Ki Luts
You cannot hear about them for they were committed by the Movement, now
before you would know about them an opposition got created from within The
Movement and named its self FDC as a political party. Now FDC cannot raise
these deaths for it was one of those that carried them out. Mugisha Muntu
was the one commanding the army to do this, Kiiza Besigye was the one
writing the scotch policies that Muntu implemented and Samson Mande was the
delivery boy. Now how can they report themselves, that is why FDC is built
on forgetting the past and building the future. There is no one that got
killed in Uganda and we can never talk about it and when we talk about it
then we are very a angry people that must go back to school and thank you
but shut up. When you push people like Ssemuwemba he raises up and states
that every dead body you see deserved to die.
But there is another problem as well, many of the dead people in that part
of the country are actually Acholis, and for some unknown reason, Acholis
decided to prefer money to the safety of their own people. Acholis have in
many ways demonstrated that the more you kill them, as long as you give them
money, as long as you give them good jobs they support you. Most of the
ambassadors of Museveni today are Acholis. Most of the children that were
plucked out of Acholi and sold as slaves south, were plucked out of those
camps actually by Acholis. The people that defend the camps not to be closed
in Northern Uganda are actually Acholis, for the camps have become a great
magnet of money and business through North to Juba and Kampala and vice
versa. But there is also a magnet of the so many Acholis out of Uganda that
send money to the families to do business in Juba. So everyone here is happy
as the weak ones are dying of diseases and being raped let alone being shot.
It should interest you to know that I have written more extensively about
the situation in Northern Uganda than Norbert Mao who tells us absolutely
nothing from the North, for to Mao he does not know who was killed, he does
not know why he was killed and does not know why they were killed. We have
got reports as well that organizations that want to go to North to dig out
these informations are finding it hard to go up a wall built by Norbert Mao
who states that people were not killed in the North. When the Konny 2012
tape came out and we stood to fight it, the first man to take a mike was
Norbert Mao and he publicly defended the organization as a good organization
it is us that fail to understand its mission, and yes he stated too that he
is working with the very same. Get a time and sit with a couple of Acholis
and ask them face to face on what happened to the Aboke girls you will be
surprised at the confrontations you will get. It is bizarre !!!!!
So to an Acholi that is terrorized out there, that stands up and beats up
the screeners of Konny 2012 in Gulu, he is the problem in the upper Acholi
class including Norbert Mao that makes money out of this genocide. Now add
on that the other issue that many of these people are killed by Westerners
and Baganda in UPDF that had a real hate on Badugudugu. The true facts on
the Northern genocide will require a true change from within all of us as a
society or you will never know who has killed who with what and where.
The Northern situation is that complex.
EM
On the 49th
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of KI LUTS
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 10:45 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: {UAH} Who really maimed and killed civilians in northern
Uganda?
I have heard of this story.really,have these attrocities been committed to
ugandans?
<http://mugerwa89.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/who-really-maimed-and-killed-civi
lians-in-northern-uganda/> June 10, 2012 by
<http://mugerwa89.wordpress.com/author/mugerwa89/> mugerwa89
<http://mugerwa89.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/who-really-maimed-and-killed-civi
lians-in-northern-uganda/> Who really maimed and killed civilians in
northern Uganda?
Hunted ex-soldier accuses UPDF of role in atrocities
Who really maimed and killed civilians in northern Uganda? A few weeks ago,
24-year-old UPDF Lance Corporal Godfrey Masaba, right, was the target of a
botched raid by security operatives on the offices of The Independent. More
than 40 plain-clothed security operatives and policemen descended on the
papers compound acting on a tip that Masaba was in the office. (25-APR-08)
Published: Friday, 25 April 2008
Who really maimed and killed civilians in northern Uganda? A few weeks ago,
24-year-old UPDF Lance Corporal Godfrey Masaba, right, was the target of a
botched raid by security operatives on the offices of The Independent. More
than 40 plain-clothed security operatives and policemen descended on the
papers compound acting on a tip that Masaba was in the office. But rather
than nab Masaba, the security operatives bundled the papers gatekeeper,
Herbert Labeja, in the back of their Land Cruiser, giving Masaba a chance to
escape. (25-APR-08)
Written by Independent reporters and published today, this article has been
edited and prepared for publication here by HRH F / Niels Jacob Harbitz.
But rather than nab Masaba, the security operatives bundled the papers
gatekeeper, Herbert Labeja, in the back of their Land Cruiser, giving Masaba
a chance to escape. Left, Lance corporal Masaba sits in President Musevenis
chair before a military parade at Kololo Airstrip.
On March 31st, the Advertising Manager of The Independent, Godrick Dambyo,
and the papers reporter, John Njoroge, were arrested and detained by
plain-clothed security operatives at Ugandas border with Rwanda. They were
accused of trying to smuggle Masaba into Rwanda. Why does the state have
such an interest in Masaba? The army spokesman, Paddy Ankunda says Masaba is
a deserter. But there are many deserters in Uganda and the state does not
hunt them with such zeal.
Now The Independent has Masabas tale, a story that potentially explains why
he is such a wanted man. As part of investigative series on state-sponsored
torture in Uganda, The Independent has interviewed more than a dozen alleged
torture victims, Masaba being one of them.
Masaba ran to exile in Central Africa Republic (CAR) in May of 2007. He was
arrested there and detained without trial for two months. Then on August
20th 2007, that countrys president, Francois Bozize, put Masaba on the
presidential jet and personally flew with him to Uganda. He handed him over
to President Yoweri Museveni at Sheraton Hotel, a fact confirmed by interior
minister, Ruhakana Rugunda, right. It is not known what deal Museveni gave
Bozize to perform this role; but it suggests that there is something big
about Masaba.
Masabas story begins in June of 2003, with an order crackling out of his
army commanders receiver. Get your men ready, the order, according to
Masaba, said. We have intelligence that the LRA will be passing through
Corner Kilak in about an hours time. As Masaba tells it, the commander of
his battalion didnt hesitate. He ordered his men to form the aquifer.
Masaba, then 19, hid with his soldiers behind bushes and trees, gun cocked.
The men marching down the road were caught unaware. By the time the
ceasefire signal was brought down to the line, Masaba says that hundreds of
soldiers were killed. It took 30 minutes for the ceasefire to get across. I
brought down my gun and I went out and looked at them, Masaba recalls. And
I realized, these were the boys we used to eat with.
The men who walked themselves straight into a UPDF ambush were not the LRA
at all, Masaba says. They were UPDF soldiers, members of the 77th Battalion.
Just months earlier, the two battalions, both part of the same 401 Brigade,
had been training together. As Masaba stepped over the men, finally seeing
past the cover of darkness that had been shielding their faces, he looked
into the frozen eyes of Private James, a soldier who had brought him food
and medicine when he had malaria.
According to Masaba, the friendly fire incident, which he says occurred in
June of 2003, was planned. The ill-fated 77 battalion, he says, was made up
of former LRA soldiers who, after being incorporated into the UPDF, were
sent to the Congo to flush out Allied Democratic Forces rebels. After the
massacre, rumour spread around Masabas battalion that the LRA-turned-UPDF
soldiers were demanding huge salary arrears which they had not been paid
while in Congo. Rather than pay the arrears, the higher ups decided to kill
the soldiers and eat their salaries. The commander of 401 brigade, who
brought down the order, was taken to the Court Martial, but, Masaba says,
nothing ever came of it.
The incident wasnt reported in the press and the army spokesperson, Paddy
Ankunda, says hes not aware of it. But theres no doubt that Masaba who
says he was tortured in two separate CMI safe houses, both of which he
escaped from has information the government doesnt want out.
Hes a deserter, says Ankunda. Hes a very dangerous man.
Ugandas Minister of Internal Affairs, Ruhakana Rugunda confirmed that
Masaba was an army deserter who escaped to the Central African Republic and
was taken back to Uganda, but he claimed not to know enough about Masaba to
explain why he is considered dangerous. But the CMIs raid on The
Independent, and the fact that Masaba was brought back all the way from CAR
suggests that the threat he poses has something more to do than mere
desertion. Left, Masaba with his Central African Republic UNHCR certificate.
The government didnt always see a free Masaba as dangerous. He was a UPDF
soldier for five years, and according to his own testimony, he was chosen to
be part of a top-secret Special Force Unit called 181 comprised of the
most trustworthy soldiers from 401 Brigade. Masaba claims no one expected
that he would eventually defect, tell secrets about the UPDF to a
neighbouring head of state and escape from a torture chamber he was sent to
by President Museveni.
After the ambush on 77, Masaba says that he and other chosen Unit 181
soldiers were briefed on their mission by Brigadier Nathan Mugisha, then
army commander and current chief of police Kale Kayihura, and the commander
of the special force unit who Masaba only ever knew as Mushabe. They were to
stop shaving immediately, because in a few months, dressed in combat
trousers and civilian T-shirts, they would be attacking villages in the
north, posing as LRA soldiers, they were told.
Kayihura said that after the mission wed all get to go to Kampala, and
wed have good deployments, Masaba says. They promised many things. On
phone, Kayihura says he doesnt know who Masaba is and he called his tale
about Unit 181, the craziest thing hes ever heard. Rugunda called both
Masabas stories, regarding the friendly fire ambush and the UPDF atrocities
in the north, outrageous.
Have there been friendly fires within UPDF before? The Independent has
minutes of a meeting of senior army officers chaired by then Army Commander,
Maj. Gen. James Kazini. During the discussion of problems in the armys
training schools, it is mentioned that there have been friendly fires
between different army units.
Masaba claims the goal of Unit 181was to gather intelligence on the
individuals and communities believed to be supporting the LRA rebels in the
north and to make Konys men look so vicious that remaining sympathizers
would turn off the taps. The visits, as Masaba describes them, would
typically go like this: The one Acholi-speaker of the group would say, My
commander came here today and you gave us food, now we need more. A woman
would reply in a shaky voice that she didnt know what they were talking
about, that she had nothing to give. And, with that, unflinchingly, Mushabe
would order his soldiers to work on her. One or two would hold her down
while another cut off her lips, her ear or her breast. Masaba, seen as too
scrawny to restrain someone who was being mutilated, was given another task.
After supporters who admitted to supplying the LRA were told they were free
to go, he would shoot them in their backs.
It wasnt the guilt of these acts that led Masaba to talk. I had to follow
the orders, he says. What spurred his betrayal was his anger over not
getting a prestigious, well-paying deployment. Unlike other former special
force unit forces who had been promoted to ESO, ISO and CMI, Masaba says
that, after spending almost a year in the north, he was denied any office,
refused a gun, and offered a measly salary of Shs 190,000.
Then, in February 2007, Masaba ran into Moses, the Acholi-speaking Unit 181
soldier. While Moses had been a junior soldier to Masaba before the special
mission in the North, he was suddenly four ranks ahead of him, a Class II
Warrant Officer. I was so angry that I told Moses I was going to release
information to the media channels, Masaba says. Months after the run-in,
Masaba received a terse call from a friend in the army. He said, Theyre
hunting for you.
In May of 2007, Masaba crossed the border into Sudan on the back of a cargo
truck. From there, he hitched a motorcycle for the 12-hour drive to Obo,
where the countrys UN High Commission for Refugees office is headquartered.
After being interviewed by police who could only speak French, Masaba, who
was believed to be a spy, was handcuffed and flew him to Bangui, the capital
of CAR.
It is then that Francis Bozize, the minister of defense and son of
President Bozize came and took me to State House to meet his father, Masaba
recalls. He was in the company interior minister Michelle Ssali, education
minister Charles Dubani and former president Gen. Kolingiba. The group
asked Masaba what had brought him to CAR. He said he was a refugee.
President Bozize promised he would personally investigate to find out
whether Masaba was a spy sent by Uganda.
Then suddenly on August 20th, Masaba was escorted into a waiting plane with
CARs President Francois Bozize and his wife. He thought he was being taken
to Europe as a refugee. Instead he found himself descending on Entebbe,
where Kayihura, Museveni and Chief of Defense Forces Aronda Nyakairima, were
all waiting for him. (Kayihura says he was at the airport to greet Bozize,
but was there only to carry out his official duties regarding the visiting
Presidents security.)
Bozizes surprise two-day state visit in August of 2007 made headlines, but
the reason for the visit was nebulous: Reporters were not told in precise
terms what President Bozize and Museveni discussed although there were
suggestions that security issues could have been on the table, the Daily
Monitor reported on August 24. The real reason for the visit, according to
Masaba, was that Bozize, upon hearing about Masaba from his gendarmes and,
suspecting a Ugandan spy was in the country, called up Museveni and arranged
a meeting.
While Masaba doesnt know what was discussed between the two heads of state,
he doesnt think Bozize was aware he was sending a young man to be tortured.
The wife of the President (Bozize) gave me 50,000 shillings as they left,
he says.
Masaba, as his story goes, was then driven, in a seven-vehicle convoy, to
the Sheraton Hotel, where he would be grilled by Museveni, Minister of
Ethics and Integrity Nsaba Buturo, Kale Kayihura, and Rugunda. Rugunda says
he is aware Masaba came to Uganda from CAR, but he denies being at the
interrogation meeting. Masaba says he was presented with the statements that
he had signed in CAR, which detailed the ambush of 77 and the special force
unit in the north. Masaba says Museveni grilled him about the documents for
hours, but he continually told the President that he had signed the papers,
which were written in French, even though he didnt know what they said.
Finally, Museveni asked Masaba for the name of the rebel front he was
associated with, telling his Ministers and UPDF commanders, This boy is not
acting alone.
>From there, Masaba was taken to a safe house in Muyenga. Hoping to extract
the names of the soldiers the government was sure he must be working with,
CMI guards tortured Masaba for the next month. His torturers would make him
stand on his tip-toes and hold himself up with a rope tied to the ceiling;
when his arms got tired and he lowered his heels, he would step down on a
board of nails. He was beaten, and clear, sour-tasting liquid that made him
itch frantically, would be poured on his skin. In one instance, men who
Masaba only knows as Corporal Collins and Staff Sergeant Mugisha forced him
to lie on the floor and burned a polyethylene bag on top of him, letting the
bits of plastic fall on his arms and chest, where pebble-sized scars are
still visible. They said, Give us the names of the people who helped you
leave this country, and well let you go free, Masaba remembers. The Chief
of Military Intelligence, Col. Leo Kyanda, refused to talk to the
Independent about this story, referring instead to the army spokesman.
Ankunda, off the top of his head, said he wasnt aware of a Collins or a
Mugisha in CMI.
In the Muyenga safe house, Masaba was detained alone in a self-contained
room. I would hear people groaning and screaming, but I never saw another
prisoner, he says. During the month, men came and went through the door of
Masabas room sometimes they would attempt to get information, other times
the men in ties and suit jackets would just peek their heads to get a look
at the legendary young defector. After a few weeks, however, the stream of
visitors slowed to a trickle. Masaba, sure that, since they had just dropped
off dinner, his captors would leave him be for the night, plotted his
escape. He wet a bathroom ceiling until one of the thin tiles was weak
enough to give in. Three hours later, Masaba was outside the house and over
the compounds wall. According to information hes received from friends in
the UPDF, the guards of the safe house are still in jail for not preventing
his escape.
But Masaba only lasted two weeks as a free man. His photo supplied
everywhere, he was picked up in Lwakhakha, near the border of eastern
Uganda. That evening, he was taken to State House to face Museveni once
again. I didnt know you were a cowardly man, the President allegedly told
him. With security operatives now fully aware of his wily ways, Masaba was
handcuffed the entire time, and this time his room wasnt self-contained,
nor was it as comfortable. There were blood stains on his sheets and
brownish-red splatters could be seen through the yellow paint cover-up on
the walls. Right, the safe house in Ntinda from which Masaba had been
detained.
He knew that he wasnt the only one in the house, a bungalow in Ntinda. When
the guards brought him food, Masaba could see that they were carrying an
extra plate for the prisoner next door. One day, Masabas fellow inmate
knocked on the wall between the two wardrobes in the rooms, and after that
it became a routine: the strangers knocked at each other in the morning, at
lunch, and during dinner.
The two finally met sometime around CHOGM. Masaba could hear that there were
only two guards left in the house, and they were complaining. How can two
people manage this place? Masaba heard one say. Later, he heard the one
guard tell his colleague he had enough, and he was going out for the
evening. A few hours after that, the last remaining guard, lonely and drunk
on waragi, invited Masaba and the other prisoner to watch TV with him. He
even took off our handcuffs, says Masaba. With a quick look at his fellow
inmate who Masaba would later find out was a Rwandan policeman who had
been illegally detained for, he had counted, 100 days Masaba jumped on the
guard and started beating him. The Rwandan policeman joined in, and they
handcuffed the guard with one of the pairs sitting on the coffee table and
they destroyed his phone. He was begging us not to kill him, he said he
only had one kid, Masaba says. The two inmates interrogated their captor, a
JATT military man. He told them that he had been guarding safe houses for
nine years and he said that him and the other guards were to kill Masaba and
the Rwandan any time, any day.
The 24-year-old Masaba, who has now fled the country, could be lying as
Rugunda, Ankunda and Kayihura attest. But why would security operatives
attempt to nab Masaba when he was about to leave the Independent office,
alone? After all, it wasnt until the gun-toting men realized that it was
the Independents gatekeeper they had bundled up in the back of their Land
Cruiser that the police and undercover army men made themselves known and
began to search the Independent office. If Masabas stories were complete
lies, why then wouldnt they want to charge him officially and detain him
legally? And why would the government trace Masaba all the way to the
Central Africa Republic, simply for deserting the army when soldiers desert
on a daily basis? The Independent will continue to follow up on this story
in investigative series on state inspited tortures.
<http://mugerwa89.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/m7.jpg> ImageA victim of
nodding disease
--
UAH is devoted to matters of interest to Ugandans and Africans in general.
Individuals are responsible for whatever they post on this forum.Follow UAH
on Twitter at:http://twitter.com/#!/UAHFORUM. Follow UAH on facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ugandans-At-HeartUAH/132196106801171. To
unsubscribe from this group, send email to: Ugandans-at-Heart
[email protected] or [email protected]. To donate to
UAH activities, click on:http://ugandansatheart.org/donate-to-uah/. Buy our
products at: http://ugandansatheart.org/products-to-buy/. Also visit UAH
extension at: http://jjanguonkwekule.blogspot.com/.Join UAH facebook group
at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ugandansatheart/
_______________________________________________
Ugandanet mailing list
[email protected]
http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet
UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including
attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way.
---------------------------------------
