DP calls for independent probe on Rwenzori killings

By Andrew Ssenyonga and Nicholas Wassajja 

THE Democratic Party (DP) has appealed to Government to institute an independent commission of inquiry to investigate and come out with a detailed report of what happened in the Rwenzori region.

The party Secretary General Mathias Nsubuga said that the public wants to know what prompted the killings and the attacks on the government security agencies.

“We saw dreadful stories in local dailies that people were buried in one mass grave. We want to know who did that and the reason for that action,” Nsubuga said.

This comes after media reported last week that residents and local officials in Bundibugyo District believed that people were secretly buried in each of the mass graves following the simultaneous attacks in the region.

Residents claimed one of the graves had 14 bodies, while another had 25.

On July 5 there were attacks in Rwenzori Region in Western Uganda that claimed lives in Bundibugyo, Ntoroko and Kasese districts.

He asked, “Why does government keep on giving false information that the attacks were tribal conflicts yet the mass killings happened only on a single tribe?”

Speaking during the party’s weekly press conference at their headquarters on Tuesday in Kampala, Nsubuga said that they have information that it was only the Bakonzo who were killed.

“When people say that these were tribal conflicts, they are wrong. For we have evidence that there was no single Mwamba killed during that saga. Why can only one side lose people during a scuffle?” he asked.

He said an independent commission should be able to come up with the cause and reason for the killings and why one side.