Special Report: Visit from Chris Rwakasisi
By Rowan Emslie
Discussing a recent newspaper headline over afternoon tea became markedly more interesting considering the company and the headline: Chris Rwakasisi was the guest and the headline had been President Yoweri Museveni’s accusation that “Chris Rwakasisi killed my two children”.
Chris Rwakasisi was the minister for internal affairs during the Obote II regime of 1980-1985. Until recently, he had been a condemned inmate since 1989 when he was convicted on six counts of kidnapping with intent to murder near his former residence in Mbarara, western Uganda. He is often called “Obote’s hatchet man” by his critics but is defended by his remaining supporters as a “strong man” of politics who has been blamed for the indiscretions of the bush wars which claimed 500,000 lives during the Obote II regime.
However, the day before the Ugandan Supreme Court ruled in favour of upholding the death penalty while banning the mandatory death penalty and limiting the amount of time it was legal to keep someone on death row, Museveni released Rwakasisi along with one other long time inmate, Brigadier Ali Fadhul, who had served as a regional governor under Idi Amin.
APP had encountered Rwakasisi in prison over the years. He had been a friendly supporter of APP’s work from 2004 as well as the minister for the prayer service on Sundays to which religious and non-religious APP staff had always been welcomed. He was obviously felt very close to the other prisoners - some of whom hadn’t even been born when he began his sentence. He made a very clear argument: “Who is civilized? Us in here or those out there in Kampala? In here there is no violence, no alcohol. We are all saved! But out there, you can’t even walk at night without fear!” It felt like a weary, often repeated speech but one that still got a titter out of the other prisoners. He had retained the ‘strong man’ image even after 23 years in prison. Rwakasisi was a guiding figure for the other prisoners who warned against the dangers of the outside world, not just Kampala but also the UK. According to Rwakasisi, “Christians, the ones who taught us about Christ, need us to go back to teach them again,” specifically because of the newly emergent acceptance in the Anglican church towards homosexuality. At times he was unbearably smug and self-righteous (as above) but always maintained a rapport with his generally much younger audience.
So when he was released and we saw him again briefly, at the supreme court ruling, Rwakasisi greeted us. But under the gaze of the press and the judiciary the exchange was limited to simple pleasantries. It was only when he came to the APP Uganda Office that we could really ask him what it was like to be out after all those years, what his plans were for the future, and of course what he thought of Museveni’s bold accusations all over the press that day.
“I start to get very tired after 5pm,” he said, referring to the fact that, for 23 long years, he had had the routine of prison life in Uganda where ‘lock-up’ confines prisoners to their shared cells from 5pm until 6am. “When you’re in there,” he continued, pointing to the prison on top of the hill opposite, “you can’t imagine that people are awake at this time.” It was 6pm: the sun was beginning to set over Kampala.
He was taking things slowly at that time, only a month after his release, trying to get used to life outside the high walls of condemned section and spending time with his children, with whom he had had only limited contact for all those years. Still, there was the suspicion of his return to politics - it had seemed a certainty when he spoke to Susan Kigula (who had led the failed attempt to abolish the death penalty) in his dark blue suit in front of the plethora of cameramen. He had stood there with the air of a statesman and encouraged Kigula while pledging to commit to helping prisoners as much as he could. It was there again when Alexander McLean, director-general of APP, asked him about the headline of the day. He simply gave a soft laugh and deftly sidestepped the question, “You know he’s made that claim before, two other times, and I always think ‘which children are they?’ I know all his children and which ones are missing?”
Whatever happens in the future, his absence has certainly made the condemned section a different place. But the great thing is that no matter how controversial his pardon - or how controversial his original sentence was depending on how you look at it - the fact that it was granted gives hope not only to the other inmates but to the idea of rehabilitation taking over from punishment as the main focus of the prison system. It’s a long road, but perhaps this was a first step.