The mysterious detention of Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye during a visit to Kenya almost two weeks ago has sparked widespread condemnation and fears of a clandestine intelligence exchange between the two neighboring countries.
Besigye’s allies and wife have revealed harrowing details of how the opposition chief was apparently lured to meet his captors, who are said to have disguised themselves as Kenyan security agents.
According to reports, he was spied on from the moment he boarded a plane at Entebbe airport in Uganda to the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where he was captured before somehow being taken to a military court in own country was transferred.
While Kenya insists it played no role and is investigating the incident, Uganda claims Kenya was fully aware of the plan, citing intelligence correspondence aimed at tracking down Besigye.
As he is about to return to the military court in Kampala, we gather what we know so far.
Who is Kizza Besigye?
Besigye has contested and lost four presidential elections against President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986.
He has been less active in politics lately and did not participate in the 2021 elections.
But earlier this year he formed a new party, the Popular Front for Freedom (PFF), after breaking away from the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), which he founded 20 years ago.
The opposition politician has been traveling to Kenya for years and moving freely, sometimes to attend high-profile events – even as he remained Museveni’s main challenger and biggest critic.
What led to Besigye’s disappearance?
This time, Besigye traveled to Nairobi to attend the launch of a book by Kenyan opposition politician Martha Karua.
The 68-year-old landed in the city on the morning of November 16 and took a taxi to his hotel in the affluent suburb of Hurlingham. He was accompanied by long-time ally Hajj Obeid Lutale.
A few hours later, he left the hotel, got into a taxi and headed to Riverside Drive, about three miles from his hotel, for a private meeting, his political allies said.
This was the last time he was seen until he resurfaced in Uganda four days later.
Besigye (R), seen here in court in 2005, has been on trial many times in Uganda [AFP]
His taxi driver said he waited for the veteran politician for more than 12 hours before deciding to leave when he could not call him.
Besigye’s team in Uganda began relaying emergency calls after their leader’s cellphones went unanswered.
His disappearance made headlines and raised eyebrows in the region, with his wife Winnie Byanyima, the head of the UN agency to combat HIV and AIDS, reporting on social media that her husband had been ‘kidnapped’ in Nairobi.
The next day, his reserved seat at the book launch, where he was to be a guest speaker, remained empty as organizers raised the alarm about his absence.
How was Besigye arrested?
Besigye and his friend Lutale arrived at the apartment along Riverside Drive where, according to Ms Byanyima, he was to meet an unidentified Ugandan national and another unknown British national.
The British national wanted to introduce Besigye to a group of colleagues and businessmen who had expressed interest in supporting the PFF financially, she said.
Inside the room was a box containing what appeared to be a stash of money. One of the hosts had two guns.
Shortly after a brief introduction, eight men in plain clothes, who said they were Kenyan police officers, knocked on the door and told Besigye and his colleague that they were under arrest, Ms Byanyima told Kenya’s Citizen TV.
The opposition chief tried to explain that he had nothing to do with the items in the room, but the security officers did not listen.
Four of the men bundled Besigye and Lutale into a car with Kenyan license plates and drove them under cover of night towards the border with Uganda.
“It was clearly a well-planned operation,” Ms Byanyima added.
Besigye is said to have driven to the Malaba border post in western Kenya before crossing into Uganda [AFP]
Before crossing into Uganda, the four men switched from speaking Swahili to the Ugandan languages Luganda and Runyankole.
The two captured were taken to Uganda without their belongings, including their passports, which were later picked up from the Nairobi hotel by Besigye’s party officials.
PFF spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda told Ugandan newspaper Monitor that Besigye and his friend passed through the Malaba border post without stopping for routine security checks.
“They just changed vehicles. The four-wheel drive vehicle with Kenyan registration was abandoned at the Malaba border post and moved to another vehicle with [a] Ugandan license plate,” he said.
Why was Besigye arrested in Nairobi and framed?
Ugandan Information Minister Chris Baryomunsi said detectives had gathered enough intelligence to arrest Besigye while she was in Nairobi.
He said Kenyan authorities enabled the cross-border operation, even though officials in Nairobi claim they knew nothing about it.
Besigye is now being tried in Kampala and not Nairobi because the planned crime was “against Uganda and not against Kenya”, Ugandan army spokesman Brigadier General Felix Kulayigye told the BBC’s Africa Daily podcast.
“We have a legal framework with our counterparts in Kenya to address issues that threaten regional security,” he added.
However, he did not explain why no extradition process took place.
Reports indicate that Besigye’s arrest had been planned for months and was carried out with the help of some people close to him.
The organizers of the meeting were said to be a British citizen and a senior Ugandan military official, both of whom were well known to Besigye, Ugandan media reported.
His wife claimed that the British national present at the meeting was a “paid agent trying to plant weapons” on Besigye.
Why is Besigye before a military court?
In recent decades, hundreds of civilians have been tried by Uganda’s military courts, even though the Constitutional Court has ruled against the practice.
Besigye, who is no stranger to appearing before military courts, is back there because he subjected himself to military law, Brig Kulayigye told the BBC.
Last week, he and his co-suspect were arraigned at the Makindye military court after being held incommunicado for four days.
They face four charges, including finding two pistols and ammunition, and trying to buy weapons from foreigners in the Swiss city of Geneva, the Greek capital, Athens and Nairobi.
The two denied all allegations.
Besigye was greeted by supporters after he appeared in court on November 20 [AFP]
Besigye objected to the court-martial trial, saying that if there were charges against him, he should be tried in a civilian court.
His lawyers also argued that the alleged crimes were committed outside Uganda and therefore illegally court-martialled.
But the court overruled the lawyers and allowed the hearing to proceed.
The suspects were held in Luzira Maximum Prison until December 2.
Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan lawyer and human rights activist, told the BBC that Kenya should have arrested Besigye and extradited him to Uganda, according to the laws governing the process.
Mrs Byanyima said she did not expect her husband to get justice.
But Brig Kulayigye said the court-martial “is not a kangaroo court”.
“Justice will be done.”
Has the issue affected Kenya-Uganda relations?
Kenyan authorities have been torn between denying any knowledge of the operation and remaining silent, while Ugandan officials say much intelligence has been shared between the two countries.
“The government of Uganda was in contact with the government of Kenya. How else would you arrest someone in the middle of Nairobi and then take him back to Uganda, through the airport or by land, without the full knowledge and support of the state. there in Kenya?” Information Minister Baryomunsi told Ugandan NBS TV.
Many Kenyans are asking about the nature of security ties between the two countries and whether there would be full disclosure that Besigye would be charged in a military court.
Last Tuesday, Kenya’s acting foreign minister, Musalia Mudavadi, refrained from giving straight answers to journalists and argued that his country should not be judged “too harshly”.
Mudavadi, who is also acting home minister, said Kenya was an open country that offered “a lot of room for maneuver.” But he warned foreigners against causing a rift between Kenya and their homeland.
He said Besigye’s case would be resolved diplomatically, describing Uganda as Kenya’s “strong partner”.
Uganda’s admission that Kenya was involved in the kidnapping has caused the Kenyan government to face a backlash both in Uganda and abroad.
Some Ugandans have staged protests outside the Kenyan embassy in Kampala, while others have threatened to boycott Kenyan brands.
Besigye’s detention follows a series of high-profile kidnappings and disappearances in Kenya, including the forced deportation of four Turkish refugees to Ankara, where they faced accusations of conspiracy against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Additional reporting by Alan Kasujja
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[Getty Images/BBC]
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