Let us be honest for the sake of our beloved nation. I can categorically state
and be quoted that Milton Obote has never in anyway been a part of the
so-called FOBA. The truth of the matter is FOBA was a creation of the NRM in
order to persecute UPC leaders in various parts of Uganda and divert attention
from the failed economic policy of BARTER TRADE. Obote has had a long political
career in which he has contested and won elections unlike some people I know
whose rise to power (and maintenance thereof) is by the use of force.
Jimmy,
You may defend your Dad as much as you want but history cant be revised.Read on
and weep.
Mansions of death
ESCAPED: Major Mutale
Nile Mansions was a notorious torture chamber during the Idi Amin and Milton
Obote regimes. Joshua Kato talked to people who witnessed these horrors
There is a live concert on the Nile Hotel compound. Several people young and
old alike are making merry. All kinds of drinks are flowing; whisky, Nile
special lager, Mateos name it. As the first song ends, there are chants for an
encore. Clapping and foot stamping follows, almost in unison.
Everybody is happy.
In most of the lavishly decorated rooms, couples are planning to have a good
nightâs sleep.
Dreaming of breakfast in bed. Rooms 326, 305, 320, 211 and 311, all of which
witnessed the epitome of manâs brutality against fellow man, are occupied.
âIf those rooms could speak, the world would be horrified by what they would
say,â says Joseph Bulemba Nkerrettanyi, one of the chief cooks at the hotel
during the Amin and Obote regimes.
At that time the hotel was called Nile Mansions. And it was a mansion for evil.
When it was renamed Nile Hotel it aptly represented the transition from chaos
to order.
Between 1975-1986, there was no music at the Nile Mansions. There were no men
and women dancing. Nobody was smiling, none at all.
Death was stalking the mansion. Instead of music, there were shrieks and
screams of women being tortured to death. It was either a red-hot piece of
metal being pushed into her private parts or randy soldiers raping her
repeatedly. From another room, it was the terrified moans of a man with bricks
dangling from his testicles.
In room 326 it was not uncommon to hear the menacing voice of a soldier issuing
the order, âwuwa yeyeâ (Kill him).
Yes. There was some whisky and beer at times, but this was exclusively for
Milton Obote and his henchmen.
The decision by Idi Amin to kill Archbishop Janani Luwum, Oboth Ofumbi and
Erinayo Oryema was arrived at inside the Nile Mansions.
Saulo Katabarwa, a high ranking National Resistance Army (NRA) officer, faced
his last hours here. Fred Mukama, an ex-police officer, was severely tortured
in 1982 in room 326. A heavy weight was tied to his testicles which rendered
him impotent.
Sophia Banura, Moses Irumba and several others who entered this room never
lived to tell of the horrors meted on them. A few people like Brigadier Matayo
Kyaligonza and Major Kakooza Mutale were lucky to escape alive.
Mutale, who at the time was one of the leading journalists in the country, was
arrested for writing a story that angered the regime of the day.
The Nile Hotel complex was constructed in 1971 by Energo Project. It was
completed in time for the 1975 OAU summit which Uganda hosted. After that, it
was turned into a military command structure with some offices for government
officials, but gradually it became a torture chamber.
Idi Amin used rooms 205 and 220 as residence and office respectively for most
of the time he was head of state. Today these rooms are lavishly decorated with
imported furniture. In the early 1980s, Obote used rooms 211 and 217.
âHe used to drink a lot. He loved Russian Vodka and whisky. But most of the
time, he took Mateos,â says Bulemba.
At first, Nile Mansions was just a transit point for political prisoners.
Room 326 was the most notorious of all. It was manned by Peter Owili, believed
to be of Kenyan origin.
âWhen somebody was taken there, it was a point of no return,â Bulemba says.
In the early 1980s, the notorious bus, nicknamed âMpaawo Atalikaabaâ
(everybody will weep) used to make rounds in the city, then return to Nile
Mansions to drop those arrested. Many of them were subsequently killed.
When the NRA captured power in 1986, sophisticated torture gadgets were found
in these rooms. However, no one seems to know where the equipment was taken.
âWe found electric wires, nail-studded slippers, hammers, clubs fitted with
nails, plastic containers perhaps used for burning prisoners, bloodstained
clothes and lots of other things,â recalls Lt.(rtd) Steven Ssentumbwe.
Most of the killing was done inside the rooms, away from the prying eyes of
visitors at the nearby International Conference Centre, but that did not go on
for long.
âOne day, a captured Uganda Freedom Movement rebel known as Mohammed Jjemba
committed suicide by jumping from the 3rd floor of the building,â Bulemba
says. As Jjembaâs head hit the parking area below, the late vice-President
Paulo Muwangaâs convoy was just parking.
In another incident a suspected Federal Democratic Movement rebel, one
Katongole, was shot in the Nile Mansions gardens in the full view of World Bank
delegates who were attending a conference at the International Conference
Centre.
âA drunken soldier emptied a whole magazine of bullets into Katongole in full
view of the delegates,â Bulemba says.
The prisoners never had food. âEven dogs could not eat what the prisoners
were fed on. It was disgusting,â he says.
Today, outside the hotel, the lush beautiful flowers tell little of what
happened there in the final hours before the NRA captured power. âThere was a
very big battle there,â Ssentumbwe says.
If the walls of Nile Hotel could talk, this is the story they would tell.
Published on: Sunday, 28th November, 2004
Email this article to a friend.
 Copyright The New Vision
_______________________________________________
Ugandanet mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet
% UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
