Stephen Nuwagaba: Museveni blasts Mwenda over evil schemes, calls him a spy

President Yoweri Museveni has defended Stephen Nuwagaba, a young man he says sought his protection after suffering torture and serious injuries allegedly inflicted by members of Uganda’s security agencies.

In a lengthy statement, Museveni accused veteran journalist Andrew Mwenda of attempting to divert public attention from corruption, torture and criminality within state institutions.

He said Mwenda had wrongly portrayed Nuwagaba as a national security threat despite the young man being a victim who remained under his care and had received treatment in Uganda and abroad.

This statement was posted by President Museveni, I want to reproduce in my story as it is, but give it a lede of like 2 paragraphs that focuses on Mwenda and Nuwagaba, suggest good headlines in title case:

The People of Uganda, especially the Bazzukulu. Kopango. Iriyo maber. Apoyo kwir maber recently.

Having thanked Ugandans for voting very well in the recent LC-1 elections, we shall get time to say more about this issue later.

However, for today, I want to inform the Ugandans that the great journalist Andrew Mwenda is back with his schemes. Having failed to destroy our promising pharmaceutical industry by calling our innovators Magoola and Senfuka con-men, and declaring me senile, he has now discovered a new national emergency in Uganda. This is the young man known as Nuwagaba Stephen.

This young man has laid "siege" on State House and the Security Agencies. There is big danger to the country. Since I am not dead, and I am still able to use my pen to defend the Ugandan and African Revolutions, I will tell you about Nuwagaba.

Nuwagaba is a young man in his mid-twenties who came to me as a fugitive, a victim of torture and maiming, whom some elements in the Security Services were trying to silence, including threatening with death.

He has actually been a patient on account of torture and maiming (okumuzya), and trauma because of the torture, for many of the months he has been under my care! I had to send him to the hospitals in Uganda and abroad to save his life. He seems to have improved, but some of the maiming is still there.

The torture and the maiming are allegedly by elements in the Security Forces, some of whom are now facing charges in courts.

The terrible thing is that these alleged torturers and maimers were belonging to our security forces. Is this what we and the People of Uganda fought for? Do you know how much we, and all the People of Uganda, sacrificed to get freedom from killers, torturers and dictators?

If you do not know, let me give you a few examples.

First of all, see the People, members of FRONASA, that were publicly executed by Idi Amin on the 11th of February, 1973. They were: Obwona and Labeja in Gulu; Masaba and Namirundu in Mbale; Nkoko and Ntale in Jinja; the mathematician Karuhaanga (Omuharabu, because he was very brown) in Mbarara; Abwooli Malibo and Kasolo in Fort-Portal; Karambuzi, Bitwaari and David Kangyire in Kabaale; and a kondo in Kampala. See their pictures. Namirundu was only 17 years old.

Then see the skeletons and skulls of the Luwero Triangle for the period 1981-1986. Just on the 9th of June, 1981, Bazilio Okello cut with pangas nine of our People in Kikandwa village. The 9 included: Lutamaguzzi; Nkangyirwa (omusomesa); Ssentongo (the veteran of King's African Rifles); and others.

At a personal level, the colleagues who died included: Martin Mwesiga (lawyer), Mwesigwa Black (economist), Valerian Rwaheeru (engineer), Birihanze (Literature), Omongin (politician), etc. All these People did not suffer so that Ugandans are tortured, maimed or traumatized, again.

Hence, the great journalist Andrew Mwenda, who specializes on spying on me with his investigative team, could have tried to find out how the young man came to be under my care. These alleged torturers and maimers, who were threatening to kill Nuwagaba, also attacked, tortured and maimed his mother, an ardent NRM supporter, and have been sending threatening calls to his Father, who was recently elected unopposed in his village for another term as LC-1 chairperson.

All this will be checked by the quiet investigation that I set in motion sometime ago.

Why the desperation, if the boy is a liar? Could it be a cover-up of crimes and treachery committed by these People the great Mwenda is now defending?

Coming back to torture, let alone maiming, these are immoral, counter-revolutionary, not strategic and not necessary for we the freedom fighters.

In the last 56 years I have been fighting, I have never tortured, or ordered anybody to torture, an opponent, because of the reasons mentioned above.

However, the FRONASA, the NRA, the UPDF always win. However, the NRM/NRA/UPDF had been infiltrated by some corrupt and non-patriotic elements that were committing crimes with impunity. This is why, in my broadcast, I welcomed the firmness with which the Security Forces are now beginning to handle the issues of impunity.

Nevertheless, the UPDF and the other security forces, in fighting impunity, they should not commit their own crimes, such as torture, extra-judicial killings, etc.

As already said, those mistakes are not moral, ideologically correct or strategic. FRONASA/NRA would use what they called adhabu (punishment). It would not really be punishment, because it would even be before trial. The aim was to inconvenience the suspect so that he says the truth.

At Nyamiyaga shule ya Msingi (Primary school) in Tanzania, where I put my temporary camp in 1978/9, an indisciplined peasant known as Bagarukayo (Bushaija-bweengwe, he had nicknamed himself, as brave as a leopard) started saying that the Kumam cadres I had trained in Mozambique should not lead FRONASA, where the Banyankore-Bakyiga were now becoming the majority, because they were Badugudugu (somebody whose language you do not understand).

I put him in andaaki prison (underground trench), shirtless. The cold of one night was enough for Bagarukayo to become a good person. No beating, no maiming, but getting what we want: discipline. There are other adhabus, such as doing many push-ups, carrying a rifle in a certain way, etc., etc.

Worse still, torture, maiming or assassinations of opponents, etc., are not strategic. Why? It is because Mao Tse Tung pointed out that when heads are cut-off, they do not grow again. Apart from the permanent divisions in society such acts bring, there is the issue of not preserving all possible contributors. What if the country needs the contribution of person X when he has already been killed or maimed?

Mao Tse Tung disagreed with Deng Xiaoping in 1966. They were all communists. However, Deng Xiaoping said that it does not matter whether a "cat is black or white". "What is crucial is that it catches rats (mice)." In this case, he was saying that it does not matter whether we use capitalists or socialist ways to build China as a modern country. Mao Tse Tung's fears were that the use of capitalist methods would overthrow communism.

However, Deng Xiaoping was not killed, tortured or maimed. He was put in a sort of house arrest and kept somewhere far away from home. After some years, he came back as Deputy Prime Minister and, when Mao died, he brought reforms that modernized China and made it one of the most powerful countries in the world today.

It is, therefore, because of the torture and maiming that I came to know Nuwagaba. I am glad I rescued him, rescued his family, had him partially treated. If he has got problems like lying, he will account for those. However, the evil schemes of Mwenda are in always seeking to disorient the focus of the country to trivialities, or to covering up crime, as could be the case in this matter, or outright sub-version.

The reality on the ground is that the main problem of Uganda is not Nuwagaba seizing State House and the Security Forces, but the criminals, including some in the Security Forces and other organs, that have been blocking the flow of information about the criminals, covering them up, and ensuring information does not reach leaders like the President, so that they can continue with their criminality.

Why doesn't the investigative team of Mr. Mwenda, that is always spying on Museveni, pick-up the corruption in PDM, in the roads, etc., etc.?

Two last points on this count, regarding the misinformed position of Mwenda, or intentional cover up of criminals by Mwenda.

First, as a self-claimed authority on everything under heaven (Ngamanya, know it all type), declared that in the bush, when we were few, it was alright to use popular intelligence. Now that we are many, the primitive methods of the bush could no longer work. Wrong, Mr. Ngamanya. Right from the beginning, we were using humint and signint (human intelligence and signals intelligence).

Attacks on Kabamba, Masindi, etc. were all humint led. We had supporters like the grass-cutter in Masindi barracks who told us everything that happened during the day. I was always the co-ordinator of this strategic intelligence. Since I knew the events of the barracks during the day, how about the night? Did they, for instance, have dawn-stand-to, being in trenches until morning? I filled this gap by dispatching Mugume Chagga to provide recce-intelligence, reconnaissance intelligence.

As dusk was closing in, he mingled with the soldiers that were returning from drinking, until they had by-passed the perimeter area of the barracks. He then peeled off from the line of the returning drunkards, and lay in observation and listening positions for the whole night, until the following morning, when he left and told me that there was no stand-to procedure in the barracks. Hence, the successful attack of the 20th of February, 1984.

Signint would then help us to know how well we had performed, and what the enemy was doing. By 8:00 am of the 20th of February, 1984, our UNLA informer (unconsciously), by sending a message to their headquarters and informing them that Masindi barracks had been overrun by the enemy, etc., informed me that the attack had succeeded.

Without waiting for Saleh to contact me, I knew the attack had succeeded. By the time Saleh contacted me much later, the 800 strong Force for relief under my command was on the move.

The UNLA signalers would help us by, for instance, revealing what the enemy knew about us. This is exactly what happened on the 23rd of December, 1984, when we had taken too long in crossing River Mayanja from Sebuguzi, on our journey to Kyamusisi, on the way to attack Kabamba.

The UNLA signaler informed his friends that an enemy force, led by Museveni in person, was moving somewhere. The UNLA had even captured one of our soldiers that had failed to continue because of hunger. That helped me to decide to split the Force: 700 fully armed to continue with Saleh and attack Kabamba; 800 to remain with me, so as to confuse the enemy. On Christmas Day, 1984, at Kyamusisi, the two Forces separated. In the night, Saleh quietly moved on towards Kabamba. My Force, with Kashillingyi I think, stayed the whole day of the 25th of December, 1984, at Kyamusisi.

On the 27th, we moved out, heading in the opposite direction towards the Lukoola, towards Hoima-Kiboga Road, which we crossed between Bukomero and Nakwaya in broad-daylight. Eventually, we camped at Kembogo, where a force from Bukomero attacked us on the 28th of December, I think. We dispersed it. Then, we moved to Kagaari, Dr. Sebuliba's Farm.

It was while there, at about 1400 hours on the 1st of January, 1985, that our reliable informer about the enemy, the UNLA signaler, sent a message to his colleagues from Mubende, I think. He informed them that a powerful enemy Force had overrun Kabamba in the morning, and had defeated all the counter-attacks.

I immediately called a General Assembly of the Force to inform them of the developments and the plans for departure early, on the 2nd of January, 1985. We eventually linked up with Saleh on the 9th of January, 1985, at Birembo, where our combined force now had a long day battle against Eric Odwer's Force that attacked us on the 10th of January, 1985.

Therefore, depending on the situation, our massive political support would provide people appropriately located that would be part of our humint resources. Therefore, the great Mwenda's version of "popular intelligence" in the bush, and formal in the Government, is not correct.

Yes, when we took power, some People joined the Intelligence Departments of the Government: ISO, ESO, CMI, and also the Police Force and UPDF. They got trained in Intelligence Schools here and abroad, and some did technical courses such as signint. Especially the technical courses, such as signint, have helped a lot, e.g., in the fights against Kony.

However, some security personnel have become corrupt, or have been compromised by the enemy. This is actually the main problem of the country: corrupt or compromised Security Personnel, not Mwenda's Nuwagaba, a traumatized, maimed young man, whatever personal problems he may have: taking money from People, kwebeherera (pretending to be what he is not), kubeherera (telling lies) about leaders, etc.

Even if they are true, they are not the main problem of the country. During the campaign, I encountered massive complaints about PDM in Maracha, Kapchorwa-Kween, Iganga, Buwambo, Kawempe, etc. There were complaints from so many districts about the selling of Government jobs in Local Governments. The corruption in the roads, etc. How was Nuwagaba responsible for those?

Finally, the issue of formal and informal sources of intelligence. It is because the formal structures do not do their work that the informal come up to the President. You want examples?

The defusing of the Gen-Z riots of last year. The informal had to come to one of my press units, Karekye, who linked me to them through Natasha.

The corrupt People that were taking money in State House, that wanted to see me, as bribes, were exposed by members that were not in the structure of the formal. The gang of criminals in State House, led by somebody called Itungo, that were robbing a Gold Refinery Developer known as Cohen, and even planning to kill him, are still being covered up by elements in some of the structures.

The big case of Besigye. Why has it taken 2 years, Besigye refusing to go to court? What have the formal structures been doing about it? It was, actually, the informal actors that helped in the arrest of Besigye. The formal structures are finally beginning to operate in the case. Could it be that the aim of Mwenda was to frighten the patriots from exposing corruption and criminality?

Thanks for reading through this missive.