Lt Col Paddy Ankunda, the army spokesman, suggested yesterday that Gen David Sejusa, the former coordinator of the intelligence services, had fled the country again.
This writer had called Ankunda to respond to a dossier posted on one of Sejusa’s Facebook pages on November 29, in which he described last week’s clashes and death of at least 60 people as extra-ju- dicial killings by the army.
Before he could respond to our specific query, Ankunda quipped: “You mean you don’t know that Sejusa left the county? Okay, even if he is around, tell him to answer that question first.”
Ankunda further said, “Advise Sejusa to come back home” and answer for some of the killings in northern Uganda in the early 1990s when he commanded the offensive [against Joseph Kony’s LRA] there.
“Ask him to come back home and answer for what some of the people of northern Uganda call extra-judicial killing during the LRA insurgency,” Ankunda added.
The army spokesman, however, declined to reveal where or when Sejusa had fled. It has been a while since Gen Sejusa made a public appearance. Some recent reports had suggested that he was under house arrest after his home was surrounded by soldiers. Other reports said he had retreated to his farm in Sembabule district.
But his lawyer, David Mushabe, insisted that Sejusa was in the country.
“General Sejusa is at his Naguru residence. I was last with Sejusa last week when we were planning an introduction ceremony for his daughter, which is due very soon. How could he prepare the ceremony when he is out of the country?” Mushabe asked.
Mushabe further said his client would sue government and its agents for alleging that he oversaw extra-judicial killings in northern Uganda when he commanded the war against LRA.
“I only pray that Ankunda doesn’t deny it [remark linking Sejusa to killings in northern Uganda] because we intend to sue him and the attorney general. We are going after them because the more you keep quiet about their lies, the more they parade them,” he said.
Another close associate of Sejusa, Francis Matovu alias Bbutto, told us yesterday that the general is in Uganda doing his work.
Nevertheless, when this writer tried to reach Sejusa by telephone and short phone messages (SMS), he didn’t respond. Sejusa fled to the United Kingdom in 2013 after he authored a letter claiming there was a plot to eliminate senior government officials opposed to a plan to have Brig Kainerugaba Muhoozi succeed his fa- ther, President Museveni.
After reportedly reaching an agreement with the government, Sejusa returned to the country in December 2014 but remained an avid critic of President Museveni.
Early this year, he was arrested and charged with insubordination and participating in partisan politics yet he was still a serving soldier. Meanwhile, the army re- fuses to let him retire.
Sejusa has reacted by suing the government, insisting that he is being kept in the army against his will. In April, the High court ruled that Sejusa was free to leave the army but the government has appealed against the decision.
The state has also prosecuted several soldiers formerly associated with Sejusa, accusing them of attempting to overthrow the NRM government.
Sejusa first tried to leave the army in 1996 after falling out with the establishment he helped create as one of the top NRA guerrilla commanders in the 1980s.
After the army leadership declined to let him go, he went to the Constitutional court and won the case only for the Supreme court to overturn his short-lived retirement.
Gen Sejusa later rejoined the government and served as its coordinator of intelligence services, until 2013 when he fled to the UK.
THE MISSIVE
In his dossier titled, Kasese massacres, Sejusa warns that nobody has a right to carry out extra-judicial killing of the people.
Sejusa states: “The confusion of the Ugandan elite is just amazing. From political leaders, religious or other category of leaders, no one is addressing the fundamental question.
That is: does a government have a right to murder citizens, i.e. carry out extra-judicial killings of the people, let alone with the arrogance and impunity as exhibited in Kasese, and indeed other parts of Uganda as we are seeing regularly now?”
Sejusa writes that instead of leaders talking about the so-called causes of instability in Kasese, calling for inquiries into causes, the population must demand for an end to these extra-judicial killings by the regime.
“No cause or reason permits a government to use illegal force and callously kill innocent people, women, children and prisoners. The other issues can be negotiated but not blatant murders of our people by those supposed to protect them,” the dossier reads in part.
He notes that the other issue is lack of understanding by the political class of the magnitude of this problem. He alleges that after the clashes in Kasese, Museveni intends “to advance his agenda of outflanking any opposition which might crop up after these massacres”.
“This he wants to do by bringing on board South Africa and other SADC countries that helped defeat M23 from DR Congo to intervene from DRC. That’s why he perhaps went with Gen Katumba Wamala,” he writes.
Wamala did not pick his phone when The Observer tried to contact him yesterday. Sejusa advises political and other serious leaders to stop wasting time with irrelevancies and go out there to help stop the growing impunity of the regime.
“A president must not be helped by regional countries to murder its citizens. Instead, hard questions must be asked by these leaders as to the conduct of government in killing and dehumanizing of our people.This cannot be done when opposition leaders don’t explain these issues to the regional leaders and instead allow Mr Museveni to go on misinforming the world and forging regional alliances to murder and en- slave our people,” Sejusa writes.
He contends that Museveni wanted to use the Omusinga Charles Mumbere, the detained Rwenzururu king, as an example to intimidate other elements in the country that are bent on challenging him.
He finally calls upon Ugandans, especially those entrusted with responsibilities to lead, “to wake up, leave small issues to the party bureaucrats and confront this crazy regime which strips mothers and kills children.”
slubwama@observer.ug