Uganda should better wake up and respect peoples' and human rights of assembly and association, or else the gimmickry of "deserving the governments

JATT tortured me - Hoima mayor PDF Print E-mail Thursday, 16 April 2009 Kampala/Hoima The Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force yesterday came into the spotlight again after it emerged that agents from the security outfit were allegedly responsible for the arrest and torture while in detention of Hoima Town Mayor Francis Atugonza. Hoima is district in western Uganda. Mr Atugonza said yesterday that he had been tortured while in Kololo detention. Mr Atugonza, who was reported missing at the weekend, was reportedly picked up by JATT agents on Saturday after he received a phone call from a one Hajj Twaha Lukwanzi inviting him to Kampala to pick some money. Image Dr Besigye (L), Mr Atugonza (C) and a sympathiser at Mwanga 11 Court. Frantic efforts to trace Mr Atugonza by members of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change party to which the mayor belongs, seemed to yield some fruit yesterday after he was presented and charged at Mwanga II Court before Magistrate Issa Sserunkuma on allegations of obtaining money by false pretence. Mr Atugonza was, however, released on a cash bail of Shs500,000 and Shs2 million non-cash. Daily Monitor has learnt that when Mr Atugonza arrived in Kampala, he was told to meet Hajj Twaha at Tal Cottages from where he was arrested and whisked away to a safe house in Kololo. In an interview with Daily Monitor, Mr Atugonza narrated his ordeal at the safe house and said he was tortured along with 40 other suspects by the security operatives. He said he was hit with an iron bar on his face and bled profusely before his alleged tormentors poured hot water on his face and later forced him to mop a pool of blood on a blood-drenched floor. “They hit me with something like a metal on my face and I started bleeding,” a tearful Mr Atugonza said, as the FDC president Kizza Besigye sat by his side. “They also hit all my ankles and poured hot water on my body. I started crying and they ordered me to mop the floor which was flooding with my blood and that of other victims,” he added. Mr Atugonza said during the torture, the security operatives reportedly questioned him over his links with Mr Twaha and demanded to know why he was picking money from him. Mr Atugonza also said of the suspects he met in detention, many had had their fingers plucked out by pliers. The arrest, alleged torture and detention of Mr Atugonza follows a report released last week by the International watchdog Human Rights Watch in which the JATT, a body comprised of agents from various security groups, is accused of wide-scale use of torture and illegal detention of suspects. That report formed the highlight of debate in Parliament yesterday after Aruu MP Odongo Otto tasked the government to respond to the eye-brow-raising claims. Image TORTURED: Mr Atugonza “This report is very disturbing; it states that there are safe houses in Kololo,” said Mr Otto, adding, “It reported 106 cases of illegal detention and instances of torture like electric shock on suspects.” Security Minister Amama Mbabazi rose to the government’s defence and dismissed the contents of the report. He said, “There are no safe houses for the purpose of illegal detention of Ugandans known to me.” It is a statement that sparked heated debate in the House. Mwenge North MP Tom Butiime asked, “May he [Mbabazi] therefore be knowing of a safe house in Uganda which can legally detain a Ugandan or other people? Is it also possible that there are safe houses that are illegally detaining people and he [Mbabazi] is not aware?” Confronted with Mr Atugonza’s claims about torture, Army spokesman Maj. Felix Kulayigye said by telephone yesterday, “We don’t believe and associate with torture. Those who did it were not under instruction from any one to do it. It was illegal and I would advise him to sue them.” Although the State says it has evidence that Mr Atugonza was trying to obtain money by false pretence, he denied the charge against him and requested court to offer him bail. Mr Jackson Wabyona, the FDC Deputy secretary in the party president’s office and Ms Anita Among, FDC deputy secretary general in charge of fundraising, stood as his sureties. Mr Atugonza’s charge and subsequent release has ended the gruelling search by party officials for the man who doubles as the party’s secretary for industry and trade. For five days, a search was mounted for the FDC official by relatives, Bunyoro kingdom officials and friends. The officer in charge of Old Kampala Police Station, Mr Opendi Osuna, said his officers did not torture Mr Atugonza but added that he was not aware of when and how Mr Atugonza was brought under his custody. “He came with all those wounds,” Mr Opendi said. “I also don’t know what happened. I received him yesterday. I don’t know who brought him here. In fact it’s us who have tried to get him treatment.” FDC leaders who spoke to Daily Monitor yesterday accused Minister Mbabazi of having a hand in Mr Atugonza’s arrest citing claims that Mr Mbabazi reportedly threatened the mayor during the President’s tour in Hoima. It is said that NRM cadres reportedly complained to Mr Mbabazi that Mr Atugonza was sabotaging government programmes and was a pain to the NRM’s mobilisation strategies. The same claims surfaced in Parliament and Mr Mbabazi said his hands were clean. “I didn’t have information about the arrest of Atugonza,” Mr Mbabazi said. “It is not true that I ordered his arrest because I was not aware and there was no reason. When I went to Hoima recently, it was a different matter and it had nothing to do with Atugonza’s arrest.” FDC lawyer Yusuf Nsibambi said, “We know that the Police didn’t arrest Mr Atugonza. He was arrested and tortured on orders of someone from above. They are now concocting cases against him. This government is rotting day by day but there is nothing we can do because this is the situation we live in, especially for us in the opposition.” Atugonza narrates his ordeal Hoima Mayor Francis Atugonza was yesterday released after spending days in custody at a safe house in Kololo. He spoke to Daily Monitor’s Gerald Bareebe about his ordeal: We bring you some excerpts. I left Hoima on Saturday to meet Hajj Twaha Lukwanzi, the proprietor of Tal Cottages in Kabusu, a Kampala suburb. At 2:30pm I arrived at the cottages only to be arrested by security operatives who blind folded me and dumped me in a glass window-tinted car. I was driven off to an unknown detention cell in Kololo but, somehow, I remember seeing the Korean embassy. So, I believe the safe house is near that place. Inside the cell, we were around 40 people, men and women. I was hit with a metal, which I suspect to have been a gun and I became unconscious. By the time I woke up, it was at around 11:00pm. The T-shirt I was wearing was full of blood and the whole floor was bloody. I noticed that many of the suspects did not have fingernails. Later as I was being taken out for a short call, I managed to look at the notice board and I read that Lt. Ck Asiimwe was in charge of this operation. On Monday I heard some officers saying that FDC knows that I was inside there. They wanted to charge me with terrorism but they later changed to obtaining money by false pretence. On Wednesday, I was put in a glass tinted Corona car and I was brought to Old Kampala Police Station I have witnessed with my own eyes the life inside a safe house and I don’t need more witnesses on this. Who is Atugonza? * He is a civil engineer by profession who pursued his studies at Sir Tito Winyi Secondary School and later shifted to Kenya. * Mr Atugonza, 40, was a construction project manager at Global Construction Company in the late 1990s. * In 2004, the Omukama of Bunyoro Kitara appointed him the Kingdom’s estate manager, a post he held till 2004. * He was also the head of the Omukama’s royal guards in early 2000. * He joined active politics in 2005 when he was elected the district FDC coordinator and later the party’s regional coor-dinator. * He was elected Hoima mayor in 2006 as FDC flag-bearer. * He was voted the party’s national secretary for trade and industry during this years FDC national delegates conference.