout

12.        Stella Kabasinguzi, killed by military in zone 4, Kasubi

13.        Customer shot by military in Nateete Market

Other deaths:

14.        Kakooza Hussein, beaten by the police in Nakamiro zone, Kazo, on September 11; died on September 17

Other fatal shootings reported in the media:

15.        Unnamed private security guard working for Saracen Security Company

16.        Patrick Kaijamurubi, military police, from Masindi, killed by a stray bullet shot by another military policeman while Kaijamurubi was fixing tire on his vehicle in Ndeeba

17.        Geoffrey Andama, high school student, shot at Shop Rite Supermarket, near the Clock Tower junction

18.        Benjamin Atere, 2 years old, died from gunshot on Mawanda Road in Mulago

19.        Frank Kafuma, sustained gunshot wounds at Nabweru in Kawempe division, died in Mulago

20.        Yawe Wesige Mukama, shot in Kawempe
To view a slide show of photos from the Kampala riots and their aftermath, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/features/uganda-riots

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Uganda, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/africa/uganda

For more information, please contact:
In New York, Jon Elliott (English, French): +1-917-379-0713 (mobile)
In New York, Georgette Gagnon (English): +1-212-216-1223; or +1-917-535-0375 (mobile)
In Kampala, Maria Burnett (English, French): +256-7

Justice Musoke Kibuuka has ordered the chief of Uganda police, military man Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, to produce Jane Nakambugu, a 14 year old Muganda girl who was abducted from her home by a police woman on September 1, 2009.  The order requires Kayihura to produce Nakambugu in court by September 24, 2009.

According to Jane’s parents, Yowasi Kalega and Esther Nakayiwa, their daughter was taken without explanation from her home in Kasana, Bulemeezi county, by a police woman and locked up at Kiwoko police station.

Jane’s parents told the judge that they followed their daughter and her abductor to Kiwoko police station to get the facts were told to come back after their daughter made a statement. They returned on September 3, only to be told that their daughter has been freed the day before. Suspicious of the police behavior, the distraught parents run to Justice Kibuuka’s court to plead for their daughter’s life.

It is not yet clear why the Kiwoko police, notorious among the locals for its high corruption, would abduct  a 14 year old child in a style that was fashionable during dictator Idi Amin’s regime. However, Nakambugu was a 4th grade student at Kiwoko Church of Uganda Primary School, where, as in many Buganda schools, children as young as 10 have learnt to  openly and aggressively express their ethnic identity and commitment to the Kabaka. Moreover, Nkoba za Mbogo, the main Baganda youth organization now boasts over 100,000 members in branches starting from primary schools through universities and professional ranks.

On Friday September 11, 2009, president Museveni’s security operatives ambushed and kidnapped Robert Serumaga, a Muganda journalist, as he left a live WCBS TV debate where he spoke against Museveni’s mistreatment of Ssabasajja Kabaka Mutebi.  In a manner reminiscent of Idi Amin days, Museveni has resorted to arresting his political opponents by ambushing them , forcing them into civilian cars without explaining to them or others with them what is going on and  speeding them off to extralegal  ”safe houses” where they are tortured before getting handed over to the police.

After Robert Serumaga was kidnapped, he was taken to a torture facility and severely beaten up, according to doctors at Kampala International Hospital where the police took him after Museveni’s security operatives handed him over in bad shape. The head of the hospital, Dr. Ian Clarke, told the press that Serumaga has suffered multiple concussions as a result of the Idi Amin style head blows. He was also suffering from memory loss.

An inside view of sequence of events as Serumaga got kidnapped is provided by another journalist, Bernard Tabaire, who was a co-panelist with Serumaga on the TV program and an eyewitness to the crime. In his opinion piece published today by the Aga Khan’s Monitor Newspaper, Tabaire narrates abduction as follows:

I got to my car and promptly got distracted trying to tip a rather sleepy guard. The moment I opened the car, I heard commotion. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw someone being dragged up Dewinton Rise. Being a Friday night, I dismissed the whole thing as some drunkard being helped by friends. I shut the car door ready to fire up the engine. Just then I heard Maria’s voice. They are taking Robert, she cried.

Damn! It cannot be. It was 11 p.m. Minutes earlier, in the studio, we had talked about free expression being curtailed so casually yet so sweepingly in the chaos of the moment.

I turned my head. Three men or so were dragging Serumaga along the rough Dewinton Rise. They had reached a spot in front of Walusimbi’s Garage (corner of Dewinton Rise and Dewinton Road) that was all wet because of a broken water pipe some place nearby. A battered white saloon car was reversing into position on the Dewinton Road side of Walusimbi’s. With Serumaga bundled into the back of the car, it sped off towards Siad Barre Avenue and into Kampala’s dangerous unknown where, ironically, state security agencies rule.

That was rattling. It is one thing to hear and read about these things. It is another to see them happen to someone you know and to actually witness it. Rattled or not, our phones lit up. They had to. We had to get word out for all it was worth. In the process, I spoke to someone in the security services who claimed to be aware of all that was happening. The source said agents would subject Serumaga to severe psychological stress to teach him a lesson. And that the earliest they would release him would be Wednesday (as it turns out, he was released on Tuesday after being charged with six counts of sedition). The source also hinted that Serumaga was being picked up as part of an elaborate campaign to tame the media, and not so much for what he said that Friday night on WBS but for a series of utterances and writings over time on his Spectrum talk-show on Radio One and elsewhere. The source added that the government is tired of Mengo’s machinations and it was time to deal with it decisively; and that whatever happens, Mengo’s CBS radio would never return on the air. “CBS is banned,” the sourced said. “Whatever Mengo does, CBS is banned.”

By Kalundi Serumaga
kalundi@yahoo.com

While trying to subdue the indigenous tribes of western Europe, the Generals of the conquering Roman army were often confounded by the resilience of the natives on the battlefield. As a response, they developed the tactic of declaring truces and then sending lavish gifts across the lines to some of the native commanders, while leaving out others. This would sometimes lead to in-fighting among the natives as mutual suspicion developed, which the Romans would then militarily exploit.

The dust kicked up during the controversy over whether or not Buganda should accept the promised 2 billion shillings (of which a down-payment of 350 million was immediately wired) from the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government, is just beginning to settle. Inside and outside Buganda, there was a strong division of opinion. One kingdom got more than the others that got something. Most got nothing at all. Maybe history was being repeated.

This was understandable. There are many things about the promise that did not make sense, to the extent of obscuring those aspects of it that did.

Questions were raised as to why only three out of Uganda’s numerous officially recognised “cultural institutions” had been selected for this largesse. In addition, why having a “cultural leader” became the basis for being considered for the cash grant. Furthermore, it was unclear why Buganda was offered twice as much as the 1 billion shillings that were promised to Bunyoro and Busoga respectively.

Even more complicated was the central government’s declaration that the money was to go towards “improving agriculture” in the areas concerned. In the wake of the problem Uganda has had with NAADS, as well as the silent death of the Plan for the Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA), this was truly mystifying: what were to be the actual terms? Was this to be a top-up to the paltry 4.1% of the National Budget that Uganda currently spends of the agricultural sector, or a substitute for it? Was there to be a proportional reduction of the national budget allocation to those districts that fall in the areas slated to receive the grants?  How was the agricultural situation in Buganda deemed to be in twice as much need as the other two Kingdoms, warranting a grant twice as big as the others? And again, what about other areas in the country not eligible for this grant; do they not have the need to improve agriculture?

There are even constitutional interpretation problems, stemming from President Museveni’s previous utterances to the effect that these cultural institutions “don’t exist”, or if they do, it is only as “backward chiefs”, of no importance to the national development agenda. To whom then, is his government now handing over significant amounts of public money?

What we are in fact witnessing has very little to do with beans and fertiliser as such, and is in fact simply a further development in the twists and turns of a very protracted and troubled negotiation process (or should one say power struggle?) between Buganda and the very NRM that it helped bring to power.

For the last 16 years, the NRM government has been desperately trying to extricate itself from the huge political setback it suffered when Ganda post-war militancy forced it to hurriedly design and pass the Traditional Rulers (Restitution) Assets and Properties Bill of 1993 (popularly known as Ebyaffe Bill) into law. This Act commits the state to recognising the existence of Buganda -as well as other such entities, but more critically, it re-introduces into law the principle that Buganda’s has a right to the property seized from her in 1967. This is the crux of the matter: the central government is legally obliged to hand over valuable and significant amounts of the real estate to a rival political centre. No central government will ever do this willingly, as it undermines their own power, and overturns the entire logic behind the efforts of Frederick Lugard, Governor Cohen and finally Milton Obote in destroying native identity so as to build the Uganda state.

The fact that the NRM went so far as to return native identity to a legal footing (something that even Idi Amin managed to dodge way back in 1972) shows the extent of their opportunism borne of a hunger for power. The fact that they now seek to dodge laws they themselves made about it, shows just how desperate that opportunism has made them.

This a problem that cannot be solved, and will contribute significantly to the approaching fall of the NRM  regime, just as the British, Obote and Amin regimes came and were seen off by the natives they found in place.

This current handout therefore reminds one of the situations of a thief trying to flee with his loot while being pursued by an angry mob, and so keeps throwing part of the stolen goods over his shoulder in a bid to slow them down.

This puts the actual owners of the stolen goods in a dilemma: do they leave the dropped goods to the mob and keep on after the thief, or do they try to first rescue what has been dropped also, and then continue the chase?

This is exactly where the matter has been stuck for 16 years: Buganda and Uganda have not been able to establish and follow a clear negotiation process, as called for by the Ebyaffe Act. The problem is that the central government/NRM never really expected these “damn natives” to still be asserting their identity after this long, and so never imagined they would be expected to actually start handing over property. We have therefore seen President Museveni buying time by keeping proceedings vague and only making concessions if he thinks he will gain from them in the political short term. This is actually standard NRM procedure when faced with a determined opponent: buy time with “negotiations”, while frantically working behind the scenes to change the material facts of the very issue under discussion. If you have to actually make a real concession, you then try to portray it as an act of goodwill on your part, that demonstrates how serious you are with the talks. So while then Katikkiro Joseph Mulwanyamuli’s team engaged in nearly 11 years of diplomatic “heavy lifting”, the NRM began making fundamental legal and demographic changes to the very land and properties that are under the said negotiations. Examples of this are: donating Buganda’s land to “investors”; bringing non-Baganda newcomers as settlers to these areas; introducing decentralisation thereby creating new districts whose “land boards” then claim and sell Buganda’s land; using the 1995 constitution-making process to “constitutionally” remove Kampala from Buganda and most recently, creating new “Kingdoms” within Buganda.

The purpose is to ensure that by the time NRM sits down to serious conclusive talks with Buganda, there is actually nothing left physically to talk about. This is what Mengo has worked out and explains their growing anger. Ugandans have seen this before. This is exactly how the NRM/A prevaricated for six months during the 1985 Nairobi Peace Talks, so that by the time they reached an “Agreement” with the Okello Junta, they had changed themselves from a beaten and retreating army of barely 4,000 soldiers to a British-sponsored mercenary force of 40,000, and promptly stormed Kampala. Similarly, for over a decade, the NRM continually put off the day when the country would return to multi-partyism, so that by the time it did, all the key national policy issues, particularly around macroeconomic policy, were already cast in stone, leaving the new opposition with little of real substance to debate in parliament.

Today, the living conditions for people inside and outside Buganda remain dire. As a result, it is hard for any leader to continue rejecting offers of cash – however unprincipled the offer – while being unable to deliver alternatives to that same population, even though the one offering the cash is the same person creating the obstacles to better living.

Therefore, despite all the NRM time-buying manoeuvres, as well as rent arrears totalling 900 billion shillings, the Katikkiro of Buganda has found himself being the defender of the idea of receiving a gift of money from somebody who is legally in debt to him by a much larger amount.

The NRM also hopes for a few “side-benefits” from this cash grant. First, is the anticipated bolstering of the notion that “once again”, Buganda was being “favoured” over other equally deserving Ugandans by a central government, thus building greater resentment of Baganda by other Ugandans. Second was the expectation that it would create irreconcilable divisions among the many hundreds of activists and campaigners who work for Buganda on a voluntary basis, and are therefore not impressed by the argument that without money, no progress can be made. The third anticipated “side-benefit”, would be to make some southerners and westerners as a whole to welcome being favoured over northerners and easterners (who only got elastic pangas and rotting beans to help them recover from the wars and floods), thereby encouraging them to see the NRM as their friend and benefactor. After all, the 2011 elections are nearly here.

Most importantly, there is the hope and intention of the NRM to revive the Regional Tier proposal. A further probable incentive here is the rumoured discovery of precious minerals, including oil, in one of the exploration blocs located in Buganda. The NRM is perhaps now keen to lock the Kingdom into a clear resource-controlling constitutional arrangement such as the regional tier, well before the discovery is announced. After all the problems Buganda has caused them over just land, perhaps the NRM  leaders are now losing sleep at the prospect of having to negotiate oil matters with Mengo.

Buganda insists that this grant will not sway her from pursuing her wider objectives. It could well be a case of the Luganda proverb: “Nyama ntono, okayana ekuli mu nkwaawa” (roughly translated: before complaining about the smallness of the meat you have been given, first make sure it is firmly in your grasp). Certainly, more than a few harsh words were exchanged among Baganda activists, but this has only served to highlight the importance of recognising success. Those critical of this grant tend to be those campaigners, such as the redoubtable Betty Nambooze, who have galvanised Ganda public opinion through ably articulating a firm and uncompromising line in favour of federation, should actually be credited with creating the pressure that has forced the NRM  into such manoeuvring in the first place.

We are probably just at the beginning of this NRM generosity. Cash has been promised for the renovation of Kingdom properties, as well as clearing some rent arrears. It is important therefore that all the important stakeholders: people from outside Buganda who are watching in amazement; the activists who recognise an attempted bribe when they see one; and the leaders of Buganda government business to recognise that these manoeuvres will end up strengthening Mengo, not dividing her.

END