Eyewitness Account: How Police Battled Winnie For Seven Hours!

SOURCE: THE RED PEPPER

Byanyima.

By John V Sserwaniko.

Yesterday Monday morning, Winnie Byanyima woke up towards 6am and left her husband Col Kizza Besigye in bed, rushing to catch an early morning flight to New York where she works with the UNDP as gender affairs Director.

However, her journey was cut short by heavily armed police operatives (in uniformed and plain clothes) who besieged the vehicle a few meters from the gate thinking it was the FDC leader trying to catch up with his walk to work campaign in Kampala.

Martin Kyomuhangi, who is one of Besigye’s chief body guards, was with Winnie Byanyima through out what he described as “a seven hour encounter with police and other security operatives.” Kyomuhangi, who was also among those terribly beaten during Besigye’s earlier arrest outside Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) headquarters in Mulago, spoke to us last night.

The youthful FDC mobilizer reconstructed the day’s events which he says left Eng Winnie Byanyima terribly devastated.

Verbatim

We left Dr. Besigye’s home at exactly 6am and we were four people in that car; Hon Winnie, Mugumya Sam, Fred Kato [the driver] and myself.

Hon woke up early to avoid the Monday jam on Entebbe road, lest she missed her 9am flight.  Sam and Kato sat in front and I flanked her in the back seat. We hadn’t even covered five meters from Dr. Besigye’s gate when several police cars pulled up and blocked us.

They were nine in total including pickups, a van and a small car all of them labeled with police force. To force us to stop, one of the dirty pick up trucks was ordered to block us from infront as four others struggled to block from the back and the sides.

The driver reluctantly halted the car as many soldiers who were hiding in the bushes on the roadside emerged from all directions with their guns. They began coaching their guns pointing at us, perhaps in an effort to force us out of the car.

Hon Winnie told the driver to stop the car and when she saw some of them charging towards us with huge stones trying to forcefully open the car, she told Kato the driver to lock all the doors.

We quietly sat in the car as the men surrounded it peeping from all directions to confirm if Dr. Besigye was in.

They clearly saw it was Winnie but the other person sitting besides her remained a puzzle. It’s a car with tinted glass and that could have made it difficult for them to tell whether it was doctor or not.

On failing to forcefully open the car from all directions, they began making frantic phone calls and within no time, they were joined by the military trucks which lined up the entire stretch linking to Gayaza high way.

The military too failed to forcefully open the car. They tried pushing it into the valley but they failed.

Confident that there were no media cameras in the vicinity, they did a lot of nasty things around the car but they weren’t successful. After about 40 minutes of trying in vain, they realized it was becoming brighter.

The sun was beginning to rise and people were passing around, the other side going to their work. This prompted them to put an emergency road block, trying to scan whoever passes around and moving in the direction of Besigye’s home.

Hon learnt later that this how journalists, who were coming to cover Besigye’s usual walk to work protests of Monday, were blocked from reaching where we were being tormented from. At some point we saw a photojournalist arriving on the scene, from a distance.

He was walking on foot; I didn’t know him and as soon as he begun recording the scenes from the far distance, the military descended on him and beat him up. His camera was destroyed, the batteries were removed and he was dragged away in the direction of the main road.

However, a white journalist came later and wasn’t treated the same way though he wasn’t allowed to get near us but we saw him record things from a distance.

His curiosity forced them to send for a break down which chained our car and linked it up and we were towed to Kasangatti police station.

The men tormenting us were in the company of Ruhweza, the DPC of Kiira road police station. I think he was the over all man in the operation.  On identifying we were now at police, Hon Winnie allowed Kato to open the car and we came out.

We were made to stand there for 20 minutes as the operatives checked the car, turning everything upside down to be sure Dr. Besigye wasn’t in.

After Hon Winnie was seen making endless phone calls, area DPC Mukite got concerned and then told us he had no problem with us and that we were free to return home.

Hon Winnie commended him for being a very professional man. He told us that as far as he was concerned we weren’t under any arrest.

We tried to proceed to Kampala for the Honorable to catch her flight but it wasn’t possible as we discovered, through Hon Sam Njuba, that  two other road blocks/checking points had been erected between Kasangatti and Wampeewo.

Hon said we drive back home but even here we found two check points. The soldiers told us they were conducting an operation around Dr. Besigye’s house.

Hon challenged the security operatives to officially tell the world if her husband was under house arrest. They told us they didn’t know but had orders to check all cars and pedestrians moving to and from the direction of the home.

We were eventually asked to leave the car at one of the check points near the home and only Kato was detained behind us with the vehicle.

After we had walked for about 10 meters one of the officers said that it was a mistake because Honorable was a UN diplomat with some status and immunity.

We were then asked to walk back to the car and drive into the compound which we did.  Honorable looked very disturbed and physically exhausted with this encounter.

It was coming to mid day and she said the flight wasn’t possible. She told us she wanted to demand for an explanation from government about the whole ordeal.

I was stopped several times to leave Kasangatti by police until Hon Njuba carried me in his car but we found many check points through the journey.

The military was desperate to catch Dr. Besigye whom they said was planning to disguise himself and sneak into Kampala to cause chaos from there. I realize these check points wasted time for many innocent travelers with nothing to do with Besigye.

Hon Njuba told me that he thinks the security could have been misled by media reports about Dr. Besigye’s alleged plans to drive to Kisekka market to repair his car and to Owino market to buy second hand clothes.

This was all false because Doctor wasn’t well enough to walk to work today but they didn’t have that information that he had no plans for today.

As an FDC youth leader, I demand that government officially owns up the house arrest which has been slammed around Dr. Besigye’s home and farm. His animals are also under this house arrest as their movements are restricted.