Mujuni Raymond
I’d always passionately covered the tensions in Rwenzururu from my earlier days at Uganda Radio Network. I in fact won a grant from ACME Uganda to investigate the land conflicts there and during that story, I could tell there were deep-seated grievances between the kingdom and government.
Key among these was that Kasese which was the capital of the Rwenzururu kingdom despite being the most populated district outside of the capital had some of the worst indicators on education, health, roads etc.
There was also a historical injustice which had been meted out onto Rwenzuru, nearly 65% of all its arable land was taken by the government as game reserves and another 10% was taken for cotton production. It made population density heavy and conflict inevitable.
When first an attack was conducted on Kanyamwirima barracks is when Kasese got noticed as an area of potential conflict.
When I joined NTV, one of the first investigative documentaries Williams Kato commissioned myself and Abubakar Zirabamuzale to do was on the killings during the 2016 elections and you can watch that here
I remember when we’d finished this story and put out this promo
Security agencies sought to stop the story but we manoeuvred and ran it nonetheless.
So one afternoon as Julius Ssenkandwa and I were getting to Fort Portal to do a ‘District Edition’ episode, a source inside the Kingdom tells us ‘their people’ are being shot by the army in the mountains. We consulted our editors and they cautioned on following the story but okayed us
The next day, we were sent bulletproof vests and helmets as we made calls to find out where to start from. We resolved to do the one thing that each journalist does; go to the story.
We went up the mountains and filmed with Royal guards. We were extremely lucky that day because Julius Ssenkandwa said we should return to town and file a story. On our way back, our car was intercepted. The army had been surveilling and stopped us.
Our rule of thumb after each filming was always to remove the card with the videos and put it in a sock. Paid off. We told the soldiers we were heading to film in town.
That evening a face-off between the Royal guards & army happened. Two soldiers were injured, one royal guard was captured. No deaths were reported.
We quickly knew that we were dealing with a complex story. The next day, we went to film at the palace and did interviews then asked the police for comment. After our story ran in the evening a key source called to let us know we’d be in problems if we spent our night in the town
We retreated to Fort, spent the night at home and the next morning set off for Kasese.
On the morning of the deadly attack, we were getting conflicting info. UPDF’s Elwelu was telling us there would be a presser at the palace. Another source was telling us the king was going to be arrested.
We were at Late Kazini’s hotel. We decided we would skip the presser and keep our eyes on the palace.
When the initial shootout started, we weren’t prepared at all. Our jackets were at the back of the car. We had a camera in the front seat. The car was running in idle. We scampered first then regrouped.
I got the bulletproof jackets as Julius Ssenkandwa kept the film running. The bullets were really close. So close they bounced off a fence we were ducking near.
We debated how to handle the footage! Release it and face arrest or drive to Kampala and release it from the offices. Nicholas Opiyo [God bless him] offered to keep the first copy of a drive on which it was. That night, the country rolled in shock at the images we’d filmed
Bodies were everywhere in the palace, there was a stench of death. The army was PISSED at us. The hostility was clear. But we weren’t going to back down
I remember we resolved to remain and tell stories of families from which the Royal guards came. They were painful stories.
After six days, I was sick of it all. I asked to be withdrawn from the field. Friends had been arrested, we were literally playing ping pong with death, there was hostility from both the army and the kingdom.
I remain firmly in belief that we’d never have known the scale of atrocities if our team hadn’t insisted on telling that story. We lost sources, friends but we told the story
The lesson to journalists in here is that you should never compromise on public interest. You should always use your access to benefit public interest
Also, in conflict reporting there are more than two sides to a story. Pursue all of them!
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