Part III: Dr. Kiyingi's version of Museveni's 118 assassins

Some historians chronicled that Nero played a fiddle while Rome burned in the great fire of 64 A.D. Even though Nero rebuilt Rome after the fire, it was widely believed that Nero himself had contrived the conflagration. The accusation stuck and he was never forgiven. It seemed in keeping with the Emperor's general indifference to the lives and concerns of his ordinary subjects.

Newscast Media HOUSTON, Texas—When people in power ignore the cries of the citizenry over whom they rule, they are burning the very bridges they might need to cross, were an uprising by the oppressed to occur.

The Roman world was filled with such indifferent leaders, but the senators knew that no matter how docile the people of Rome appeared, they could depose a ruler who took his fanaticism of oppression and indifference too far.

After the great fire of Rome during the reign of the mad Emperor Nero, hostile factions in Rome started agitating openly against him, and in 68 A.D. the Senate voted and declared Nero a "public enemy".

Realizing his end was inevitable, Nero fled Rome because he had burned his bridges. As the Praetorian guardsmen closed in on him, not wanting to die at their hands, Nero asked his secretary Epaphroditos to deliver the final blow. He died as he had lived, a man of great pretensions: his last words were, "What an artist dies in me!"

In Part I of this series, we looked at the Emperor Marcus Aurelius who loathed the idea of his son Lucius Commodus ascending to the throne, and instead wanted a different person to replace him as Emperor.

Rome had become fed up of the privileged Commodus due to his extravagance, manias and shame he was bringing on the Republic. On December 31, 192 A.D. his mistress Marcia and his most trusted advisers Eclectus his chamberlain, and Aemilius Laetus the new Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, advised him to stop being an embarrassment to Rome. Commodus became furious and added all three names to his death list. Marcia discovered the list and told the other two Romans about her discovery. All three unanimously agreed to the fate of Commodus.

As they were standing outside the Emperor's bed chamber, while the Emperor took a bath, his fitness coach Narcissus entered the premises. They promised him great rewards if he would finish off Commodus. Narcissus strangled the Emperor to death and it was declared, "The curse of Rome has lifted."

The Senators, upon receiving the news of the Emperor's death, felt they had been cheated of revenge. The Senate then declared a damnatio memoriae (damnation of the memory) upon the dead Emperor. Every picture, every statue, every item that reminded the Romans of Lucius Commodus was destroyed or burned, in order to erase vestiges of his tyrannical rule from the memory of the Romans. (Michael Kerrigan, A Dark History: The Roman Emperors, pp. 179-183).

Kiyingi has publicly stated that Museveni is using oppressive tactics against him and his supporters. He named two volunteers who were arrested for distributing business cards with Kiyingi's name on it: Assadu Semogerere whom Kiyingi alleges was falsely imprisoned, and Ayisha Nakasibante, who is currently locked up in a maximum prison because she reportedly refused to sign documents accusing Kiyingi of being a terrorist.

As for Kiyingi himself, he characterizes Museveni as a bully for not allowing him to go back to Uganda in February, and also said that when the government learned that Kiyingi planned to return in June 2015, a "death squad" was dispatched to finish off Kiyingi and prevent him from running for president.

"My inside sources have alerted me that a death squad of 75 hitmen was sent to Kenya, and 43 to Tanzania with orders to kill Kiyingi," he told his radio audience.

Museveni begs to differ about being characterized as a bully. Instead, he says that it is him (Museveni) who is being bullied by his detractors and opponents.

"If anybody has been bullied, it is me," Museveni said in his Waldorf Astoria hotel suite, in an Associated Press interview published by Yahoo News.

In regard to whether people are free in Uganda, Museveni's answer served as a double compliment for him in the public relations arena, since it implied that the citizenry within, and the citizenry without the country (for example Kiyingi) are enjoying unprecedented freedom, therefore Ugandan freedom is abundant with no hindrances.

Museveni told Rodney Muhumuza and Nigeria's Michelle Faul that the freedom is so incredible, "so much freedom that it is almost a problem in itself."

However, Museveni betrayed himself when in that same interview he revealed that it is his National Resistance Movement (NRM) party that decides who becomes president.

"The future of the presidency depends on what the ruling party wants," Museveni said.

One of the true marks of freedom within a nation is whether it has an independent judiciary. We have to turn to legal documents to find out if the Ugandan judicial system enjoys the freedom Museveni brags about.

In 2007, former presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye faced similar charges from Museveni to the ones Kiyingi is facing. Besigye sued the Ugandan government seeking an order from the Court declaring the charges brought against him and his colleagues contravened the Constitution, and a permanent restraining order against the state from pursuing false terrorism, murder and treason charges against him and other petitioners.

Earlier in November 2005, Museveni's armed men known as Black Mambas, had held the Court under siege in what was condemned by the chief judge of the High Court, Principal Judge of Uganda Justice James Ogoola, as “a despicable act” and a “rape of the judiciary.”

The siege happened because the government was not pleased with the court's ruling in both instances. In his book Songs of Paradise the Honorable Ogola in Chapter 42 entitled "The Rape of The Temple" penned the following lines about the "Black Mambas":

"1. From thin air they came, bedecked in black camouflage. Like a swarm of angry wasps, the Praetorian Guard descended on holy ground their ferocious fangs unfurled, their vicious sting darting – ready to strike.

2. Warlike, they came; wearing; the bellicose face of terror, the malevolent mask of horror. Wildlike, they charged; wielding awesome weapons of war; AK-47s cocked, ready to discharge the crackling cartridge; Uzi guns waving ominously in the air, ready to vomit their lethal venom.

3. With wrath and fury, they came: their hapless prey to snatch. They laid siege to the fortress of justice. Like warmongers, they darted here and they darted there: their prey to seize and abduct. They turned the Temple of serenity into a theatre of war. They transformed the Shrine of refuge, into a treacherous den of vipers! The prisoner on trial, seeking justice from the Temple, they sought to pick and to pluck from the very arms of the goddess of the Temple.

4. The goddess, blindfolded and balancing the scales of justice in her hands stood still, holding her breath, stunned, horrified. Gripped in grief and disbelief, at the invaders’ heretical effrontery, the goddess was heard to lament in torment; ‘It is abominable! This is sacrilege! To strip me thus before my own family, to expose my bare nakedness before my own flock!” Like mystic monks in mourning, dressed in black gowns. The Temple scribes stood, distressed. Their heads, begarbed in grey wigs, they shook in anguish. From their numbed lips, a gasp of moaning issued forth: bewailing the disgrace! Bemoaning the debauchery! Be crying the desecration!

5. Obvious to the sanctity of the Temple, blind to the Congregation’s reverence for the purity of the shrine, the serpentine reptiles plunge into a frenzied rampage. Obstinate, the swaggering warlords trample unholy boots on holy ground. With guns ready to rumble, they go on the Rambo.

6. Straight for the goddess they dash, into the inner sanctum of the Shrine. Discarding all discretion to the four winds, they charge: menacingly, disgracefully they strip her- like a harlot in a harem; unshamefacedly, unfeelingly, they prostrate her – like a common prostitute.

7. There, in broad daylight; there under the wide open skies with high heaven looking on – The Black Mambas commit abominable iniquity, with abnormal impunity. There, in spite of the Congregation of an august Assembly of visiting Ambassadors; learned Advocates; the Accused; their Accomplices; the Temple’s own administrators; and the elect members of the Tribe’s Supreme Council of Meditation – there, under the very eye of the High Priest himself duly seated on the Judgment Seat – the Black Mambas commit the vile deed: the abomination of desolation!

8. Such unutterable trespass, such unrequited transgression had not been seen before – not since the sacrilegious execution of the Chief Priest, Kiwanuka He was snatched, hauled and carted away from this very shrine. Like a common thief, the infidels of the military ilk dragged him.. From the sanctum of the shrine, to the place of the skull, they led him. There, in the slaughterhouse, in the hall of the holocaust, they butchered and quartered him: a martyr for judicial independence!

9. In no other shrine: anywhere, anytime – was ever so callous a calamity committed. Not on this side of the Equator; nor on the other. Not in these times; nor in earlier ones – indeed, not since the Age of Darkness. The more the pity, to see horrific history re-enacted!

10. In the aftermath of the vile defilement of the goddess, the voice of one, a sage and a knight brave, from the high priesthood of the Temple, broke forth, shattering the still silence. In anguished rumination, in righteous rage, the shrill voice rung out: “The Rape of the Temple! What a day! A fateful day of woe! A day of infamy!’"

Represented by attorney Mr. F.K. Mpanga (Esq), the retired Colonel Dr. Besigye won his freedom because the courts wanted to send Museveni a clear message that they would not tolerate his continuous contempt of the courts and judicial officers.

On October 12, 2010, Justices Hon. Justice A.E.N. Mpagi-Bahigeine, Hon. Justice S.G. Engwau, Hon. Justice A. Twinomujuni, Hon. Justice C.K. Byamugisha and Hon. Justice A.S. Nshimye, all of whom (with the exception S.G. Engwau) are from Museveni's very own tribe, issued this unanimous ruling against Museveni and his government:

While Museveni jokes with the media that freedom is so abundant it is becoming a problem, the common man, the peasant, the oppressed, the evicted landowners, the falsely accused and dying patients, are receiving the short end of the bargain—much in the same way Romans never forgave Nero and eventually drove him out of power for playing the fiddle while Rome was burning, and acting with indifference toward the common man's problems, as shown in the picture above.

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