It was a message from her sister-in-law asking where he was that made Winnie Byanyima start worrying about her husband, Dr Kizza Besigye, a prominent Ugandan opposition leader. Byanyima, head of UNAids, had just returned from Malawi to Geneva, where the UN programme on HIV/Aids is based, in November. She rang Besigye’s phone – it was off.
She made some calls and learned that he had gone from Uganda to neighbouring Kenya to attend a book launch. Then a journalist told her he believed Besigye was now being held in a military prison in Kampala, Uganda’s capital.
“I called the president’s [of Uganda] brother, who is a veteran and a very powerful figure,” says Byanyima. “He used to be head of the army and I asked him directly, ‘Are you holding my husband?’”
Two hours later, she was told that Besigye – a civilian – was to appear before a military court.
The next morning, on 20 November, Besigye stood in the dock and denied charges that included the illegal possession of firearms and negotiating to buy arms abroad.
Besigye – a former leader of Uganda’s Forum for Democratic Change – has lost four presidential elections standing against Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986. He appeared in court with his fellow opposition politician Obeid Lutale, who also denied all of the charges.
Byanyima flew to Uganda to see her husband in prison. She says he was framed and “abducted in an illegal operation” when he went to Kenya to meet two individuals who had said they could provide support for his new political party, the People’s Front for Freedom.
She says the meeting was interrupted and he was taken by car at night over the border by Ugandan security operatives. Uganda’s information minister, Chris Baryomunsi, said detectives had gathered enough intelligence to arrest Besigye while in Nairobi.
The minister said the Kenyan authorities enabled the cross-border operation, even though officials in Nairobi insist they knew nothing about it.
Besigye, 68, remains in prison. He has since been charged with treachery, an offence that falls under the heading of treason in the Ugandan penal code and carries the death penalty. Eron Kiiza, a human rights lawyer involved in his case, was assaulted and arrested as he attended court on 7 January and detained.
Both Byanyima and Besigye’s legal team believe the charges are politically motivated in a year leading up to elections in Uganda. Ronald Samuel Wanda, one of the lawyers representing Besigye, said it was “an absurdity of justice”.
Before Besigye became a critic of Museveni, he worked alongside him and for a period was his personal doctor. He joined Museveni’s resistance movement in 1979, was imprisoned in 1981 and a year later joined Museveni’s armed struggle in the bush.
Besigye, who was once the army’s former head of logistics and engineering, rose to the rank of colonel. When Museveni came to power, Besigye, then aged 29, was appointed state minister of internal affairs and national political commissar. He retired from the army shortly before the 2001 elections to stand against Museveni for the first time.
Besigye has been arrested and put on trial before. Just before the 2006 elections he was charged with treason and rape but was later cleared. This time, he is standing trial in a military court, which his lawyers are contesting. On Friday, the supreme court will rule on whether civilians can be tried in military courts.
If the trial in the military court goes ahead, Byanyima says she “has no hope” that her husband will get justice.
“I have some hope if we succeed to get a ruling that says he should not be under the military court,” she says. “But under the military court, absolutely not. I have no hope.”
This month, Museveni’s son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s chief of defence forces, who many believe will take over from his father, posted on his now-deleted account on X that he would “HANG Besigye on Heroes Day (June 9th). But thanks to some IDIOTS in parliament we have brought the day closer! We will hang him on May 9th!”
Byanyima sees this as “a clear instruction to the military court”. She says: “The only way to give them the order is where he says what he wants. And the panellists are left in no doubt about what they must deliver for the boss. They report directly to him. They are under his control.”
Besigye is “strong in spirit and physically well”, Byanyima says, but she is worried about his safety: “I’m so concerned about the arbitrariness and the way their rules around him keep changing.
“He’s not being treated like every other prisoner and the rules keep moving towards getting tighter control over him,” she says.
He is being kept in a small cell, and six doors have to be opened and locked to reach it, says Byanyima. Prison authorities said he would not be able to receive any visitors over Christmas, but then backtracked when it was reported in the media.
“For some time they were refusing [to let] him even to mix with other prisoners. When we screamed about it, they relaxed that,” she says, adding that the authorities later said that he would not be able to receive food from friends and family and that he should get it from the prison canteen. There was a public uproar and the authorities backed down once again.
“He doesn’t trust them at all. Poisoning, killing people in prison, has been happening,” says Byanyima.
She and her husband believe the Ugandan regime has an arsenal of weapons and poisons at its disposal. “So it’s dangerous,” she says.
