NUP misusing term ‘disappearance’ - Human Rights Commission

UHRC Chairwoman Mrs. Mariam Fauzat Wangadya this Wednesday morning accused the NUP leadership of misusing such terms as “disappearance,” “abduction,” and “kidnap,” to describe the arrest of their members.

“When I hear today, people tossing these words around, I feel very bad, because I know what it means,” Wangadya said.

“I know where this country has come from. I once saw a woman in the Bugolobi market moving from shop to shop with the picture of her husband, Frank Kalimuzo, who had disappeared and she never got to bury him,” she recounted.

Kalamuzo was serving as Makerere University Vice Chancellor before he was murdered on orders of President Idi Amin in 1972. 

Wangandya noted that in Uganda’s recent past, many high-ranking people ranging from the Bank of Uganda Governor to a Chief Justice disappeared never to be seen again.

Yet, the NUP, she noted, is quick to throw that term around when some of their members are arrested on suspicion of crimes and detained by Police.

Recently, she says, the NUP Secretary General David Rubongoya sent her a list of 3o people he claimed had been abducted by security agencies.

Yet upon a simple search, she says, she found that 12 of these had been arrested and arraigned in courts of law. Most of them, she said, had been released either on court bail or police bond, including Godfrey Kirumira, Muhammad Ntale, and Haruna Sonko who are facing murder charges.

“Many of the so-called abductees are actually in their homes. We talked to some of them and they said they too were surprised to hear their names being read out,” she said.

“It is very unfortunate that some of our politicians have decided to get rid of the distinction between arrest and kidnap.”

Such rhetoric, Wangadya said, is not only misleading but also dangerous because it is meant to incite the public.