Open letter and response to Uganda Human Rights Commission

I read with utter amazement, shock and consternation the 10 April 2012 response to my article in Pambazuka News, titled, “As a Ugandan citizen, I demand justice or death”, purportedly written by Florence M. Munyirwa, Public Affairs Manager for the Uganda Human Rights Commission. Indeed, she is doing her job as a propagandist but she must not do it at the detriment of my name.

I have taken relatively long without responding because I never wanted to respond with emotions. Ms Munyirwa alleges that because I have been in and out of Butabika Hospital therefore I have a mental illness. In what laboratory has she together with her partners in my destruction from Butabika ever tested me to prove that I have a mental illness? We are under an abnormal establishment, how would she expect me to behave towards an eccentric establishment that has turned its citizens into subjects and fleeces them without any consideration?

Assuming I am mentally ill, does that guarantee anybody a right to torture and traumatise me? Is mental illness different from other ailments such as malaria or a headache? How come I am only labelled a person with mental illness whenever I am involved in any political and human rights activism? Sadly, the police and now the UHRC use mental illness as an excuse to gag me.

I have taught many people who have in the past served and are currently serving in Museveni’s government. I taught Ronald Kibuule, minister for youth and children affairs, Christine Anite, spokesperson for the NRM parliamentary caucus, Sylvester Wanjusi Wasieba, former minister in the NRM regime, among others. Can they say they were taught by a lunatic? I have written several articles for mighty publications, can my publishers state that the writer is a lunatic? I have done consultancies even for the United Nations. I doubt whether I could do a good job if I were a lunatic.

If people with mental illness can decipher injustice in our society where institutions such as Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) mandated to promote social justice are blind, then mental illness is good and all the staff at the UHRC should be detected to prove whether they are mentally ill and if not they should be shown the exit.

Our society is naked and it would be better if all of us losers exposed our society’s nakedness by walking nude on the streets. If all 4GC members including myself can walk naked to state house, they would overthrow Museveni and Musevenism which has infected all institutions including UHRC without using a gun.

If I have a mental illness, how come each time I come out of that hell called Butabika people who see me feel I am on my way to the grave? When I came out of Butabika on 26th April, a lady from whose shop I do shopping told me I was looking like an AIDS patient who’s on his or her deathbed. When I went to the village virtually everybody who saw me cried. So, why should one think “Butabika Doctors” are healers not killers? In 2008, I escaped death by a whisker at the hands of the now late Tom Onen. Hadn’t I gone to Ishaka Hospital by now I would be the late Vincent Nuwagaba.

How scientific are the doctors in Butabika since they don’t use laboratory tests to assess one’s mental state of mind? Like they say, inability doesn’t mean disability; mental illness doesn’t mean uselessness, normlessness, frustration and hopelessness. I know of people with Bipolar Disorder who are making a huge contribution in this country. Visit Heart Sounds or Mental Health Uganda and see for yourselves.

Do I have a right to a fair hearing? Do I have the right to freedom from torture, inhuman, cruel and degrading treatment? Do I have the right to live in dignity as a human being? That’s what I demand.

Dr Onen is dead – quite unfortunate but many others are following him if they don’t refrain from touching God’s anointed ones. If they cannot listen to my prophetic messages let them refrain from torturing me. Let them label me mad if they wish but know that I have the right to live in freedom even if I am mad because Uganda is my country. If a mad man pays taxes, he needs accountability for his taxes; he needs to see drugs in health centre IIIs, he needs to see health centre IIs, he needs to see community polytechnics in his sub county for they were promised in the 1996 campaigns; the mad man wants scholarships for his siblings, neighbours and relatives on the basis of meritocracy. At least I am not demanding too much – let the truth be told. Who says, if I am mentally sick the above is not the cause of my sickness and who says mine is a medical condition which has to be addressed by CPZ and Haldol? If you want to prevent malaria, you begin by clearing the bushes and stagnant water which are breeding places for mosquitoes. Like Norbert Mao has always argued, you cannot treat a cancer using Vaseline. Indeed, I need to see promises fulfilled. If that makes me a mentally ill person, so be it.

Sadly, rather than promoting mental health rights, the UHRC is promoting stigma against the mentally ill. For Florence Munyirwa and Roselyn Karugonjo to think they are paid by the taxpayers to do exactly what they are doing is a big insult to the Ugandan taxpayer. And an apology should be given. I have in the past discovered a case of Gaudence Tushabomwe who was fleeced of her huge sums of money and later dumped into Kampala Central Police Station cells and thereafter dumped in Butabika Mental Hospital. Had it not been for my intervention they would kill her with drugs. I have saved so many people who spend months in police cells. Rather than awarding me a medal for being an excellent human rights defender, the Uganda Human Rights Commission now labels me a person with mental illness but the purpose is to gag me.

Finally, I want to insist that the Uganda government including the UHRC must either give me justice or death. As a human rights defender, I know I have a right to a fair hearing and I have a right to live in dignity. By merely writing statements responding to my article, the UHRC has not given me justice which I fervently long for. If I don’t get justice, I will mobilise journalists and strip naked from the Uganda Human Rights Commission premises so that I can expose the NRM government and UHRC nakedness and madness. For God and my country.

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* Vincent Nuwagaba is a human rights defender and can be reached via email on [email protected]
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