Kakwenza Rukirabashaija–indomitable author. Photo: Facebook.
On December 28, 2021 at about 3 p.m., about 12 Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) officers and about eight others in civilian clothes all armed with machine guns, a sledgehammer, and pistols besieged my home on Arches Close Kisaasi.
The men broke the window burglar proof; two of them jumped into my house and showered me with punches in the stomach and used gun butts to hit my back and ribs. My phone was snatched from me even as I desperately spoke with Eron Kiiza, my lawyer.
I was later handcuffed and bundled into a waiting white drone—this is the name Ugandans have given to the ubiquitous vehicles with no registration plates, used by regime agents to kidnap people—which had parked at my gate in the company of one other white tinted drone and two other small vehicles. I was blindfolded with a thick black bag, and the strings were pulled and knotted around my neck.
The men didn’t tell me why I was being arrested. They never showed me any arrest warrant. All this happened in full view of my gateman and other neighbors. The neighbor upstairs in the apartment who was recording everything using the phone was immediately threatened and made to delete the recordings from her gadget.
The drone reversed and sped off; I could also hear the other vehicles. After about 10 minutes, I heard the opening of a gate and the drone came to a stop. I was pulled out of the vehicle and bundled into another one which roared into life and sped off.
When blind-folded you try your best to use the other senses. In about 15 minutes, while on some road, I could hear the taxi touts haranguing passengers to board to vehicles to Kawempe, then later to Mityana-Mubende. My decent sense of geography confirmed that we were driving on the northern bypass and connecting to the Entebbe Express highway.
After about an hour from the time I was arrested, we reached a place which I presume was a busy barracks because there was a lot of rumpus and brouhaha in Kiswahili, the language commonly used by soldiers in Uganda. I could hear, in the distant interior, a chopper landing.
I was pushed into a room like a sack of potatoes and as a result, I fell in a heap. South African reggae music in the room was blaring loud, and my captors began to severely hit my ankles with either a baton or bludgeon. The beating lasted for about seven minutes. In about an hour, the legs were all swollen as though I had elephantiasis. I could touch them and feel the bulge, the pain was excruciating. They know where and how to hit.
That very evening, I was forced to dance the whole night. I was given only an hour to sleep. Before I could catch any sleep, I was ordered to dance again. I slept on very cold tiles, no mattress or blanket.
The forced dancing would continue the entire time I was there, except for about three days when the dermatological ulcerations inflicted by the beating made dancing impossible. Sometimes, I would be forced to carry a 20-liter jerry can of water on my head and then be ordered to dance; the whole night. Whenever I said I was too tired, I would be ordered to do push ups or planks. I would sweat, the sweat would stop, my mouth would dry, and still I continued to dance vigorously, at gunpoint.
During interrogations I would be severely beaten on the ankles, buttocks, thighs, and the back. By the time I was taken back home, for a house search, all my clothes were bloodied. I left them home and changed into new ones. These were the items later shared to the rest of the world on social media.
Mainly, the interrogation was centered on my book “Banana Republic Where Writing is Treasonous.” The book narrates the harrowing torture I went through at the notorious Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) Mbuya in April 2020, and September 2020. I was blamed for sanctions against regime officials because of the book. I was asked to reveal who was behind my “anti-government” literature. The interrogators mentioned specific names from different foreign embassies in Uganda and I was asked whether I knew these individuals. I was also asked how I knew the publisher of Black Star News, Milton Allimadi, and why I wrote a weekly column for a publication that attacked the government.
The day after the fruitless house search of my home in Iganga, I was picked from the room and dragged through the stairs like a sack and taken for more interrogation. I was undressed and my whole body was beaten more severely than before, except for the stomach and the head. At one point, I found myself lying in a pool of my own blood. I felt paralyzed and lifeless at that point. The whole world has now seen the souvenir left on my back.
Bobi Wine, whom most Ugandans know won the 2021 presidential election, inspects the Muhoozi souvenir on Rukirabashaija’s back.
They promised to kill me and my family if I did not tell the captors who were behind my literature. I was told that if I continued to write against the government, they would exterminate me like vermin.
At one time, after I had lost consciousness from the beatings, when I woke up I found myself in the room with blaring music. Someone was nursing my wounds. Six injections—I don’t know what it was—were administered, every six hours, in my legs and on my buttocks. I was given about 17 capsules and tablets to swallow. My wounds were washed and sprinkled with liquids—I had no idea what it was—that caused intense pain.
Even when I was badly mutilated and couldn’t walk, my captors would come and drag me through the stairs and take me to the interrogation room where they would warn me to stop criticizing the government in my writing. I was told that, in return, I could be given a political position, or deployed to the UPDF legal department. I would also be given cars and houses.
My position was clear throughout the torture. I was not interested in any appointments, not interested in material possessions, nothing that would require bum-licking the dictator. This has been my position ever since the regime started scrutinizing my writings. I told them that I do not criticize the government because I wanted material benefits. I respect the rule of law; good governance. One cannot genuinely fight against injustice and then begin to praise it because one has received material benefits. I would never dilute my conscience by bum-licking the demons in power.
On Monday, January 10, 2022, I was transferred to the Special Investigations Unit in Kireka. I was picked up the following morning and driven to court. By 8:40 a.m., on Tuesday, January 11, I stood before the bespectacled magistrate without my lawyer. There were also two prosecutors. I was remanded to Kitalya Mini Maximum prison despite my cries to the magistrate that I had been badly tortured.
This magistrate with a doctorate, Douglas Singiza, was in bed with my tormentors. He was their bum-licker and ignored the law forbidding torture. He sent me to rot in prison.
When I was finally granted bail, through video conferencing, my captors were waiting for me at the prison gate. They kidnapped me and drove me to Makindye Military barracks. I was asked to state what it would take for me to stop writing. I maintained my previous position of not being materialistic.
After several hours of balderdash, and warnings to me, I was placed in a numberless car with a Military Police lead truck, another escort truck, and also a drone which drove me to my Iganga home, 75 miles away from Kampala the capital. I was dropped at my gate at 3:30 a.m. in the morning.
They refused to take me for treatment despite my request to be dropped at Kampala International Hospital.
From the time I was released, the spies who travel on boda-boda (motorcycle taxis) continued to follow me everywhere I went. A Uber driver who dropped me home on one occasion was subjected to hours of interrogation and car search.
At Nsambya Hospital, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture left distal tibial shaft (the length of the bone below the knee and above the ankle), periostitis left fibula (inflammation of tissue surrounding the bone), post-traumatic stress disorder, and severe lacerations and dermatological ulcerations, at various stages of healing.
The doctor referred me for proper medical attention outside the country. As Ugandans know, the magistrate refused to return my passport reasoning that my condition can be treated in Uganda.
My torture was supervised by Muhoozi Kainerugaba who recently in a tweet claims he had never heard of me. We shall see about that.
Editor’s Note: Kakwenza Rukirabashaija is now outside Uganda. He will be sharing additional details of his incarceration and torture shortly.
