Letter to Commissioner General of Prisons

Dear Dr Johnson Byabashaija,

I have been in Murchison Bay prison as an inmate for three times. First as a remand between 19th August to 3rd September 2009, second as a convict (although I was innocent and was later acquitted) from 2nd February to 13th October.

I wish to raise the following issues if indeed like you Dr Byabashaija have always stated the prisons are to be correctional centres;

1. Prisoners' rights must be respected, protected and promoted by the Uganda Prisons' Services. While in Murchison Bay the OC Mr Selestine Twesigye does his best, reports I have got from Kiggo are appalling and reports from prison farms are heart-breaking. I have also had an opportunity to witness with my own eyes prisoners who are maimed and permanently disabled from the prison farms. I have not seen any prisoner who tells me that after his/her sentence they are given money yet they are overworked like donkeys. This is a modern form of slavery which is contrary to article 44 of the Ugandan Constitution.

2. It is my considered view that either the office of Welfare/Rehabilitation officer be closed or the senior occupant Nurru Kateregga be relieved of the responsibilities she is charged with. FHRI's para legal advisory services  facilitates that office by among others air time, motorcycles and other paraphernalia. Shamelessly, they have always been asking inmates to sign for money with the property stores so as to buy air time and make phone calls for them. Definitely, you are aware that more than 90 per cent of the inmates don't have the money and receive no visitors.

Nurru Katerega tortured me psychologically and deliberately refused to attend to me hence depriving me of my rights to use the welfare office. I have vowed to fight back just in case I am to be taken back. Not because I am a criminal but because in banana Republics like ours, prison is home for serious human rights defenders, journalists, authors, researchers and opposition politicians. Personally, I am not a mere human rights defender who laments but I have come to a conclusion that with Museveni as a president, our human rights situation can only get worse. Therefore, I am using my brains to disorganise him, to raise awareness and have very many Ugandans annoyed and to portray him as a monstrous president that he is. Consequently, I have always been tortured, traumatised, tormented, persecuted and oppressed. I have always had trumped up charges against me but I am not about to capitulate. If Museveni with a handful of followers managed to overthrow the then political establishment in five years when there was no face book, there were no mobile phones, there was no internet and majority of the people were illiterate, how can we fail to remove his dictatorship with all the facilities in our favour. And I don't mean that we shall pick arms to fight him. We are sure that we shall liberate this country without firing a single shot. In any case the dispossessed and deprived armed personnel - the military, the police and the prisons personnel will reach a point and turn the guns against their enemy.

I would not want such a scenario though. What I need is for us to oust the NRM and get Museveni, Kayihura and other thieves and blood stained NRM members and throw them in Luzira for eternity. I am impassioned for justice and I abhor the injustice orchestrated, perpetrated and perpetuated by Museveni. I will never ever support Museveni and I will use all the time God has given on earth scheming on how to break his political spine.

I call upon you to conduct yourselves professionally, serve whoever comes as a leader and desist from partisan politics. Leave that to Kale Kayihura. But we shall surely penalise him.

Finally, if Nurru Kateregga is not kicked out of the welfare office in Murchison Bay, I will have to use the press but also I will appeal to FHRI to reconsider our partnership with Murchison Bay Prison. I have a hunch that she didn't sit the interview and if she did, there must have been irregularities in the selection. She cannot know that public offices are not only impersonal but they belong to the public. She doesn't know that in prison, a prisoner is more important than her. She doesn't know that she is not paid a salary by tax payer's to conduct personal business - doing her course work for UMI during the working hours. She reports at 11am and leaves at 1pm. She is arrogant, myopic and narrow-minded. One of the reasons for her arrogance I was told by a certain PO that it is because she is beautiful. I hope that is not the ticket that got her the job. I hope the phone number is meant to ensure feedback. I would like to come and debate with the prisons authorities the contents of my email. For God and my country.

Vincent Nuwagaba