In December 2010, the United Nations adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. In the same text, August 30 was gazetted as International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, starting in 2011. Earlier in December 2006, the UN detailed that when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian population, a ‘forced disappearance’ qualifies as a crime against humanity and is not subject to a statute of limitations. This gives victims’ families the right to seek reparations and demand the truth about the disappearance of their loved ones.
In Uganda, two recent cases have left a stain on the conscience of the Judiciary. In October 2023, High Court Judge Esther Nambayo dismissed a case filed by the National Unity Platform (NUP) seeking to force the Executive to produce dead or alive its 18 supporters missing before and during the 2021 election campaigns. The judge cited insufficient evidence to enforce the demands. During the court hearings, the Attorney General (AG) argued that the victims’ disappearances were not reported to the police as relatives allege.
The AG attached separate search requests from the National Identification and Registration Authority, Interpol, Police Forensic Laboratory, and Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control. All results showed ‘record seen,’ ‘no record found,’ ‘not availed,’ ‘many matches found could not zero to one’. The court didn’t say the people never existed but rather relied on the AG’s opinion, based on police assertions that the people have never been in any police register.
Shadow State
Amid the heightened kidnapping of civilians and Opposition supporters between 2019 and late 2021 by a motley gang of security personnel riding in ‘drones,’ the victims’ relatives often accused police of shirking their responsibility to inquire into the matter. During various press conferences, police authorities often feigned ignorance about the kidnappings and urged the victims’ relatives to report to the police. To date, the whereabouts of the 18 NUP supporters remain unknown. NUP specifically points fingers at the Defense Intelligence and Security, formerly Chieftance of Military Intelligence and the Special Forces Command (SFC) for the abductions.
Last month, High Court Judge Simon Peter Kinobe dismissed the habeas corpus petition filed by local human rights lawyers seeking the release of two Kenyan activists, Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo. The lawyers filed the petition on October 6, seeking the release of the duo, who were abducted by armed men ahead of a campaign rally of NUP presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, on October 1.
The police and military consistently denied their whereabouts, and the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) director for joint staff legal services, in his affidavit, responded that inquiries had been conducted across all detention facilities under the control of the army and military intelligence, confirming that the applicants are not held in any of these facilities. Justice Kinobe dismissed the case 15 days later, categorising it as case of missing persons. A fortnight later, Ngagi and Oyoo were handed over to Kenyan authorities following intense pressure on Kampala and back-door diplomacy.
Blast from the past
Last Sunday, President Museveni revealed that ‘we have two Kenyans whom we arrested. They came, they were working with Kyagulanyi’s group that they are experts in riots.’ Such flip-flopping followed the November 2020 protests. November 18, 2020, started like any other day. The two main presidential candidates were slated to campaign in Kamramoja and eastern Uganda: Mr Museveni in Moroto and Mr Kyagulanyi in Luuka District. By noon, hell had broken loose. In spontaneous acts that broke out in parts of the country, Mr Kyagulanyi’s supporters barricaded roads as news of his arrest in Luuka for ‘flouting’ Covid-19 rules filtered through.
As police engaged in running battles with the demonstrators, seemingly overwhelmed, military reinforcements joined in, including a motley gang of security operatives dressed in civilian attire that went about shooting brazenly. After two days of riots, it was a macabre tableau. A police inquiry into the matter would put the official death toll at 54, of whom 49 were running for cover. Scores were injured, and close to 1,000 arrested. When he weighed in on the matter in an address on November 28, the President, who scoffed at the protesters he claimed were lapdogs of foreign forces whose agenda was to fan the flames of violence, attributed the fatalities to ‘stray bullets.’
The President then directed police to probe the phenomenon of the stray bullets and publish their findings. Half a decade later, mid this week, neither the findings of the incident have ever been made public nor has any trigger-happy officer been brought to book. In the subsequent address on the state of security on August 14, 2021, the President appeared to contradict himself, saying it is unacceptable for security forces to kill anyone for any reason. In his address on key national issues at the Mbale State Lodge last Sunday, Mr Museveni flip-flopped, saying the [youthful] protesters had been misled.
‘I must warn those who are misleading these children. Because sometimes these children, like when we had those riots of November 2020; that Kyagulanyi has been arrested and there will be riots to ‘kwokya’ [burn] Kampala, then the army intervened and crushed them…So the ones who are doing that in Uganda will end up badly,’ he said, in a thinly veiled warning against possible youth-led protests that nearly threw Kenyan President William Ruto off-balance and elsewhere have toppled governments in Madagascar and far away in Nepal.
The President also divulged the arrest-kidnappings of the Kenyan activists, who told Kenyan media, that they rotated around military facilities, including one run by SFC in Entebbe. There, the duo claim they found about 150 detainees, including NRM mobiliser in Mbarara City Amos Rwangomani, who is said to have been abducted by security personnel in mid-September just like activist Sam Mugumya.