Vincent Nuwagaba
C/O
Political Science Dep’t
Makerere University
P.O Box, 7062, Kampala
6th
February 2008
H.E the President of Uganda
Dear Sir,
RE: VINCENT NUWAGABA’S ORDEAL AT CPS AND IN BUTABIKA
Reference is made in reaction to the medical report written about me
by Dr Onen of Butabika Hospital and
later confirmed by Dr Kyazze. By the way, what ACTV wanted from Butabika was
whether or not I was admitted against my will. Sadly, the two Doctors don’t
answer this question.
The report makes glaring and blatant lies about me which I am
convinced are aimed at destroying my name. And I am convinced this is
deliberate for Dr Onen is one of the people I complained about when I stated
like he wrote that Butabika connives with the police and is an accomplice in
the torture of innocent citizens.
Let me first draw your attention to the manner in which Dr Onen
wrote the report. The language of the report is as though Dr Onen witnessed
from step to step what I went through. I
would expect him to write say, Vincent reportedly or allegedly did this or
that. Otherwise, looking at the language of the report, one may take the
allegations to be the truth.
Dr Onen wrote that on 14th April, police was called
because I was busy fighting with everyone on the roadside and that I had
destroyed the windscreens of taxis and cars. What a ridiculous allegation! This
is why I strongly believe he sat with the police and they together wrote the
report. The report is surely not a medical report but a police report. Sadly,
for him and his ilk, a lie cannot be sustained for if he wrote that I was
arrested on the 14th when the SD reference is 12/11/04/08 who cannot
tell that I was arrested on the 11th not 14th. He wanted to portray
an impression that I spent only one day in the police cells.
Dr Onen wrote that on 16/4/08 a psychiatrist saw me and noted I had
two similar previous episodes of this illness in 1993 and 2000 and confirmed
Bipolar Affective Disorder. What an outrageous and inane allegation! On the 16th
April 2008, I never talked to anybody for they had sedated me and people who
came to see me two days or three days later can attest to this. Secondly, I
wish Dr Onen could prove that I had ever been admitted in Butabika.
On 24/4/08, Dr Onen rightly writes that I was taken by friends out
of Butabika although he lies about the reasons for which I was temporarily
released. If they were sure I was mentally deranged, why didn’t they look for
me or why did they let me go without anybody to guarantee I report back? I went back later and Dr Nakku and Mr Juko
started avoiding me having realised the felony they committed against me. In
fact, on the 14/5/08 I wrote a letter to the Executive Director of the Hospital
complaining about Dr Naku and Juko for having illegally admitted and sedated me
in Butabika Hospital after I had ably explained to them that I was tortured,
traumatised and dehumanised in the Police cells. I explained in that letter
that the conduct of Dr Naku and Mr Juko was antithetical to their medical ethics
and called for punitive measures against the duo.
Dr Onen says that the policeman interviewed stated that “I abused
the RDC of Kampala and I was detained on 28/5/08 but after my behaviour in the
cells I was taken to Butabika as I was aggressive and violent, abusive in CPS,
very irritable, very talkative, accusing police of all sorts of things and that
I was not sleeping”.
Did Dr Onen expect me to slumber in the police cells where I was
being subjected to untold suffering and they were to me synonymous with hell?
The RDC of Kampala Ms Alice Muwanguzi found me in the cells on the
29/05/08. I told her all the ordeal I had gone through: illegal detention, no
charges against me, no statement recorded from me, failure to produce me in
court and stealing of my property. The RDC told me, “Nuwagaba, let me go and
order for your release”. Little did I know I was moving from one torture
chamber to another torture chamber but a sophisticated one at that. I had
airtime on my phone and when I contacted my relatives and told them the police
was kidnapping me, that’s when the
police said I was being taken to Butabika.
Dr Onen wrote that he was asked to see me on 5/06/08, virtually two
months after my first detention. If he was not prompted by an ill motive, how
does he conclude I was not tortured? In a typical deplorable manner, he wrote
that I had no torture marks and therefore I was not tortured. The torture marks
were visible, the marks in my neck where they were strangling me were very
clear for everyone to see. But also, the absence of torture marks does not mean
I was not tortured. What I really went through was hell.
The allegation that I told him that the police stole from me 14
million shillings is a figment and hallucination of his own imagination. I have
stated everywhere what the police stole from me; $500, 120,000 shillings, my
shoes, watch and my phone plus 540,000 shs for the first and second time
respectively. I have also reported the loss of my laptop computer, 2 flash
discs, my academic credentials among others. And the prime suspects are the
police who stayed with my keys for all the four days I was in the cells.
Moreover, I spent two weeks without accessing my house.
Dr Onen had no moral authority to write a report about me.
Although I was incensed and exasperated by Dr Onen’s report, it
never surprised me. I was only shocked that for him to buttress his slanted
observation he sank so low as to write what evidently has never happened to me.
It is my firm conviction that his report was as a result of the conspiracy
between him and the police. This is an antithesis of the medical ethics.
Surely, if the institutions were working in this country, Dr Onen would lose
his practicing certificate and earn himself a passport to Luzira. And until
someone proves to me otherwise, I would like to believe that institutions are
functional. I am accordingly contemplating pursuing the matter of Dr Onen with
the medical council. That said, Dr Onen had no moral authority to write about
me because, it is a principle of natural justice that no man can be a judge in
his own case. I complain about Butabika and the police. How then would anyone
expect a consultant in Butabika to incriminate himself and his colleagues?
About the ACTV observations
With all the due respect, I strongly believe that while writing the
report, the ACTV Doctor and Trauma Counsellor, Dr Kyazze and Faith respectively
pandered to the whims of Dr Onen. Otherwise, having got the collateral
information from my parents and relative, they couldn’t have gone ahead to
uphold Dr Onen’s report.
And with due respect, they didn’t distinguish assertiveness from aggressiveness. When it
comes to my rights I am assertive and I have no apology over that. Nonetheless,
I am neither aggressive nor abusive for I was not brought up in that manner. I
like the truth and sometimes the truth hurts people to whom it is told.
On 25/11/2008, I called Faith of ACTV and asked her whether she thought
it prudent to sacrifice her ethical code of conduct by upholding Dr Onen’s
report even after getting information from my family members that I have never
suffered any mental illness. She first asked me if I saw her signature anywhere
I said yes I saw it inside my file. She told me she made her observation basing
on the report from KADIC and Butabika. I told her the Psychiatrist from KADIC
Hospital never reported anywhere that I had a mental illness. She told me the
file is with the police and I must explain how I accessed it otherwise I will
be in trouble. I told her God bless you. This was but a veiled threat.
Truthfully, it is after I brought I report from Butabika that the
position of Faith and Dr Kyazze of ACTV dramatically and radically changed.
They wrote that I was bitter with the report from Butabika. What’s wrong with
that if the report was labelling me what I am not? Would they have failed to
uphold that report if I never commented on it? Did they want me to accept the
malicious and deplorable contents of the report so that I prove that I am not a
person of unsound mind?
By the way, I wouldn’t have any problem with the ACTV Doctor if he
had written what he did but pointed out the inaccuracies in Dr Onen’s report
which I evidently proved to him i.e the date of my arrest where I showed him
the SD Ref of my case which is SD 12/11/04/08. Anybody with the slightest
knowledge of police operations will know that I was arrested on 11/4/08 not on
the 14/4/08 like Dr Onen alleges. His allegation is meant to exonerate the
police who kept me in the police cells for four days in utter infringement of
the law.
It is true Dr Kyazze told me to go back to Butabika and I refused
because of two reasons; I have no mental illness but also to me going to
Butabika would earn me a passport to hell or heaven. I am not about to commit
suicide.
All said, I realised it would be asking for too much to expect ACTV
doctors to incriminate their counterparts in Butabika. I came to this
conclusion after realising how strenuously they defended the report from Dr
Onen even when they were furnished with incontrovertible evidence that the
report was full of factual errors which were confirmed by the SD ref
12/11/04/08 and the collateral history from my relative and family.
How it all started
A woman complained that the conductor of a taxi had cheated her. I
ask the conductor and the driver, why do you always cheat passengers yet many
of them budget for their transport and hence when you cheat them you put them
at a risk. The driver and the conductor began abusing me and when I said no,
your conduct is bad, they got enraged and pushed me out of the taxi. Sadly,
they asked me to pay and I refused for I had not reached my destination. They
roughed me up and threw me in a vehicle. They couldn’t heed calls from other
passengers to leave me. They, together with UTODA people lifted me to CPS. By
the time they reached CPS the driver and conductor told the police that I had
told them that I had a gun. I sadly thought I would be relieved when I reach
CPS but all they did to me was to beat me up and dump me into the dungeon with
some policemen telling me they had finally got me. They told me they had files
against me from high profile people whom they named but in my own view they
were lying to me. I believe these are the people who have been following us
including in public places and they find some of our views unpalatable to them.
They threw me into the dungeon and ordered the inmates to torment
me. The man who took me there told the inmates mumukoleko.
Hell in the police cells
When I reached the police cells, I found many people some of them
too aged and others juvenile. Some told me they had spent three months, others
two months, others three weeks etc. whenever I would talk of getting out soon
they would scoff at me. When I told them I was a human rights activist, many
inmates began calling me to give me their stories. They even got me a pen and
old newspapers where I would write in the margins. Upon learning of that, the
police transferred me to another cell which was a toilet facing Buganda road. I
talked to anybody who would care to listen to me until I got a policeman who accepted
to call Professor John-Jean Barya. Professor Barya came early in the morning of
Sunday 13/4/08. Ironically, his social status as professor of Law not
withstanding, the police blocked him from accessing me. These are the law
enforcement institutions that we have in this country!
After Professor Barya had come to see me, they removed me from the
toilet facing Buganda road for they realised I was now getting into contact
with people outside. They locked me into another toilet inside the dungeon
wherein I couldn’t make noise and anybody comes for my rescue. I spent a night
there and the following day was Monday 14/4/08. it is vital to note that since
they detained me I had not eaten nor drunk anything for they had told me they
would poison me which I thought was possible. So I resolved that I would rather
die of hunger than die of poison. Their purpose was to have me starve to death
as they had totally cut me off from communicating to anybody outside. After
realising that the mission of these people was to have me dead, I used the mug that was inside the toilet and
drew water from the sink and poured it through the ventilators to the police
who were with other inmates. I never did this because I was mad but because I
wanted to be opened for as I was sure I was going to die in the cells.
After doing that they opened for me and put me in another tiny
place. It was littered with faeces and urine and the floor was too painful.
When I stepped there, I yelled too much. I was “helped” by one of the stupid
inmates who were being used by the police to torture me when he poured on me
around a hundred basins of water through the door openings. When he did that he
diluted the acid on the floor. Meanwhile when I was in the cells, they would
pour on me a lot of water and I was freezing always and they almost broke my
arm. They also hit me with a metal bar on the head and the scar is still
visible.
Bruce Balaba and Thomas Tayebwa found me toward midnight after I had
spent four days. Thanks to David Tumusingize who called Tayebwa’s brother
Dennis (David Tumusingize left me in the cells on Monday). Clearly then, you
can realise that the police never made any effort to inform anybody that I was
detained. Was it in order for me to be detained incommunicado?
When Bruce and Tom came for me the following morning on the Tuesday
15/4/08, they were told me unless you are taking him to Butabika, we shall not
release him. Bruce told me that they saw Butabika as a better devil than CPS
because they thought if I had stayed at CPS I would die. Unfortunately, they
could not forecast the danger of subjecting someone to drugs he is not meant
for. Those who found me in Butabika have a tale to tell.
After nine days, I was temporarily discharged for my friends Albert
Ajuna, Moses Khisa and Tusiime Alex had brought me Manchester Uninversity forms
which I had to fill and submit to Kulika Charitable Trust. Of all the reasons I
gave for my release, that is the only one they accepted and I had no reason
whatsoever of going back to hell after I had tactfully left that awful place.
On 28/5/08, I had gone to CPS to make a formal complaint in regard
to my property they stayed with and the one that was stolen from my house in
Ntinda Stretcher next to Naguru Police station. No sooner had I reached the CPS
entrance than the policemen who tortured me started beating me with a stick.
They later pushed me into the dungeon for the second time! They deprived me of
all I had and left me only in my clothes. It was on Thursday 29/05/08 when the
RDC found me in the cells. Why does Onen say I abused the RDC and I was
detained on 28/05/08? I am sure the RDC can attest to this. Incidentally,
before she found me in the cells I never knew her.
Hell in Butabika
While in Butabika, I experienced the worst treatment ever. I developed
scales akin to those of tilapia fish; I developed patches on my body; I was
goose-bumped; and I was swollen. I am sure on the second incident they
discharged me after realising that their mission was accomplished. In their
heart of hearts they must have said, let this go and die elsewhere. If you
could see the ACTV documentary of 26/4/08 two days after I had been discharged,
you can appreciate what I am saying.
Indeed , only three days after I was discharged I was almost dead
and when I went to the hospital it was proved I was dying of the drugs they had
subjected me to. This is contrary to Article 7 of the ICCPR, which quoted
verbatim states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected
without his free consent to medical or experimentation.
What is the implication of declaring sane people persons of unsound mind?
If people are declared persons of unsound mind anyhow, they are
being licensed to commit crimes and go scot-free. As for me, I want to account
for my actions. Whatever I do, I know its implications and I should face the
due process of the law if I break or I am suspected of having broken the law.
During my detention, all the three out of the four non-derogable
rights enshrined in Article 44 of our constitution were violated. I think the
following human rights issues deserve attention in this case;
1)
Right to a fair hearing
2)
Right to freedom from torture,
inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment
3)
The right to the writ of habeas
corpus
4)
Right to liberty
5)
Detention incommunicado, among
other.
CONCLUSION
I had never suffered any mental illness before. If Dr Onen and Dr
Kyazze firmly believe I have a mental illness then it must be a consequence of
the torture the two institutions subjected me to. Hence, the government should
be made to account for the conduct of its institutions. Dr Kyazze states in my
file that I was speaking coherently and consistently although he goes ahead to
state that I was speaking excessively. To me excessive is subjective. I really
had a lot to tell him and a lot to complain about. If it was because of
“excessive” talking that he upheld Dr Onen’s report, let him say so. And I put
excessive in inverted commas. Having a
mental illness is not a crime of the patient for no body applies for it but I
don’t want to hoodwink anyone that I am mentally deranged. No criminal charges
can be brought against a person of unsound mind. For my case, I am a
law-abiding citizen, if there is any criminal activity I have been engaged in I
should be prosecuted and convicted if found guilty. Otherwise, I hold my name
very dear and it should not be destroyed by a stroke of the pen. I have
occasionally made and written statements that are critical to the government in
power but mine is constructive criticism. For example I have written on
corruption (Sunday Monitor, 16th March 2008), on Women (Monitor 24th
March 2008 and Monitor 9th March 2005), on NSSF (Monitor 9th
April 2008). I also write for an online magazine called the African Executive
and I have a number of letters that have been written on issues of governance
and human rights and I have appeared on radio and TV talk shows. Actually,
prior to my arrest I had appeared on UBC with Honourable Bakabulindi. My
concern has always that we need to do what is right. I sincerely don’t like
being alienated although I am from a humble background. I am sure I do have a
contribution to make. But, all said and done I am a true son of the Movement.
My Dad Henry Rukundo is your unwavering cadre. The NRM Chairman of Bitereko
Subcounty in Bushenyi Mr Tito Ntsigaireho was my guardian and I still regard
him as my Dad. Mr Rukundo can be reached on 0772993655 if you want anymore
information about me and Mr Ntsigaireho can be reached on 0392944649/
0772340817. They will surely tell you I am not rebellious but may be I am
hungry. Lastly, Mr Bahimbise Bernard who
presided over my torture should be brought to book so that he can tell exactly
the policemen who tortured me for he knows them because I showed them to him
and I must be sincere I am contemplating revenge in any possible way if my
plight is not heeded to. The only thing I want is a fair hearing. Mr President
the reason I have written to you is because all the other institutions have
failed or deliberately refused to act. I am sure Your Excellency you will use
your good offices to settle this very small matter. I await your kind response.
Vincent Nuwagaba
+256772843552
vnuwagaba@gmail.com
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