Gazing down at Uganda, God must be puzzled. The angels must be scratching their golden hair in utter confusion. Only two nations in Africa have God in their motto – Uganda (For God and My Country) and Morocco (God, the Homeland, the King). No nation has more national prayer events around these parts than Uganda.
Our rulers pray in public, address Gospel crusades and even read lengthy prayers of repentance as the television cameras roll. They host prayer breakfasts and every other kind of prayer event. But again, wonder of wonders, no government jails its opponents more or beats up those who oppose it better. Even fewer governments steal as much as ours, given the levels of corruption. And the zeal with which Uganda’s leaders pray is only matched by the zeal with which their opponents are arrested and jailed for years.
Others are tortured, with the public treated to bold updates by the powers that be, about how the torture is being generously meted out and how the victims are peeing in their pants. We have just witnessed yet another October 8 National Prayer Breakfast, that most holy convocation where the nation’s worthiest gather, high-sounding titles in high-end clothing, clasping hands in prayer as angels surely look on in polite confusion.
What a spectacle of devotion! The very hands that plunder the Treasury raised high in worship; the very lips that pronounce oppression mouthing ‘peace and reconciliation’. What an inspired theatre of righteousness! Here, democracy is extolled by those who strangle it daily; justice is celebrated by those who sell it at a price. Judges beam with piety while sowing injustice, and the mighty preach forgiveness even as their prisons overflow with the innocent.
And, of course – the timeless tradition continues: Dr Kizza Besigye once again takes his customary seat in the temple of detention, incarcerated in maximum security for coming to a year now. It would seem his very existence offends the gods of power – they cannot release him, yet dare not try him, lest truth embarrass them again, as it did two decades ago when their own lies collapsed in court. In the waning months of 2005, as Uganda braced for another heated election, Opposition leader Besigye was seized by security forces and charged with treason and rape.
The first charge – rape – dated back to 1997. I had a quiet coffee with one of the foremost ambassadors from Europe at the time. He had been a judge for years before joining the diplomatic corps. He, alongside several other Western ambassadors, attended every Besigye hearing. He assured me that, from his experience as a judge, he was able to read witnesses’ faces and determine if they were telling the truth or lying. And he asserted that he was sure Besigye had raped the girl, and he was finished.
But soon, the witnesses started contradicting each other, the complainant’s story shifted with each retelling, and the prosecution’s evidence quickly began to crumble. In a packed courtroom before Justice John Bosco Katutsi, the weaknesses were laid bare: Medical reports had been altered to fit the State’s narrative. Witness statements were contradictory or plainly false. One witness admitted being coached by security operatives.
Justice Katutsi’s ruling on March 7, 2006, was nothing short of devastating for the prosecution. He described the case as ‘a clear frame-up’ and ‘an abuse of the court process’. The evidence, he said, was ‘full of lies,’ and the complainant ‘wholly unreliable’. While the rape trial unfolded in the High Court, Besigye faced treason charges in a military court – a move later declared unconstitutional by both the Constitutional and Supreme Court. The State alleged he conspired with a shadowy rebel group, the People’s Redemption Army (PRA). But no credible evidence ever surfaced.
The dual trials – civilian and military – became a circus of delay, intimidation, and confusion. Eventually, the treason case, too, fell apart. The trials confirmed what we had already known: that the charges had little to do with justice and everything to do with silencing a political rival who had committed two related mistakes, one of which was daring to run for the highest office. That one is forgivable, if he relents and repents; but the other seems a tad too grievous. Still, the angels watching the prayer breakfast must have been left confused…