What Dr Muganga's dramatic arrest, release says about Ugandan security

Last week, CCTV cameras from Victoria University’s Vice Chancellor’s office in Uganda recorded the dramatic kidnapping of Dr. Lawrence Muganga. The man was apprehended mafia-style by a group of men who turned out to be operatives of Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). For those who watched it, the widely circulated video only makes Idi Amini’s State Research Bureau of the 1970s look like saints. 

Immediately after his arrest, Ugandan security apparatus rushed to ‘plant’ allegations in the media – including in mainstream media outlets – that Dr Muganga was arrested over “espionage and illegal stay” in Uganda.  The Uganda Peoples Defence Force (UPDF) went on record too, making similar allegations, through their spokesperson, Brig Flavia Byekwaso.

Despite the widespread video, Byekwaso, with a straight face, maintained reports that Muganga had been kidnapped were false, saying that instead he had been arrested by the joint security forces in connection with espionage and illegal stay in the country. She added that investigations into the matter had commenced.

The abduction of Muganga – a Munyarwanda by tribe – is no different from what thousands other Rwandans in Uganda have suffered over the past three years, only that he was lucky to have the CCTV cameras to capture it as it unfolded. He was released the following day with no charge.  

Innocent Rwandans have been kidnapped, forcefully dragged in the infamous vans that are now known in Uganda as ‘drones’ and taken to different CMI torture chambers. From these chambers many have ended up either dead, or permanently injured and dumped on the border with Rwanda. 

No one is ever produced before courts despite some being kept in these ungazetted places for lengthy periods, at times stretching into years, with no access to consular services and other basic rights.

All these, including farmers and porters that end up in Uganda, end up accused of espionage and illegal stay, despite not being produced in court. Just like the UPDF spokesperson indicated in her statement on the “arrest” of Dr. Muganga, that investigations into the matter had commenced, the same has been said whenever innocent Rwandans were abducted. 

One wonders how long an investigation on perceived espionage and illegal stay takes. For the hundreds of abducted Rwandans who have been accused of the same for close to five years, their whereabouts remain unknown. The CMI investigation reports on their perceived crimes have never been conclusive.  What does the swift release of this only one Munyarwanda – Muganga – accused of the same crime, imply?

He was accused of espionage and illegal stay, arrested and released in just 24 hours, with no charge. Here are my two cents. First, it should not take a rocket scientist to establish that the arrest of innocent Rwandans has been taking place based on false intelligence. This implies that the CMI has been relying on fabricated intelligence which they do not have time or capacity to cross-check before taking action.  

This very same false intelligence has been relied on to arrest hundreds of Rwandans in CMI torture chambers where many lost their lives and others lost their limbs.

Secondly, as an East African citizen, I would expect that after a lengthy investigation on charges of espionage and illegal stay in Uganda that lack evidence, Rwandans, instead of being dumped at border points, many of them in clinically critical conditions, should be set free. Instead, what we have seen is blatant human rights violation where not only their lives are taken but their properties stolen by CMI operatives. 

At the centre of these fake intelligent reports has been operatives of Rwanda National Congress (RNC) who have found home in Uganda where they freely work with security forces to torture Rwandans who do not subscribe to their spiteful enterprise against Rwanda. The hatred against Rwandans in Uganda can also be traced to the person of President Yoweri Museveni, especially when it comes to the leadership in Kigali, which turned down his manipulation overtures.

Despite knowing the atrocities meted out to Rwandans by his security forces, he has simply turned xenophobic. The most recent evidence is when he told a national gathering that Hon. Mukasa Mbidde, one of Uganda’s legislators in the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), is a Munyarwanda. 

This statement from a Head of State left many Ugandans of Rwandan origin in a state of confusion despite them being a tribe that is recognized by the Ugandan constitution. That said, I wish that the record time in which Uganda’s security apparatus released Dr. Muganga can be used in processing hundreds of Rwandans who have been wrongfully arrested by CMI.

Museveni’s Uganda should do better and stop relying on fabricated intelligence and understand that developing hatred for Rwandans will never pay off but create more damage to both countries. It will be a thorn in the flesh of regional integration.