Who caned Kisekka market traders?

Jul 03, 2009

THE number of men willing to be mobilised at short notice to control unruly crowds, including rioters, is growing. According to <i>Saturday Vision’</i>s investigations, there are at least five Kampala-based groups of strong men trained to control crowds

By Chris Kiwawulo

THE number of men willing to be mobilised at short notice to control unruly crowds, including rioters, is growing.

According to Saturday Vision’s investigations, there are at least five Kampala-based groups of strong men trained to control crowds without using fire arms. Three are registered with the Ugandan Police as unarmed private security firms.

The other two are loose groups of muscled men, one attached to the Uganda Taxi Operators and Drivers’ Association (UTODA) and the other based at Arua Park.

Whereas the registered groups are independent of the Government, they are sometimes seen operating alongside the Police.

Some of the groups have been linked to the so-called Kiboko squad that first emerged during the April 2007 demonstration against the give-away of part of Mabira forest for sugarcane growing. They were seen again recently, during the demonstration at Kisekka Market, when market vendors protested the delay in leasing the market to them.

Muscled UTODA youth were seen clobbering the demonstrators who had entered the New Taxi Park, preventing them from turning it into a scene of rioters.

However, UTODA chief John Ndyomugyenyi denied that they were part of the Kiboko squad. He said the UTODA youths were only protecting their business.

“Whenever there is a riot in Kampala, some people join it with hidden motives. Others take advantage of the confusion to steal,” he said.

“Those people who accuse our boys of being in the Kiboko squad are politicking. We simply discipline whoever comes to distabilise our operations during riots.”

But the acts of the muscled men nearly turned into a protracted war as the Kisekka Market vendors planned a revenge attack on the taxi operators. It took the intervention of the Kampala Resident District Commissioner Alice Muwanguzi, to ease tensions.

Muwanguzi called a meeting, which was also attended by the Police, and the two warring parties reconciled, according to Police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba.
During the same demonstration, scores of youth from Arua Park, carrying sticks and stones and speaking Swahili, followed the riot Police. However, the Police only allowed them to put out fires set by the rioters on Kyaggwe Road near Hotel Equatoria.

Another group of youths approached one of the commanding officers at the riot and requested for sticks, saying he had 120 volunteers whom he could swiftly mobilise to clear the streets.
The group was led by an unidentified man carrying a black travellers’ bag on his back and wearing light blue baggy jeans. Witnesses say Stephen Tanui, the Central Police Station chief, told the unidentified man that the Police had already contained the situation.

One of the muscled men seen at both the Kisekka market riot and the Mabira demonstration is Dixon Okello. Although he denies any involvement with the Kiboko squad, he was photographed seemingly commanding the men who were caning the Mabira rioters.
“I am just a patriotic Ugandan who loves peace. I work with many security companies which I help to mobilise and oversee security at events,” he told Saturday Vision..

Okello, a freelance operative, is sometimes hired by Uganda Peace Cops, a registered, unarmed, private security firm, to control crowds at functions.

The firm’s boss, David Katana, explained that his company is often hired to control crowds, such as during music shows. At such events, they are sometimes deployed alongside the Police. “But we do not quell riots. I do not know where the Kiboko people come from and who commands them.” Katana explained that his boys, who underwent training in physical fitness, boxing and martial arts, often arrest suspected criminals at events and hand them over to the Police. To qualify for the job, he explained, one must have a sports background and be physically strong.

“We then screen them to weed out wrong elements before Police vets them.” His men train in different gymnasiums and live in different places but are called when there is work to do, Katana said, adding that he has no control over what they do when they are not on duty at his company.

Katana’s concern, however, is that whereas the registered groups operate within set guidelines and file quarterly reports to the Police, unregistered groups like UTODA’s could easily be abused.

At the height of the Kiboko squad talk in 2007, President Yoweri Museveni said they were a vigilante group who were tired of unnecessary chaos in the city. Though he denied ordering the group’s creation, the President approved of their activities.

Kyaddondo South MP Issa Kikungwe said those who beat others should not think they have monopoly over kiboko. “We in the opposition have the capacity to mobilise people with kiboko even better than those you see and at no cost.”

He added that kiboko groups are unnecessary, adding that there would be chaos in the event that every political party organised a squad. He said the presence of kiboko-wielding men was an indication that those without such groups may not be able to win any election come 2011.

In an open letter to the President dated April 27, 2009, the People’s Progressive Party president Jaberi Bidandi Ssali warned of chaos if the kiboko squads continued operating.

“You might have equipped the army, militarised the police and the civil service and misused the poor peasants’ children by training them into kiboko squads to beat the very people you are mandated to protect, but the price in human blood and subsequent skulls could be much more than the country has seen before,” he wrote.

The Police have denied any links with the Kiboko squad. “The situation was beyond my control. I saw about 20 people holding sticks and beating up people on the street before they quickly disappeared,” Edward Ochom, who was the Kampala extra regional Police chief at the time told Parliament last year. This was after the Mabira riot.

He said he could not arrest the group because it took him by surprise. He added that the Police did not want to be diverted from the chaos on other streets of Kampala where people were demonstrating.


“I don’t know the origin of the Kiboko squad but I told the CID (Criminal Investigations Directorate) to investigate the matter,” he said. Consequently, on April 23, 2007, the Police’s policy and advisory committee appointed a committee to investigate the matter. A report was handed over to the Inspector General of Police, Kale Kayihura, but its findings have never been made public.

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