Detained Kyadondo East MP, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine requires urgent specialized medical care preferably abroad, says an adhoc Parliament Committee report on the plight of MPs and other suspects who were brutally arrested and detained by security forces in the run up to the Arua Municipality by-elections of 15th August 2018.
“The Committee therefore recommends that Rt. Hon. Speaker of
Parliament takes it upon herself to liaise with the President and other relevant authorities to enable Hon. Kgagulanyi Robert Ssentannu be referred outside the Makindge Military barracks for better medical management. Any meaningful trial of Hon. Kyagulanyi can only happen if his right to life and health is respected by the State,” says the report obtained by Business Focus.
It should be noted that on the 15th day of August 2018, the Parliament of Uganda resolved to constitute an adhoc Committee to ascertain the condition of the Members of Parliament and other people with whom they were arrested on the eve of the by-election in Arua municipality.
The report was meant to be tabled before Parliament yesterday but the Committee Chairperson, Doreen Amule said it wasn’t ready, a thing that shocked other Committee members who accused her of being compromised.
Other members including Medard Lubega Ssegona, Bernard Atiku, Allan Ssewanyana, Andrew Aja Baryayanga and Jovah Kamateeke appended signatures to the report except the Chairperson.
The reports adds that Bobi Wine informed the Committee that he feels pain all over his body and was only surviving on pain killing injections.
“The left side of his abdomen is visibly painful and the wounds on his head are sti1l visible. He complains of chest pain and says his teeth were loosened by the beating he suffered at the hands of the men clad in uniforms of the Special Forces Command (SFC),” the report says, adding: “His plea to the Committee was the need to save his life. As earlier noted, the Committee was ultimately allowed access to Hon. Kyagulanyi Robert Ssentamu in detention at Makindye military barracks on Monday, 20th August 2018. His physical condition remained worrying. His left lower body was paralyzed, he spoke and breathed with difficulty often breaking to catch his breath. He sat with difficulty and could not move his body by himself. However, he was able to speak albeit with difficulty.”
The report says he narrated the circumstances of his arrest in his hotel room in Arua informing the Committee that;
“Upon breaking into his room, the men clad in uniforms of the Special
Forces Command (SFC) found him kneeling on the floor with his hands up in surrender but went ahead to hit his head with a blunt object that he suspects to be an iron bar that had been used to break the door of his hotel room. Thereafter he was severely beaten with gun butts and other objects he had no knowledge of.”
“Both his legs and hands were chained. He was later wrapped in a blanket and driven off to an unknown location as the beating continued.
His testicles were squeezed so hard that at the time the Committee visited him at Makindye military barracks, he informed the Committee that one of his testicles smashed beyond existence. He could no longer locate it within his scrotum.
He was later dumped at a room, which he suspects was at the Arua airfield where he was later airlifted to Gulu Military barracks. His clothes were soaked in blood as a result of the horrendous beating he suffered.
Removing his clothes later whilst at Gulu Military barracks involved tearing them off as they had stuck onto his wounds. He showed the Committee some of the scars on his body,” it adds.
The Committee did not find any evidence that the situation in Arua was beyond the ability and capacity of the Uganda Police Force and therefore finds the recourse to brute force by the military against civilians not only disproportionate but also inhumane.
“The Military and other errant State functionaries that
complicit in violating the law and eroding human rights dignity should account for their actions,” the report recommends.
