Dr. Henry Gombya lied about me in the story he published in the str8chronicle

October 23, 2009 at 4:55 am (Diaspora, POLITICS, torture in uganda)
Tags:

Fellow Ugandans,
I convey this message to the UAH forum after many hours of restlessness and confusion, for the trust I feel was misplaced. I write this message knowing that many of you will read it with the purpose of understanding and of course, as in every society some may read it with indifference. However, I am not worried about that. This concerns Dr. Henry Gombya and the story he published in the str8chronicle, which I believe many of you have read. I here convey to you my reaction to the story he wrote and published without my prior consent for approval of the contents. He has since not replied to my e-mail I wrote to him expressing my disappointment. However, I convey to you the e-mail to Dr.
Henry Gombya in its entity, so that you may judge his journalistic work for your selves
and perhaps inform me and the forum what you think. This e-mail also puts right the statements which may have been deliberately or otherwise wrongly presented.
The purpose of his visit was to interview me about my case which also had been partly judged by the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The case had attracted many, including the Danish media who came to my residence in Denmark to interview me for the Danish Television. The UNHRC ruled that Denmark observed remedy and to make sure that the mistake never occurs again in the future. However Denmark ignored the ruling of the UNHRC and after waiting two and a half years for the implementaion of the ruling to no avail, I left the country with the purpose of requesting another country to inform Denmark to respect the ruling of the UNHRC.

I hope that this message will give you a better picture of what transpired, as opposed to Henry
Gombya’s ‘’sensational article”.
Byaruhanga Johny. Rubin.

UAH Forumist

Hello Henry,
I hope this e-mail finds you in the best of your health, as I appreciate mine. I tried to find the story on the internet this morning, but there was no network to my computer. I got the network a while ago and I have read through the story. Since you asked me to tell you what I think, I shall be honest with you. I think that you wrote the story hurriedly without even referring to the documents, the audio tapes and the notes which you took from here. Not only are there many mistakes in the story, it is also not written in a chronological manner. The story only raises more questions in the mind of the reader , as I mentioned above, chronology of the events
that led to my present situation was vital to the comprehension of the
story.
Without repeating what you wrote, let me give you some corrections. I am sure you will find the paragraphs that need correction.
1- I left Uganda in March, 1981. Within 24 Hours I was in Europe.

2- By 1983 I was undefeated in the German Bundesliga, so that I turned professional. By the end of 1984, the German Boxing Magazine, Boxsport ranked me no.10 in the World. The US Ring Magazine ranked me no.2 in the Commonwealth.

3- The National Resistance Army, NRA took power in January, 1986.
4- I requested the Danish police to communicate with the German Authorities to let me return to Germany which I considered home at the time. The police requested for the telephone number of where I was residing and I gave it to them. It was an unregistered number. The
next day I received a telephone call from the Danish Boxing Promoter, Mr. Mogens Palle. The police called me several days later and wanted me at their station. I went there and I was told that the Germans could not take me. At that moment the police advised me to apply for asylum in Denmark. They instructed me how to do it and they took my statements for asylum.

5- My sons Henry and Ronny, their mother comes from Gombe, Butambala. She disappeared during the war that overthrew President Idi Amin.
When Henry and Ronny’s mother disappeared, I met the Tanzanian girl who had come to visit her uncle in Kampala. Her uncle was a childhood friend of mine and so was the Tanzanian girl. I asked her if she could help me take care of my children because it was during the time of war and as a Platoon Commander, I was extremely busy. After several Weeks, she wanted to return to Tanzania. She told me
that if I wanted her to stay helping me with the children, I had to marry her. Thence we became intimate and she conceived. She is the mother of my daughter who lives in Denmark.
6- By 1989 when I learned that the National Resistance Army/Movement (NRA/M) had taken the children to their army, Ronny was 9 years old and Henry was 11 years old. They were not ”teen age”, as you put it in the news.

7- May 6, 1996 the culprit rang the doorbell. He could not have knocked the door. My appartment was on the 2nd floor.
8- When the man attacked me, I was trying to run away from him when he stabbed me on above my left wrist.I did not fight him. However, as I turned trying to run away from him, I tripped on the pavement and fell. That is when he stabbed me again twice, once close to my waist and once again on my buttock. Someone shouted from one of the apartments
above us and that is when the culprit fled. I saw him talking to a woman who spoke from the window above. He took the key from his pocket and opened the main door. I walked to the door and read the name on the apartment doorbell of which the woman spoke.I suspected that the culprit lived in the same apartment with the woman. As I tried to walk away from their main door, I was bleeding profusely. I felt dizzy and weak, so that I could not walk any more. I collapsed and was picked from there by the Ambulance staff and rushed to the Hospital. I spent about 4 hours in the Hospital.

9- The Doctors advised me to go to the police and make a statement about what had happened. I phoned a friend, Charles Muteguya (Not Mutebi) who came with a car and drove me to the Police where I identified myself. The Police Officer checked with the computer, after which he asked me, ”Bore De i Danmark?” Do you live in Denmark?. I told him that ”We
are speaking Danish. If I was not living in Denmark, where do you think I could have learned the language?”, I asked him. He then told me that according to the computer I did not exist in the Immigration files. He told me to sit in another room and wait, as he made telephone calls. He told me later that, ”We cannot find your immigration files and therefore we have to open a new file for you”. The new file was opened and I received a new Immigration Number. After that, my interview about how and what had happened to me commenced. I was assured by the police that the culprit would be apprehended. My friend, Charles Muteguya drove me home with his car.

10- Although my neighbours told me affirmatively that the culprit had been arrested, within less than two Weeks, after 10 days precisely I received a letter from the police stating that, ”the culprit could not be found, therefore the case is closed”.


11- On the way to dowtown Copenhagen, there was a bus stop, next to the Police Station. It is the Police Station that handled my case.
12- On the 31 July, 1997 I received a letter from the Danish Immigration Authority that my wife and daughter would soon be coming to Denmark. I was so happy, so that after preparing a meal, I decided to take a walk downtown Copenhagen. On my return that afternoon, my key could not open my apartment door. The lock had been changed. Whence I remained homeless for about a year. Later I received a letter from the Post Office, written by the police to inform me that all my belongings had been auctioned. Up to this day, there is no accountability of my belongings which the Danish police claimed to have auctioned without consulting me.

13- The last paragraph you wrote, ”The story took another turn when the Lawyer who defended him, Ms Tine Vuust, said she was shocked that a Court in
Denmark could find a person guilty of such a serious crime on flimsy evidence”. There was NO evidence atall. Even the boyfriend of the Prosecution’s witness to whose case I was allegedly linked, was not allowed to come to the Court and testify.

14- When I fled Denmark, I did not request for asylum in the Netherlands. This was the idea of my Dutch Lawyers who thought it necessary. My idea was to request the Netherlands to help me inform Denmark to respect the ruling by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

15- Pastor Mient Dijkstra did not say that he would help me aquire asylum in the Netherlands. He is sympathetic and concerned about my situation and so is his family.
Although you interviewed me for several hours in which I told you almost the whole story about my troubles in Denmark and how my daughter managed to come,you wrote nothing about that. How I was instructed by the
Danish Immigration to go to Tanzania and bring my daughter and how she got stranded in Dar es Salaam for four years, was not mentioned. How I was eventually told by the Immigration Authority that my daughter could not be allowed to come to Denmark because I was ”not married” and how my fiance’e was deported from Copenhagen Kastrup Airport, was not mentioned. How my wife and daughter eventually got permision to come to Denmark, was not mentioned. Infact, how and why I was imprisoned is not clarified. How I was denied a Lawyer of my choice, is not mentioned. You have a copy of the statement made by the Court President, in which it is stated that, ”You cannot change the Lawyer….” You have not mentioned how I smuggled a letter from prison to another Lawyer, Mr.Tyge Trier. You have not mentioned that the Lawyer, Ms Tine Vuust wrote a letter to Mr. Tyge Trier to inform him that the Police ”has taken the Case File to be destroyed”, so that Mr. Trier
could not find out why I was in prison and why I was beeing deported to Uganda.
Henry, very frankly the story leaves many questions and infact gives a suspicion that I commited the crime for which I was imprisoned. Even the previous attempt by the Danish police to arrest me under, Anti Terror Statute was not mentioned. Do you remember, the Ugandan function in which the Ugandan Ambassador and other Diplomats were in attendance, after which the police squad came and ordered us out ‘’slowly”, that there could be a bomb? I was later informed by the Danish police that I was their prime suspect in the threat calls to the Ugandan Embassy and the bomb threat to the function I mentioned above. Well, all that did not qualify for a sentence in your story.

Anyway, atleast the correction of the errors I have pointed out will be a positive step, if you donot inted to re-write the story
correctly.
I wish you all the best, as I hope to hear from you at your earliest convenience.
Yours brotherly,
Byaruhanga, Jonny Rubin.

–

2 Comments

The True Byaruhanga Rubin’s Story in his own words(part 1)

October 23, 2009 at 4:34 am (Diaspora, Sports, torture in uganda)
Tags:

Dear Ugandans

This concerns Dr. Henry Gombya and the story he published in the str8chronicle, which I believe many of you have read. I here convey to you my reaction to the story he wrote and published without my prior consent for approval of the contents

The story by Henry Gombya was, in my view wisely distorted. What I wrote to him expressing my disappointment is just the skeleton of the real story. I kept it from the UAH forum because of its sensitivity and the fact that the creators of the problem are heavyweights that I have failed to defeat after all these years.

When I conveyed my disappointment about Gombya’s story to the UAH forum, I expected questions. As I pointed out earlier, the corrections I made about Gombya’s story are just a ‘’skeleton” of the Story.
        Do you remember the article about sports in Uganda that I wrote?

http://ugandansatheart.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/why-is-sport-not-taken-seriously-in-uganda/

I stated that the professional Boxing Promoters are very powerful, so that none messes with them. You mess with one, you’ve messed with them all. However, Germany did not do anything wrong to me. The problems are all from the time I was advised by the Danish police to apply for asylum. Although I gave the police an unregistered telephone number of where I was staying, it is the Danish Boxing Promoter who telephoned me and wanted to sign me under his management. After the advice from a compatriot who was, in my view very kind and honest to me, I turned down the offer for the boxing contract. I did not understand at the time that all the delays and derailments of my requests might be linked to the refusal of the boxing contract. Today, I suspect that the police made a deal with the Boxing Promoter to block my return to Germany, hoping that I would eventually sign a contract to fight for  Denmark.
       There were many disappointments over the years, but always thought that it was bureaucracy to blame. You have read through my mail of correction to Gombya’s story, so that you know a bit of what transpired. The ”Knock out blow” by the Danish police was when they approached me and claimed to ask for my help. They told me that they had checked me out and found that I was the Coordinator for Pan African Forum and President of the Union of Ugandans in Denmark. I had just left the class for the day, at the Danish School of Transport. They told me that if I did not mind, we could discuss the matter at their station. I said that I did not mind. They took me to the Police Headquarters. There, they showed me many photographs of Africans. They asked if I recognized any of them. I told them that I recognized some of them, at least by one name. They told me that those photos are of smugglers of illegal narcotics into Denmark and that’s why they needed my help. I asked how I could be of help. They told me that in my capacity as the Coordinator for the Pan African Forum and President of the Union of Ugandans, I was a well respected person in the African community. That they would take me to a Court Justice to whom I should say that I suspect Africans for smuggling and selling of illegal narcotics in Denmark. By that they said, the Court Justice would give the police authority to ”remove those Africans from the streets”. I told the police that I did not suspect any African because none of those in the photographs is known personally to me. I also said that if I did that, I would be telling lies to the Court Justice and I would later be charged for it. They told me that I should not worry about that because after investigating, the innocent ones would be released. I still told them that it would be wrong to incriminate probably innocent people. They angrily told me that if I did not help them, I would be the one to go to prison. They told me to think about it and left me in the office. After a while, they returned and asked if I had made up my mind. I told them that I had made up my mind. One of the policemen said, ”I knew you would be wise”. I told them that I have decided not to lie to the Court Justice. One of the cops punched me on the head and then lifted me by the shirt collar saying, ”You are going to prison now”. Although the punch on my head was very painful, I thought that they were trying to scare me. I believed that it was impossible simply to throw me into prison without commiting a crime. I was wrong. When I realized that they were serious, I asked to telephone my family. They told me that I had many years to telephone my family from prison. They drove me to the Vester Faengsel (prison). As I was escorted by the prison guard to the cell, I requested to telephone my wife, but I was told that I should have telephoned from the police because they, the guards are very busy. The following morning I was taken to the Court, only the Procecutor to request for my detention for two Weeks in isolation, while they carried on their investigation. The man who had been introduced to me as my Defence Lawyer, was even more aggressive than the police. He did not even ask to know why I was being detained in isolation. He only told me that it was a serious matter. After the Prosecutor made his request to the Judge, the Judge asked ”my Defence Lawyer” if he had any objection. He answered that he did not have any. The Judge then ordered that I be detained for two Weeks in isolation. I raised my hand and the Judge asked if I had something to say. I told him that, ”I was detained yesterday, but have not even communicated with my family”. He ordered that I be given a telephone to call my family. After about half an hour, I was allowed to call my family.
       Anyway, to cut the long story short, I wrote a letter to the Court President requesting to change the Lawyer. I got no response, until I went to Court after the two Weeks in isolation. At the Court, the Judge introduced another Lawyer to me saying that my ”Lawyer is unable to come today due to lots of work”. I told the Judge that I don’t want him, and I have written to the Court President requesting to change my Defence Lawyer. He told me that before I am allowed to change the Lawyer, I should cooperate with the one offered by the Court. The lady Lawyer told me that I would not be released and that if I gave her a chance, she would try to find out why I was being held in prison. The Prosecutor requested for two more Weeks and that was granted.
       On my return to the prison, I was told that I had a letter in the office. It was the letter I had sent to the Court President. There was a response on it that, ”You can not be allowed to change the Lawyer….”
       After about three months, the prosecution brought a Tanzanian woman from prison, as their witness against me in a case that I knew nothing about. That’s when the woman claimed that in the Summer of 1999, she and her former boyfriend met me in Sweden and drove with me back to Dennmark. She claimed that her boyfriend had told her that I had 300 grams of heroin for her boyfriend. She continued to say that they brought me to my ”residence in Tingbjerg, Copenhagen. Asked whether she saw the heroin or heard her boyfriend and I talk about the heroin, she answered that she did not see any heroin and that she did not hear us talk about it. But she said that there was a smell of shit in the car. Asked where the smell came from, she answered that she did not know. Her ”boyfriend” was never brought to testify. I was then found guilty and sentenced to 2 and a half years in prison and expulsion from Denmark. I was shocked. My Defence Lawyer appealed the sentence. We returned to Court about 5 months later. The Tanzanian woman repeated her claims, but with lots of contradictions from her previous claims in the previous Court. She was asked whether she was sure my residence they drove me to was in Tingbjerg, Copenhagen. She replied that she knew the place very well and that she even had friends living there. She was later led out of the Court room. The Prosecutor then told the Court that after the testimony by the witness, I be jailed for a period not less than 3 years and be expelled from Denmark. My Defence Lawyer stood up and handed a document to the Judge and another one to the Prosecutor. She said that the witness for the Prosecution ”is not truthful”. She said that in the Summer of 1999 she, the witness for the Prosecution was in prison and that there was no possibility for her to have travelled to Sweden with her boyfriend. The Lawyer handed another document to the Judge and another one to the Prosecutor. She then said that according to the document from the Housing Company, I ceased to reside in Tingbjerg, Copenhagen on 31st July, 1997 and that it was also not possible that the Prosecution witness and her boyfriend could have taken me to my ”apartment in Tingbjerg, Copenhagen”. However, after that I was found guilty and the sentence from the previous Court was upheld. My Defence Lawyer tried to appeal the sentence, but the appeal was denied. She was subsequently removed from the case.
        I was then transfered to Albertslund Faengsel (prison) where I was supposed to serve my sentence. In January, 2004 I smuggled a letter out of prison to the New African publications. You may find the letter on line in the New African of 1st February, 2004. The police had to warn me against such letters. Prior to the letter to New African I had smuggled a letter out of prison to another Lawyer. The new Lawyer sent a telefax to my former Defence Lawyer requesting for my case file, as he intended to represent me. The former Lawyer wrote him a confidential letter in which she stated that, ”The police has taken the case file to be destroyed”. Whether intentionaly or by mistake,I got a copy of the letter.The new Lawyer tried to reopen the case, but failed. I then sent a letter to the European Court of Human Rights. The Court sent me a document for the Lawyer representing me to sign. My new Lawyer told me that the European Court of Human Rights was not a good idea. He told me that he had sent the case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. While the UNHRC was investigating the case and communicating with the state of Denmark in this regard, I was released from prison. Later the UNHRC ruled that Denmark ‘’should observe remedy and to make sure that the mistake never happens again in future”. Denmark appealed the decision. The UNHRC replied that, ”there was no Legal basis to appeal the Decision”.
        I waited 2 and a half years for Denmark to correct their mistake, to no avail. Instead I got a letter from the police ordering me to leave my family residence and be detained in Sandholm, north of Copenhagen.
        My coming to the Netherlands was to request the State of the Netherlands to inform the State of Denmark to respect the ruling by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
        Hopefully, the details will be in the Book planned for the people, especially my children to know what happened, should anything happen to me before the young ones are old enough to understand.
        I know that some of the members of the UAH forum may be asking themselves the same question. Believe it or not, I am not with the habit of, ”an eye for an eye”. I was brought up with the knowledge that one lives peacefully forgiving those who tresspass against him. I have no intention to sue him, but I shall tell him if or when we meet again, that he hurt me very much. You saw the mail I wrote to him expressing my disappointment, but in a brotherly manner. I know that the Dutch family whose hospitality he dishonoured by publishing their photographs in the story that does not concern them, are very unhappy. The man is a Pastor and a Senior Official of Defence. I can not talk on their behalf, but if Gombya has to worry, the publication of that family’s names and photographs without prior consultation, should be enough.
         I thank you for your concern.
                                                                BJ. Rubin.

                                                               UAH Forumist in Europe

1 Comment

Why M7 has arrested Kalundi Sserumaga?

September 12, 2009 at 4:30 pm (2009 -2011 elections, KINGDOMS, conflicts, torture in uganda)
Tags:

DearNetters,

Word trickling out of Kampala has it that a print journalist/radio broadcaster (One Serumaga) was last night arrested as soon as he stepped out of the studios of WBS TV station where they had conducted a live telecast debate on current saga in central uganda.

I watched the WBS programme and was impressed by Serumaga’s courage. He went a notch higher in livening debate on the impasse between Buganda and Central government. If he has been arrested, then this could be why:
1.he gave a genesis of the NRMO, and said the first rebel core committee was composed of about 8 members: 4 Baganda and 4 westerners, but by the time of coming out of the bush, all Baganda, apart from Lule were six feet under, giving example of one Seguya who was alledgedly poisoned! He posed the question why is it that one side came out alive and the other side were all finished? he argued that instead of Museveni saying he asisted Baganda, it was instead Buganda that assisted NRA war-effort, so the proverb of removing thorns from one’s leg could only mean sense if Buganda removed thorns from Museveni’s NRA feet, not the other way round.
2.then he said the fracas seen on the streets was a reflection of the leadership style, remarking that he could only explain it as Museveni was a badly-brought up person, for even the ordinary Mukopi were of two types: one who was polished in mannerisms and could be accepted in community of well-behaved, and the other of a badly behaved person who will be around to spoil things for people, which he thought Museveni belongs to.
3.Kalungi dropped the bombshell saying he saw it like Uganda was under colonial occupation, and UPDF and army of occupation, asking why the Bunyoro oil fields were guarded by Presidential Gurad soldiers and Saracen security Guards of Salim Saleh? He allerted Banyoro that while they were venting their anger over Bafuruki, the oil-sale agreement was being concluded with british frims with total disregard of the Banyoro who have not asked what would belong to them when mining proper begins.
4.He went full blast and listed occasions when the Uganda constitution was intentionally violated by the NRMo Government, and this one of preventing Kabaka to go wherever he deemed necessary was one such occasion of NRM violating the constitution.
5.When asked to summarise the good things of the week according to him, Serumaga said he was amused by the involvement of Kabakumba Matsiko, Matia Kasaija, Kale Kaihura, sarcastically portraying that it was leaders from Western Uganda tormenting Kabaka and Buganda…
Could it be some of these….that  has caused him some trouble. In current Uganda, one has to be real courgaeous to utter these issues in a live Television broadcast…and Serumaga did nit last evening.

Geoffrey Obiny

UAH forumist

7 Comments

Investigate harassment of Muslims in Uganda further

April 25, 2009 at 3:14 pm (RELIGION, legal issues, military, torture in uganda)
Tags:

Human Rights

Omar Kalinge-Nnyago

Investigate harassment of Muslims in Uganda further

The recently released Human Rights Watch report on the torture and murder of Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) suspects entitled “Open Secret: Illegal Detention and Torture by the Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force, JATT, in Uganda” was a chilling reminder that all was not well in Uganda, especially if you are a Muslim. The anti-terror unit we are told, was formed specially to crackdown on ADF a rebel group based in Congo. This is a very dangerous approach to national security, where a section of society is specially targeted.

The vicious cycle of torture goes like this. To be seen to be working, the unit must arrest some Muslim suspects. They torture them to extract confessions. Some die in the process. Others escape death with serious injuries. Others lose limbs, other body parts and left to rot after their unceremonious release. Because they were innocent in the first place, even those who are forced to confess to escape torture cannot be charged in a court of law as there would be no evidence to sustain a prosecution. To be able leave jail, suspects are coaxed into applying for amnesty. This is in effect an admission to guilt. This becomes good statistics for JATT. The Americans and British who fund the unit pour more funds into the operation. Arresting Muslims is therefore big business. Uganda’s position as a partner in the war on terror is enhanced for every confession obtained. Consequently, the regime in Kampala extends its lease of life, despite its unprecedented corruption record, habitual electoral mal-practices and the alarming levels of nepotism in government.

These allegations must be fully investigated by an independent commission. This is not the first time that Muslims in Uganda have been targeted. Hundreds were massacred in Western Uganda and many more in West Nile in the aftermath of the fall of Idi Amin. No human rights organisation in Uganda has cared to investigate these massacres. A commission of inquiry headed by John Nagenda after the fall of Amin to investigate human rights abuses since the sixties did not find it appropriate to handle the Western Uganda and West Nile Muslim Massacres. To date, the victims of the ugly incidents which included murder, confiscation of property and displacement are still crying out for help. Something ought to be done by Uganda Human Rights Commission, other human rights organizations and the government.

Unless practical steps to address the situation are taken, the perceptions of marginalisation and harassment of Muslims in Uganda will persist. Unfortunately, the Army, through its spokesperson, and the executive, through the security minister have only invested in a disastrous public relations exercise that assumes that the population is not intelligent enough to understand that what they are doing is “smart denial of documented fact”. They must instead confront the facts, compensate torture victims, families of the those who died in the hands of JATT and thoroughly investigate the culprits who have succeeded in turning JATT in Kololo into another Naguru based Public Safety Unit or the Nakasero Headquarters of the State Research Bureau of the Idi Amin era.

The recent harassment of Muslims comes at a time when public display of religiosity has assumed alarming proportions. When the first lady wanted to stand for parliament, she evoked God. When she became a Minister of State, she evoked God. When the IGG was desperately trying to save her job, she evoked Jesus and even sang a long praise song at a press conference. The secular foundations of the country have been shaken to the core. Religion in Uganda is no longer personal. It is official business.


The danger here is that Muslims, facing constant harassment will also find it appropriate to force their belief into the public arena, get radicalized, mobilise their people using religion, basing on the undeniable evidence of torture. This would encourage more young Muslims to join rebel activity. In fact, by their own opportunistic actions, government security agencies are helping ADF and perhaps other rebel groups to recruit more easily. It is what happened when Obote II security forces miscalculated and thought they would harass suspected young men to intimidate them from rebellion. They instead found the shortest route to join Museveni’s NRA. The rest is now history.

omarkalinge@gmail.com

0752.656.352

omar d. kalinge-nnyago

UAH forumist
e-Learning Specialist
demtac consulting-codlearn
922, Old Kira Road, Bukoto
P.O. Box 1635
KAMPALA
Cell: 0752 656 352

3 Comments