Amon Byarugaba has been in detention for 10 years without trial
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Oh! Uganda the land of unfreedom!!!!!!When human rights are violated with impunity by the UPDF: Besigye man held 10 years without trial
Family crumbles as ex-soldier is held for 10 years without trial
http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25336:family-crumbles-as-ex-soldier-is-held-for-10-years-without-trial&catid=34:news&Itemid=114
Thursday, 16 May 2013 22:39
Capt Amon Byarugaba has spent 10 years in a
military jail and his continued detention appears to have broken the spine of
his family.
“Our mother succumbed to pressure because
operatives continued to come home and haunt us. She left home sometime back and
relocated to Bombo… I had completed senior six after studying PCB/M but…,”
Baguma told The Observer recently, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice.
He also revealed that his grandparents, whom his father looked after, died a few years ago.
“He [Byarugaba] supported his parents financially
and psychologically. But when our grandparents learnt of his arrest they always
asked: ‘why is Museveni punishing our son?
We thought he was his friend’,” Baguma recalled.
In place of hope now lies fear and uncertainty.
“We have thought of going to Makindye barracks
and demonstrate but some of our elders in the family said we should not. Was it a crime for our father to retire from the army?
What if our dad dies in their hands; what will
government tell us? My father is beginning to give up. He has
developed a mysterious sickness. He was a healthy man. We live like orphans,”
said Baguma.
His brother, Patrick Tushabe, also bore the brunt
of harassment by security operatives. Before their father was arrested in 2003,
Tushabe was detained at Jinja Road
police station and later at Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JATT) safe houses
along Yusuf Lule road.
“My brother was arrested from home by security
operatives in 2001, when they came home looking for my father. They took him to
Jinja road but later on bundled him into another car and drove him to the JATT
cells,” says Baguma.
His father later called the Chieftaincy of
Military Intelligence (CMI) boss Brig Noble Mayombo (RIP), who claimed he was
unaware of his son’s arrest.
“I later on saw my brother running towards home
without a shirt. I think it was because of the call to Mayombo that they
released him,” said Baguma.
After Tushabe, Byarugaba, who had retired from
the army in 1994, was picked up and detained at Makindye military police
barracks, on allegations of treason, but is yet to be tried in a court. Baguma
says the allegation that his father was a member of the shadowy People's
Redemption Army (PRA) is a fabrication.
“These people started hounding my father from the
time he retired from the army. I recall he had a
clothes business in Ntinda but in 1994 security men came and took away all the
sewing machines,” revealed Baguma.
A month ago, The Observer newspaper exposed the
plight of Capt Byarugaba after Baguma’s younger brother, Fred Kakooza, narrated
his father’s ordeal. Byarugaba, now 67, joined the Museveni-led NRA rebels in
1982 and later on served in the 23rd battalion. In 1994, he retired from the
army citing old age, (although he was 48). In the chaotic 2001 presidential
election, Byarugaba supported Reform Agenda’s Dr Kizza Besigye.
His family is
convinced Byarugaba was incarcerated for holding views contrary to those of the
establishment. Byarugaba was later accused of being part of a covert
rebel uprising, the PRA, something he denied. And then in February 2003, he was
picked up along with 21 other suspects, most of whom have since been freed.
The CMI claimed that Byarugaba conspired to overthrow
the government. Security officials allege that Byarugaba’s group solicited and
received arms and ammunition from Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese Lendu militia
warlord, on February 24, 2003.
Byarugaba’s colleagues sought amnesty and were
freed. But Byarugaba, who insists he is innocent, said he would wait for his
trial.
“On October 26, 2012 we applied to the Supreme
court to see if the General Court Martial (GCM) has powers to try civilians. We
are still waiting for the judgment,” said his lawyer Ladislaus Rwakafuzi.
