SMOOTH ESCAPE: Satirical Novelist Kakwenza Arrives In Malawi, Set For Europe Any Moment

By PATRICK JARAMOGI

LILONGWE, Malawi [SHIFTMEDIA NEWS] As we write this, Satirical novelist Kakwenza Rukiribashaija who is in Malawi will be jetting out any moment to Europe where he will among others seek specialized treatment for alleged torture inflicted on him by state and security operatives.

Kakwenza Rukirabashaija  who was tortured for over a month before he was remanded at Kitalya prison for offensive communication fled the country by road through Rwanda. His efforts to get his passport held by court were futile prompting him do the Dr. Kizza Besigye gig.

His escape is similar to the way former presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye, fled his Kasangati home on 17 August and arrived in the US via South Africa on Friday 24 August.

According to his lawyer, Eron Kiiza, Kakwenza traveled to Rwanda before flying to Malawi. ”He (Kakwenza) might be in Malawi now but he is moving, he is on the move. He will be leaving Malawi any moment to Europe,” said counsel Eron.

Eron told the Associated Press –  “Conditions had become impossible for him,” he said of Rukirabashaija. “They kept surveilling him. They took away his passport. He had no option but to go and save his life.”

Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, an internationally acclaimed writer, was released from jail in late January after being arrested in late December for communications offences related to a series of tweets he posted about President Yoweri Museveni and his son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba  the Commander Land Forces.

 

Police spokesman Fred Enanga said he could not comment on Rukirabashaija’s matter since it was in court.

The novelist, who last year won the PEN Pinter Prize for international writers of courage, is best-known for    ”Greedy-Barbarian-”, a novel about corruption in a fictional country widely interpreted as a satire on Museveni.

Rukirabashaija alleged that he was tortured by officials while in detention, and photographs of his mutilated back (below) shocked many in the East African country.

“They started using a pair of pliers and plucked flesh from my thighs and everywhere,” Rukirabashaija said in an account to the local  Daily Monitor  newspaper.

“That day I thought I was dying and thought of denouncing my Ugandan citizenship.”

Chief magistrate Douglas Singiza had refused to relax Rukirabashaija’s bail conditions, which included a hold on his passport and an order not to speak to journalists.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Rukirabashaija addressed Singiza as a “bespectacled pigheaded magistrate”, writing: “You’re a disgrace! Now, put my passport in the dock and try it. I won’t face you again”.

 

Rukirabashaija was kept incommunicado for much of the time he was held in a detention facility, Kiiza said previously, and only appeared in court after widespread domestic and international pressure, including from the United States and the European Union.

 

Muhoozi remarks garners attacks

After reports emerged that the novelist had fled Uganda through Rwanda something unbelievable,  the First Son and Commander Land Forces Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba

took to his twitter pages when he denied knowledge of the ‘young man’. His remarks below has attracted scathing attacks from scores of Ugandans and others in the diaspora.

 

 

The European Union Delegation to Uganda on Monday issued a statement expressing concern over “a situation that for more than a year has seen a significant increase of reports of torture, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, harassment” and other attacks.

Security chiefs meet over Kakwenza

Highly placed intelligence sources revealed to this investigative website as top security chiefs from Internal_Security Organisation (ISO), Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, the Uganda Police 

The Uganda Peoples Defence Forces and External Security Organisation (ESO) were locked up in a crisis meeting regarding ascertaining how the tightly surveilled Kakwenza beat security and escaped.

Our efforts to get a comment from Security Minister Gen. Jim Muhwezi were futile. Similarly the frantic efforts to get The Chief of Defence Forces Gen Wilson Mbadi hit a dead end.