By Our Reporter
Kampala: Over 40 Rwandan nationals were arrested at Agape International Pentecostal Church in Kibuye, a Kampala suburb in a joint operation between the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence and Police, authorities have said.
The Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson Patrick Onyango confirmed the
arrests and explained that police only played “a supportive role” in the
operation.
“We only played a supportive role. For details, I ask that you speak to my
senior colleague in the UPDF,” Mr Onyango said.
When contacted for details, the UPDF spokesperson, Brig Richard Karemire,
declined to explain details of the arrests.
“This is an ongoing operation, I cannot give details right now because it
will jeopardize the operation,” Brig Karemire said
According to eye witnesses, the meeting was taking place [in the church],
then suddenly many armed men, some in police uniform and others in plain
clothes stormed the place and surrounded it. They entered from the back of the
building to access the church,” the guard said.
Instead of giving instructions, he wobbled to commands shouted at him. The
questioning by the security forces was pointed.
He (Mbabazi) was asked to identify himself, which he did, trembling. He was
marched into the church section inside the building and ordered to produce his
identification document.
The soldiers snapped it up. Then he
was ordered first not to make any calls on his mobile phone handset, but
shortly afterward tasked to surrender his mobile phone handset.
The same orders were echoed to the men and women gathered for the meeting. One
after the other, they obeyed. And they were herded into waiting vehicles from
where they were whisked off to an unknown destination.
In an interview last night, Mbabazi said his account that he was just a
newly-hired guard saved him from certain detention. It was, for him, a lesser
price to pay if surrendering his phone and ID meant freedom.
The security operatives turned everything inside the church upside down. “They asked everyone to show their identification, switch off our phones and they took our pictures and identification documents and phones and up to now I have not yet received mine,” Mr Mbabazi said.
Each individual was photographed, he said, before being lined up to exit into waiting cars.
When the coaster was filled, others were marched into other unmarked vehicles. The guard recoiled into oblivion, emerging yesterday into a timid and confused personality. He rejected being photographed for this story.
“I don’t know what is going to happen to me next,” Mbabazi said.
Yet he remained loyal to one thing: sticking to orders by the security operatives to keep the church floor off-limits and ensure no single material is removed.
A source in security said, the suspects were a security threat but it did not elaborate on the nature of threat they posed.
“Most of the people we arrested were Rwandans but they had Ugandan National identification cards which were found to be fake,” the source said.
A row between the two neighboring countries has been simmering for the past two years. Of recent, Uganda and Rwanda relations hit a new low with Rwanda closing its side of the border. Rwanda accused Uganda of arresting its citizens and supporting dissidents, a claim authorities in Kampala have consistently denied.
The Rwandan government in turn urged its nationals not to travel to Uganda for ‘their own personal safety.’
Rwanda said, it warned its nationals not to enter Uganda because some of its citizens had been detained and in some cases tortured, and then deported without consular support or due process.
Mr Sezibera had accused Uganda of supporting rebel groups trying to oust the government in Kigali.
Uganda has dismissed the allegations from Rwanda as false.
The government has not spelt out any specific grievances against Rwanda, although there was speculation that Rwanda had tried to infiltrate Uganda’s security apparatus.
A prominent case being pointed to is that of Gen Kale Kayihura, who served as Uganda’s police chief for more than a decade.
He was arrested in June last year and later charged alongside nine others, including senior police officers, a Rwandan army officer, and a Congolese national, with aiding and abetting the kidnap and repatriation of Rwandan nationals.
All the individuals deny the allegations.
