An open letter to Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon

RE: ASSAULT BY BUTABIKA HOSPITAL GUARDS CITING ORDERS FROM ABOVE AND INHUMANE AND DEGRADING TREATMENT OF GAUDENCE TUSHABOMWE

I wish to bring to your attention that I was badly beaten by Butabika Hospital guards citing orders from above. This is not the first time I have been assaulted at the same hospital since my ordeal there when their medical staff, Dr Nakku, Mr Jjuko and later Dr Tom Onen, whom I sued as the second defendant together with the attorney general who connived with the police to help torture me with the intention of ultimately having me dead, an intention they nearly attained as I stopped at the verge of my grave. Although the first time the assault was not physical yesterday I was physically assaulted and I feel a lot of pain in my ribs and in my eyes where the security guard hit me in the presence of the police and one of the hospital administrators, who refused to disclose his name to me. I will not comprehensively document what I went through for I feel the details can be an issue for the human rights report, or a defender article or a newspaper article. But all in all what happened is a pointer that our institutions are not weak but both dysfunctional and dead.

I had gone to investigate a case concerning one Gaudence Tushabomwe, 34, a university student doing BCOM external year 3 from Kirema, Kinkizi, Kanungu District. Her area MP is the Honourable Dr Chris Baryomunsi. Tushabomwe reportedly had 25m and 14,000 Uganda shillings which she deposited with COWE which had come disguised as a charity for caring for orphans and women. Tushabomwe alleges that COWE belongs to the first family and therefore she was fleeced of her money by the first family, a family which ironically should be responsible for protecting her and other Ugandans. She told me what pains her so much is to take it as a political threat. Tushabomwe can be reached on +256 782 343 580.

Apparently, she used all available channels to have redress and failed. She showed me messages on her phone sent to Amelia Kyambadde from her cell phone: +256 753 000 277. She reportedly used the Honourable Fred Ruhindi, Simon Mayende and Chris Baryomunsi all in vain.

Surprisingly, even the media workers that we take to be human rights defenders didn’t run her story. She told me of John Njoroge of The Independent, Dreck of Vumbula on WBS and CBS. She told me even Jasper Tumuhimbise of ACCU failed to handle the matter. The story is too long and I am ready to compile a full report if I am given the opportunity to get more details from her.

As a human rights defender I found that quite interesting. Interesting in a sense that the goons who stressed I had a mental illness that must at all costs be treated by forcefully injecting me with their poison and making me swallow their toxic tablets, now fear me to the extent of declaring me a persona non grata. I will insist and keep going there to establish whether the people detained there genuinely have a mental illness.

It perturbs me to consider the NRM (National Resistance Movement) government that sold our parastatals and never gave accountability of the proceeds thereof, a government that shamelessly pilfers taxpayers’ money to bribe the myopic MPs to lift the ban on term limits for a man who has only turned a populist and exploited the masses' ignorance to retain power, and who is accused, along with his family, of stealing money from indigent Ugandans. I have come to learn that all Yoweri Museveni wants is to make all Ugandans poor so that they will forever remain subservient. He knows pretty well that poverty leads to voicelessness and powerlessness, attributes he wants to forever remain in power.

What Mr Museveni doesn’t know is that the same poverty leads to normlessness, frustration, hopelessness and alienation, which are not good for any society. Accordingly, we are not about to see the reduction in crimes. The police itself, an institution whose mandate is to combat crime, is full of criminals. I say this one without any fear of contradiction, for I have a practical experience with them. General Kayihura was named among the people that orchestrated my arrest and whose mission was to have me killed. I say this because I was detained incommunicado; a celebrated professor of law Dr John-Jean Barya was blocked from seeing me after he was informed that I had been in the cells for the past two days; I was told they would poison me, which was reason enough for me not to eat their despicable food; they stole my money, my computer and my clothes, something which I reported at the police and which they chose to ignore.

Shamelessly, after doing all those horrible, horrendous, horrid and nasty things, they connived with Butabika and took me as a mental patient. Now they regret why they ever did that and rather than swallow their pride as say we are sorry, they have declared me persona non grata at Butabika Hospital.

Whoever has been thinking that Vincent Nuwagaba is looking for a job from Museveni, please keep reading this. I have put my position in black and white so that in future should I be seen serving this notorious dictatorship that disguises itself as a democracy, then know that nobody can be trusted. As I send this letter to you, all the media houses are being given copies and the president himself has been given one. This will prove whether Museveni has indeed spurred development in this country or whether his government is just demonic. I would at least expect such things to be done by normal people. Accordingly, whoever is behind the ordeal of the innocent Gaudence Tushabomwe and myself is suffering from schizophrenia, which is the highest form of mental illness. But also, the so-called consultants in Butabika who keep people brought by the police are not only insane but mad. They ought to be removed from society. They are a danger to society and a potential danger to themselves.

HARASSMENT DOESN’T THREATEN ME

I would wish to remind whoever is behind my harassment that I am intrepid. I have refused to be incarcerated by fear. In fact, when I am tortured, dehumanised and humiliated I count that to be a milestone. How would you genuinely call yourself a human rights defender if you have not faced any threat and if you say should you be threatened you capitulate. Yesterday when I was beaten from Butabika Hospital, my colleague in the research division of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative sent me a text message that read, 'please leave that place immediately, they can easily kill you'. But I never capitulated. I called my brother who works with Amnesty Commission and I entered the hospital premises. The hospital staff are engulfed in paranoia because of the criminality they have been orchestrating over the years. What all of us need to know is that there is an end to everything. My ordeal may have been designed by God to put a stop to this autocratic regime. I have come to believe that any dictatorship fears the battle of the brain and this tells us that the saying that 'the pen is mightier than the sword' holds true.

As I was writing this article my foster-father Henry Rukundo called me and I told him that I was beaten from Butabika. He sounded annoyed with me. He said in Runyankole 'beitu shi iwe tobireka. Okazayo bakukoma bakuha emibazi ngu oshazire mbwenu nogaruka nozayo. Ahamuheru nibaza nokukutererayo amasaasi. This literally translated means, 'why don’t you do away with that place? You went there and were detained and sedated as though you were a mental patient. Surprisingly you go back. Next time they will fire you with live bullets.' When I told him whether I should stop working he told me, 'okore ahandi kandi omu department orimu wenka?' I complied because I never wanted to keep him worried, for I know how much he loves me. But I think I am better placed to research on mental health rights and am better placed to speak out for people in Gaudance Tushabomwe’s case because I have been in a similar situation.

What is paradoxical is that my dad, Rukundo, works with the Presidential Initiative on Banana Plantation but typical of this corrupt and heartless regime, he rarely gets his salary. Meanwhile Reverand Florence Muranga, who heads the project, enjoys herself too much. Robert Rotberg argues that in a failed state there are a few cliques of people who have too much money alongside too many people experiencing poverty, exploitation, dehumanisation and injustices of all sorts. I am giving my views as a political scientist and I expect whoever disagrees with me is free to give his or her account. I expect a civilised debate. If the president feels he is an achiever he will win the debate in which case I will look for any other place to live in. But, I am not ready to leave Uganda before 2011. If the 2011 election is botched then I will seek asylum because it seems things are only getting worse. As we await 2011, the president and his team are enjoined that I am not harmed.

RECOMMENDATION TO THE MEDIA

Please, do us a favour. The Western democracies have a soft spot for Museveni even when they know he has no scintilla of democratic credentials. Should he stay all the critical voices will be silenced and muzzled. Never rely on the Ugandan press, for it reports only symptoms. I state this without any fear of contradiction that the Ugandan press is hopeless and almost useless. Useless in a sense that the underdogs do not matter to them. I used to send stories to The Independent magazine started by Andrew Mwenda. Even when I was sanctioned by the Managing Director Mwenda himself, my stories could be blocked by one of the editors. When I asked him, he told me, 'Vincent, look, if you submit an article and Professor Oloka Onyango submits one, no matter whether your article is better than Oloka’s we shall not run your article.' When I asked him why they don’t promote ideas he told me if my ideas are to be promoted I should also first become a professor. I informed his boss who encouraged me to keep writing, promising that some will be run and others will not.

On 11 April 2008, a day I was arrested, I called my very good friend who works with the Daily Monitor, telling him my life was in danger. He never appeared anywhere and I am sure even his appearance alone as a journalist would have saved me.

On 17 June 2009 I received threats from the police and Dr Tom Onen, from none other than the police commissioner in charge of legal affairs Mr Sam Kyomukama. He told me, 'Nuwagaba, you will be secure only when you have the goodwill of the people.' I told him, that is yet another threat against my life. I said I cannot have the goodwill of the criminals in the state institutions on whose toes I have been stepping. In that very meeting Kyomukama asked me whether I had sent a text message to Dr Onen. I said indeed I have. I read for him the message I had last sent to him which read, 'Dr Onen, you declared me a person of unsound mind, do you know it is you the public knows you are insane? I want you to read my literature on the net. I will use the brain you said I don’t have to annihilate you. You are a murderer and you don’t deserve the job you hold. But you will pay for your sins.'

Kyomukama then asked me, 'What does annihilate mean?' I told him it has two meanings: 1) to destroy somebody or something completely or; 2) to defeat somebody or something completely. I told him I had no regret whatsoever for such a text message and I was ready to defend myself in court. I unequivocally told him, after defeating the attorney general and Dr Tom Onen in court, that I will make sure that Onen pays heavily for defaming me but also will ensure that he loses his job. If that is not annihilation, what is it? Actually it is on the basis of that that the commissioner of police told me that I will be safe only if I have the goodwill of the people.

Apparently a young man by the name of Ronald Magezi had tormented me before and taken me to be nothing. Yet he is a lawyer by training. I asked him whether we should respect him as a lawyer, yet he comports himself in an unlawful and inhumane manner. He told me, I forget they went to the same university that I went to. I told him unfortunately you don’t behave like you went to university because your conduct is unexpected of a graduate. Because I maintained my stand he later apologised, assuring me how he is a good man and that I should ask Alex Kibandama about him.

INSTITUTIONAL DYSFUNCTIONS

It is clear that state institutions have been personalised and the state reduced to a family property. This we have both a moral and legal obligation to reject. This reminds me about the French Revolution when the revolutionaries said, 'We are here by the will of the people and we shall not leave until the point of the bayonet.' As long as I personally am fighting for a just cause, if you harass me you only help to water and irrigate the revolution.

ON GOODWILL

I clearly don’t have the goodwill of monsters in our society. Paradoxically, I don’t support the death penalty, otherwise they would be candidates for that punishment. Thus I firmly believe that they need to be taken to Luzira maximum security prison. I don’t have the goodwill of the dysfunctional institutions, state-supported terrorists and greedy, corrupt and Machiavellian visionless politicians. I also do not need it. I would never touch the National Resistance Movement, even with the longest stick. My only prayer is that they should forthwith refrain from interfering with my God-given rights. And I am henceforth stressing that the NRM has no moral, legal, political or otherwise authority to meddle with my rights. The NRM does not own the state institutions and thus they have no right whatsoever to block me from visiting these institutions. I am a researcher and I am now researching on mental health. In fact, I have an assignment with Mental Health Uganda. How does anyone expect me to get data if I am blocked from accessing the mental patients and those deemed to be mental patients? Do they want to render me jobless like they did when I lost my jobs with Uganda Christian University and Poverty Eradication Think Tank Uganda (PETTU), where I had been appointed a national coordinator? Incidentally, after my ordeal PETTU collapsed in its infancy for there was nobody else that could steer it.

DEDUCTION

I am now convinced that every bad thing that happens does so for a cause. The case of Gaudence Tushabomwe is surely going to lead to the collapse of this regime, if at all that she alleges is true. And I want to firmly believe that all she said is true, for there is no way one can accuse the people who control the instruments of coercion.

Finally, the higher the monkey climbs the more it exposes her private parts. Museveni was right when he observed that the problem with Africa are leaders who overstay. Two decades later, the man seems to have forgotten all about what he said and wrote.

TO MUSEVENI

Please, Mr Museveni, do us a favour and look for where you belong. You cannot preside over dysfunctional state institutions, you cannot breastfeed, fuel and lubricate corruption (and you say you are suited to fighting corruption). Your people (the police and medics) wanted me dead, but by the grace of God I survived. This time, if I am to die in unclear circumstances all the accusing fingers will point at you. And I say you because all people that were killed by Idi Amin’s soldiers we say were killed by Amin. Please repent. You can join the catholic church if you are to be on a morally upright path, in which case you confess your sins and beg to be forgiven. If you indeed help heal the lives of many Ugandans who would otherwise perish in your presence as president, we are ready to forgive, although some of us cannot forget.

Together we can make a difference!

BROUGHT TO BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Vincent Nuwagaba can be contacted at [email][email protected] or on +256 772 843 553.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.