Excerpts from Grace S. Ibingira�s 1980 book, African Upheavals Since Independence (emphasis added, unless otherwise stated)
Ch. 6 Uganda: Fundamental Causes of the 1966 Revolution (pp 65 - 134)
a. The UPC�s Resolute Determination to Obtain and Exercise Absolute Power
b. Efforts to Impose a One-Party System
c. Parliamentary Battles for Reform of Electoral Law
d. Monopoly and Misuse of the Security Forces � subsections:
(i) Politicizing the Armed Forces on an Ethnic Basis
(ii) Internal Security
(iii) External Threat?
(iv) The Choice, Protection, and Promotion of Idi Amin
e. THE MISUSE OF POLICE POWERS TO PROMOTE UPC
e. Efforts to Monopolize Government Power
f. The revival of Primordial Fears � subsections:
(i) Controlling the Central Government Public service
(ii) Controlling Local Governments
g. THE REVIVAL OF PRIMORDIAL FEARS � subsections:
(i) Buganda
(ii) The Dissolution of the UPC/KY Alliance
(iii) Buganda�s Failure
(iv) Escalation of Intra-UPC Conflict
This excerpt comes from Ch 6 and is the section entitled �THE MISUSE OF POLICE POWERS TO PROMOTE UPC�, which is on page 94-99. It further documents Obote�s abuse of power and office, consequences of which are illustrated by the root causes of the �Nakulabye incident�; and other similar tragedies all over the country. Today, the culture of official violence is Obote�s main legacy for Uganda. We have yet to recover from that downward spiral on which Obote started and institutionalized. Obote�s reaction to the �Nakulabye incident� was quite telling of his character and nature.
This same barbarian, Obote, was to later bequeath our lexicon with one of its darkest and ominous phraseology: �panda gari�. This monster put Uganda on the path to destruction by effectively putting the police and army above the law, in addition to creating a secret police of goon answerable only to him. In the 1970s, a certain medical student was frequently seen in the vicinity of MUK, riding around in Amin�s �UVS� (i.e. �State Research Bureau�, SRB being a successor to Obote�s �General Service Unit� that was operated by Akena Adoko) squad cars, but that too is another story.
One of Obote�s hallmark tricks was to get others to do his dirty work for him, ususally in his absence. You�ll see this in the way he handled the �Nakulabye incident� (he manufactured some non-existent trip), in the way he removed the head of the civil service and replaced him with a UPC chap from his village while he away in London (an example of how Obote systematically sabotaged the functioning of the governement that I�ll bring to you later), in the way he wanted Amin arrested while he way away in Singapore (one too many times, perhaps), etc.
Anyhow, without further ado, here is what Ibingira had to say about Obote�s misuse of the police: -
�Despite the internal security problems discussed earlier (of secession in Toro, cattle raids in Karamoja, and the lost counties in Buganda), the country had a remarkable tradition of respect for law and order. The police force that maintained it had a long and reputable tradition; its relations with the public were excellent. It was not until the UPC government instructing the police to suppress opposition parties and their meetings and to victimize suspected opposition supporters that the public became apprehensive and the police appeared ruthless. Government took numerous steps to bring about this result of which we can only give a few instances.
�Normally all political parties or any organization were by law and the constitution allowed to hold a public meeting. The DP and KY did so, just as did the governing UPC. It was only when there was a probable risk of a breach of public peace that authorities took steps to stop the meetings. The existing law S. 32(2) of the Police Act, empowered the police officer in charge of an area, if in his opinion the holding of a public meeting would result in a breach of the peace, to require the convener of the meeting, assembly, or a procession by notice in writing to apply to the local magistrate for a permit. Both the police office and the convener would then appear before the magistrate who, having heard the grounds for the police officer�s fears, might or might not grant permission for the meeting. This system worked well and all political parties had conducted numerous campaigns under it in all the elections to nat ional and local councils held up to 1964. It was fair because it preserved the impartiality of the police in the public eye and the decision was entrusted to an independent person, a magistrate.
�Despite all effort, including the crossing over to the UPC of elected members of opposition parties, the DP and the KY were in fact still widely and ominously supported in the country. One only needed to see the vast thousands addressed by DP leaders in the West, East, and North of the country, while the KY was unchallenged in Buganda. Obote, therefore, decided to vest the power of decision concerning whether or not to hold political meetings in police officers instead of (as it had been) in a magistrate. While he did not yet directly control the appointment or posting of magistrates, because of his control of public service appointments under a politicized Public Service Commission, he could control directly the appointments of police officers who were to be in charge of overseeing political meetings. In February 1965 the Police Act was amended to confer these powers on the police. Its opposition in Parliament was emotional and strong. It had now become o bvious that the UPC government was moving to eliminate them from existence on all fronts.
�The DP leader, Alexander Latim from Acholi, termed it �very malicious.� But it was Abu Mayanja, a one time close colleague of Obote in the defunct UNC and a leading nationalist, who exposed the government�s weakness: �This government which was elected by the people of Uganda, so sure of itself, is nevertheless so afraid of the people of Uganda, so terrified that it is not going to permit them to assemble to listen to anybody who has a different point of view.� 28
�The opposition then challenged the government to quote any instances where the present law had failed, warranting a new the introduction of a new one. They challenged them to find instances where a policeman, having advised against a public meeting, had a magistrate ignore his opinion and grant permission, with the result that the meeting was held and a breach of the peace had resulted. It is significant that no such instances were quoted, because they were none. If there had been enough breaches of the peace to justify new police powers, it might have helped to cover up UPC�s true intentions. But as the old law had functioned flawlessly, it now another unambiguous signal to the opposition that their days were numbered.
�The tendency, as E. K. Mulira put it, was clear:
Where in Africa governments have tried to transfer powers from the judiciary to the police, those powers have not been used by the police at their discretion, but have been used by the chief executives of those countries to destroy their political opponents. They have use those powers not only to destroy their political opponents who existed at the time when the bills were debated and passed in parliament, but even those people who at the time supported them in parliament to pass those bills, later on suffered as victims at the hands of these leaders.29
�This was both prophetic and accurate, as we shall see. Shortly after the passage of the new law, sure enough, legitimate meetings of the opposition were banned or disrupted throughout the country. This was obvious provocation inviting instability. It was too much to expect a part of the masses and their leaders to acquiesce submissively to such outrageous abuse of authority. Place after place was cited where opposition meetings had been disrupted or prevented by the police. There were numerous instances from the East, North and West where a UPC official demanded to address a DP rally and, on being refused, had the crowns dispersed by the police to prevent lawful conveners from addressing their followers.
�With the overt involvement of the police in party politics, came alarmingly the decline of discipline and the increase of the use of firearms to impose the UPC on the people. Reports began to come from many parts of the country of excessive force by the police in handling civilians, which had never occurred previously. From the West Nile district, Acholi, Lango, and Bugisu, representatives of the people began to produce accurate reports of such incidents that the government could not contradict.
�But perhaps the most dramatic and tragic illustration of this new era was what came to be called the �Nakulabye incident,� named after the place where the incident happened in the Buganda region. Official violence and loss of human life on an incomparably larger and more brutal scale were to engulf the country from 1971 onward. But Nakulabye is a landmark on the road to that violence to that violence, for it marked clearly the determination of a government to encourage and reward members of the security forces to take human life without proper justification but for purely selfish political ends. What followed in later years was only a more extensive application of this same philosophy. A conflagration always begins small.
Nakulabye is a suburb of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Late one afternoon on 10 November 1964 there was a quarrel � not unusual in such areas � between a woman and a Congolese man, who was making amorous advances on her. A couple of relatives joined them to settle the dispute. In a few moments, two police patrol cars arrived with batons and commenced to beat everyone in sight. A little later, armed police arrived and, without asking any questions and without the slightest provocation, at once began shooting at the crowd. Their method is relevant to the deliberate nature of their acts, and we give some detail from sworn evidence:
�Victim 1: Kalungi Munyoro, aged about sixty years, was a taxi driver. As he approached where the police were, they stopped him. Before he could fully get out of the car, they shot him at point- blank range with a .303 rifle, without even asking him a single question. He died instantly.
�Victim 2: Fabiano Musika was talking to his neighbor when he suddenly saw the security men rushing toward their huts. One of the security men saw him and immediately fired at him, but missed. Musika quickly rushed into his house, closed the front door, went through the living room and stayed in his bedroom. The police rushed after him, broke open his door, passed through the sitting room and shot him through the chest at point-blank range with a .303 high velocity bullet. He died instantly.
�Victim 3: Mr. Mayanja, aged about sixty-two, a Munyoro by tribe, was eating with his wife when soldiers came to their door and ordered him to open it. They dragged him out, beat him, and then shot him through the head. He died at once. His wife was dragged out and beaten, but she was not killed.
�Victim 4: Keita was a seventeen-year-old Muganda schoolboy. He had just returned from school and was busy helping his mother with domestic chores. Two police officers came to the door and ordered them to open. The mother and eight kids were got out. One policeman loaded his rifle, while Keita was on his knees pleading, and at point-blank range shot him through the stomach. He died instantly.
�Victim 5: Silas Matovu, sixty-year old Mugandan (sic), was in his house when police shot and missed his son, Leo Muwonge, as the bullet flew between his legs. The boy rushed into the house to tell his father, Mr. Matovu. As he was attending a slight wound on his son, one policeman aimed at his heart through an open window and killed him instantly.
�Victim 6: Eczema, a young Labara schoolboy who was returning from school, saw a group of armed policemen at a distance and decided to turn into an alley to escape them. One soldier fired at him and missed. Ezama then threw down his motorbike and ran. He encountered two soldiers on the opposite side. They shot him through the back to his death.30
�All these elderly and young people had no connection with the quarrel that the police had come to settle. Even if they had, they deserved no such cold-blooded murder by a police force that was supposed to protect them. Many more people were seriously injured. The incident caused a public outrage.
�The manner in which Obote handled this outrage in Parliament did not help our relations. He had to answer. Having prepared his speech he summoned me to his office from the National Assembly, which was in session one floor below his office. There he gave me his prepared speech to read on the floor of the Assembly within a few minutes. Why did he not have the courage to face the nation and deliver it himself? He explained that he had suddenly made an appointment that required him to leave Parliament buildings at once. But it turned out; he had no appointment at all and never left his office.
�I had to bear the brunt of Buganda�s outrage by giving an explanation on the floor of Parliament. While promising appointment of prompt inquiry into the true causes of the tragedy, the government did not show remorse commensurate with the brutal murders.
�I had little choice at so short a notice. I descended to the Assembly and delivered Obote�s statement but made it quite clear he prepared it himself and would have delivered it but for a sudden commitment. Typically, he was later furious that I should have mentioned that it was his statement, but I was not about to accept responsibility for official murder.
�Chris Kantinti, then a Kampala senior magistrate was appointed coroner to establish the true circumstances of the deaths. His report was unequivocal: all the victims had been �violently and deliberately shot by a group of armed policemen.� Then he said, �I accept that a crowd gathered at the scene, as people here do for flimsy things. I agree that they gathered peacefully to know what was going on.� There was clearly no cause for these brutal murders. Not even one policeman complained he had been assaulted in any way.
�If the police had exceeded their powers, it was clearly the government�s duty to show the country its disapproval by punishing the offenders under due process of the law. But rather do that, the government showed its gratitude by rewarding the participating policemen with promotions. The officer who had directed the operation was given a trip abroad and promoted to become a regional police commander in the East. He had done a �good job� in teaching the people a lesson and demonstrating the power of the UPC. This incident left a deep impression on many of the people in all parties. It refueled primordial fears and with them came the decline of an effective UPC.
�The police had always used �reasonable� or minimum force in the performance of its duties. Before any member of the Ugandan Cabinet was born, this rule had been established for the police force and it had worked well. It checked excesses without preventing the police to function effectively.
�But the situation was remarkable now that Obote had granted the police the use of �maximum force� instead of �minimum force�. It meant that under the law if a policeman killed you while booking for a traffic offence, for example, he would be immune from prosecution. It was absurd for Obote to give the reason for such a move as police inability to interpret the use of �minimum force� when performing their duties. As he had done with the army, he now moved to condition the police in such a way as to do his bidding, including the blatant use of brutal force on their countrymen as a justified method for keeping the UPC in power at all costs.�
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