Soldier accuses Major of torturing him with red-hot panga, sues government

KAMPALA. Lt John Junior Mware, 37, joined the army in 1999 as an idealist 20 year-old young man after his academic journey at Nakasongola Army Secondary School came to a halt in Senior Two.
Between 1999 and 2000, he was part of the force that crisscrossed the thickets of the DR Congo tracking the Allied Democratic Forces rebels.

In 2012 and 2013, he was deployed to the troubled Somalia to battle the fierce al-Shabaab Islamic militants.
Lt Mware, RO 110950, is now a father of six and deployed to the Military Police, which he joined in 2014,
having served as platoon commander (a task that gave him charge of 42 soldiers) in the 5th Division in the Acholi sub-region, northern Uganda.
But a limping Lt Mware visited Daily Monitor offices a week ago, on rainy day, visibly in pain and seething with emotion and his eyes bursting with fury. He clutched a stack of documents under his armpits.

Joining army
Lt Mware’s story as a soldier starts with a visit President Museveni made to his home village in Kikoni Parish, Ruhaama County in Ntugumo District, to pay homage to Mr Constatine Kabazire, Lt Mware’s paternal grandfather; a man the President knew personally.
As with such visits, the President was led to the grave and afterwards the customary chitchat kicked off. Lt Mware says the President engaged the young men and women in ‘a getto-know you’ session.
It is then that Mr Museveni learnt that Mware had dropped out of school and was a soldier.
He asked what contribution he can make to the young man’s life, prompting Mware to inquire about the possibility of a young officers’ course in one of the country’s military schools.

The President consented and told him: “Go do that course and be disciplined; when you finish we can see what next.” That started Mware on a journey to Kabamba, one of the army’s training facilities.
The President, whose own son, Maj Gen Muhozi Kainerugaba, is an army officer, was glad to lay the cornerstone of young Mware’s career.

The gods of savagery were, however, lying wait, ready to pounce and radically transform Mware’s world view, first about humanity but more importantly, power and the armed forces specifically.
“After seven months of training, I was transferred to 5th Division on a ‘Return To Unit order’. I went to
Acholi to fight Joseph Kony [Lord’s Resistance Army chief],” he shares.
On October 1, 2014, Mware wrote to Mr Museveni and gave his letter to an aide close to the First Son, now Brig Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who delivered the communication. He was called in February 2015 to meet the President. The subject of his communication was a follow-up in respect to their last conversation.At that time Mware worked with the Military Police attached to Luzira Prisons as a backup force for the
Uganda Prisons Service.
He says he approached the officer in charge of B Company, Maj Ramathan Gidudu, who okayed his departure from the detachment so he could meet the Commander-In-Chief. That was on February 2, 2015.
Mware returned to his duty station at 4pm, the meeting with the President having flopped because he was told the President was busy. He was promised to meet the President on another date.

According to the court documents, Mware then went to the bar “to socialise with friends” and possibly take a beer or two.
But he had no idea he was about to experience a terrible nightmare. At midnight, his story goes that “six soldiers came to the bar and called me out and said the OC wanted to see me. They were on phone with him and I could hear him yell orders, “don’t bring that fool as an officer.”

Touch of savagery
That meant, in his interpretation, that his boss was ordering that he be treated with a touch of savagery. The officers, possibly due to a past difference with Lt Mware, were elated at this, their golden chance to treat savagely a man they had always saluted.
“They dragged me on the ground, hit my body with batons, sticks, rained punches and kicks all over the face and chest before tying my hands,” he narrates, stretching his injured limbs in a failed attempt at demonstration.
By morning, Lt Mware had lost his molar tooth on the left side of the jaws with a few other teeth loosely dangling in his dental case.

He had sustained a deep cut on the left side of his head and a nail on the big toe of the right foot was plucked out.
He was eventually delivered to the OC’s office, he says.
“At 4am the OC demanded I be taken to my house to wear army uniform but I refused fearing they wanted to frame me by creating a story. I was returned to the canteen near the OC’s house and tied to a pole,” he tearfully recollects.
But Lt Mware’s tormentors were not done yet. At 6am, he says, the OC walked out of the house with a red hot panga placed on a coil for almost an hour and placed it on his thighs that literally melted the layers of chocolate brown flesh.
He says his children who came out to see him were chased away and his junior colleagues ordered
to lift a 42-inch television set he bought at Shs800,000 from his house. That operation, he says, claimed a watch that cost him $100 in Mogadishu and a Lumia 6 smart phone, which were all taken to the OC’s house.

As Lt Mware battled with the red hot panga burns, he says a Military Police car was called in from Makindye headquarters. At Makindye he was dumped at the quarter guard and two days later dragged to a health centre, at which point he regained his senses and was placed on drip by the medical staff there.
Two days later, he says, he was hauled to the Unit Disciplinary Committee where, lying on a mattress because he was unable to stand up, he was charged with insubordination, drunkenness and arson. Maj Columbus Tumwine chaired the session.
Lt Mware narrates the shock that took the better of him watching army officers try a man literally on his death bed as his now deformed finger and paralysed right hand side give way to pain that sends him gnashing teeth. For one month, he was denied access to family and legal representation. This is one of the grounds of his suit.

“I worked for this army [UPDF] for 18 years and see how I am rewarded. When we fought Kony and ADF whenever we captured prisoners of war we treated them humanely; so if the army can treat its enemies kindly why subject one of its own to this hell even if I erred?” he cries as he caresses the medical documents that give credence to his ordeal.
On February 20, 2015, Lt Mware was taken to the Military hospital in Bombo as he could no longer walk on his own and used stretchers all through, but his condition deteriorated, compelling Dr Edward Kikabi to refer his case to Mulago National Referral Hospital from where he recovered from his injuries.

On March 13, 2015, Lt Mware was granted bail and returned to his duty station residence in Luzira. But it was still not over.
“Five days later, a counter intelligence officer called and ordered me to pack my belongings and be ready to return to Makindye for detention.
There was a tent built under a tree where I was detained and whenever it rained I saw the worst of human suffering,” he says.

His plea to be returned to Zimwe Inn, his earlier detention cell within the Military Police barracks, fell on deaf ears.
In July 2015, the charges against him were dismissed by the Unit Disciplinary Court.
“After beating and deforming me, they went to Somalia where they are now eating rice and chicken as my family suffers. My children have dropped out of school and I live on handouts now,” he says.
The army is yet to take action against Lt Mware’s tormentors, and a voluminous complaint to the Uganda Human Rights Commission is yet to bear fruit.
Mr Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi, a human rights lawyer, is handling the civil suit Lt Mware has lodged against the army officers and the government of Uganda.

Lt Mware only hopes that the civil suit No. 568 of 2016, filed on August 26, 2016, can be heard. It is yet to be cause-listed. In that case he wants remedies from the Attorney General, Col Emmanuel Kanyesigye, Major Ramathan Gidudu, Sergeant Yahaya Byenkya, Cpl Joel Okong, Cpl James Anywar, Cpl Kisule, Private Odur, and Cpl Nzeyimana.
Col Kanyesigye is the commandant of the Military Police Barracks and was in charge at the time Lt Mware was tortured.
The army and defence spokesperson, Lt Col Paddy Ankunda, said the army was aware of Lt Mware’s situation and would handle it, but that since Lt Mware had chosen to take the matter to the courts, the army would not intervene.
Lt Mware awaits justice to be served.