A few months ago, as my driver and dear friend Robert and I were driving home from the office, we noted a new "security presence" patrolling the streets of Kampala. These guys were unrecognizable to me, decked out in all black with brand-new AK-47s, wrap-around black sunglasses, and without tags on their uniforms or on their person to identify who they were or which security force they belonged to.
"Who do you think they are?" I asked Robert, feeling uneasy as we drove past their armored personnel carrier on a calm street in my neighborhood.
"I think they are the new special police unit that is meant to combat riots and put down any form of public displays of dissent, I saw something about them in the paper," he told me.
"But, why?" I asked. "Ugandans don't riot all that often, do they? Why do we need a force like that in Kampala? Those guys look scary..."
Little did I know, my words would come back to haunt me several months later.
Granted, by training, I tend to pay a lot more attention than other people to the appearance of newly armed people on the streets that are clearly in the employ of the government but bear no identification on their uniforms declaring them as such.
I remember when I first saw those guys back in April or May, my mind immediately flipped back to Serbia in the mid-late 1990s when Slobodan Milosevic terrorized first Bosnia and then Kosovo with his own special paramilitary forces, loyal not to the state or the people, but to him personally. Those forces were responsible for some of the most heinous acts of genocide that occurred in the Balkans in the decade that blood flowed freely in that fractured part of the world. I watched it unfold on my TV while living in Hungary during those years, and I watched as these guys were demobilized and demilitarized in person on a trip to Serbia a few years later.
Also, in my former job, I spent years analyzing paramilitary forces (both good and bad...they are not all bad) and also tracking patterns in states on the verge of conflict or ones that had already descended into full-scale chaos and one theme emerged again and again: the quick formation of shadowy armed paramilitary or semi-military units that seemed to operate outside of direct, or easily identifiable, command and control structures. In political science parlance, these units are known as "praetorian guards" but the result is usually the same: heavily armed units who seem to operate in the shadows of the state and certainly outside the sphere of civilian control of the military and formal justice processes.
But in Uganda? Really? Granted, this is a state that has a long political history linked to the military but the Ugandan military is largely professional and, despite recent outcries against the government about cracking down on the opposition through force, Uganda is a pretty free society with a vibrant media and civil society.
So what were these guys suddenly doing around here?
Last Thursday, when Kampala erupted into violence caused by long-simmering tensions between the majority Bugandan tribe---many loyal to a traditional king---and the government of Uganda over a contested royal visit, I was slow to realize what was happening.
Most of this had to do with the fact that I live and work in one of the safest and most secure neighborhoods in Kampala: Nakasero. When I got a text message on my phone that morning from the regional security officer at the American Embassy advising caution as rallies in Kampala were likely to turn "violent," and that I should consider going home, I admittedly did not take it too seriously. Uganda, to me, is one of the safest places on the planet. Granted, not in the North over the past 23 years but, overall, Uganda is one of the calmest countries in Africa and Ugandans, of all tribal backgrounds, are generally NOT a violent people.
Like I said, it is a relatively free country.
Even Robert had a hard time believing it.
"Yes, we do riot sometimes during political elections but it doesn't normally get too bad, we don't kill people," he told me.
So we ignored it for a few hours. It wasn't touching Nakasero and the radio broadcasts seemed confused and sporadic so we went about our day.
When we went into town to go to the bank around noon, however, I started seeing things that sent alarm bells ringing in my head.
The first was armored jeep after jeep of those scary guys dressed all in black, and armed to the teeth, racing down from the hills of Nakasero and Kololo (another affluent suburb in Kampala) towards the center of town. The second was, on our way back from the bank, we noticed that fairly large gangs of very angry people had gathered and had started pelting the regular police with rocks and chunks of wood. We were stuck in a colossal traffic jam on one of the roads leading up and out of the city center so I got out of the car for a few minutes to observe the chaos starting to unleash below me. Other motorists did the same.
And then, about five minutes later, I saw the new "special riot police" pull up to one crowd of particularly angry young protesters with guns raised and batons swinging. I had a bad feeling in my stomach.
Then, out of nowhere, a young man of about 14 or 15 ran up to these "men in black" and started throwing rocks and bricks at them. The lead officer gave chase and cornered him in an alley.
Then he started beating the shit out of him with the end of his rifle, delivering brutal blows to the kid's head and face. I almost thought, at one point, that I could hear his skull crack. When the kid tried to lift his head off the ground, I saw lots of blood and something that looked liked grey pudding.
All around me, people were gasping and beginning to cry.
Robert, by this time, was out of the car and dragging me back inside.
"Madame Boss, this is not normal. This is going to get very bad, we must get back to Nakasero NOW!!" he yelled.
We did and I regrouped my staff members and decided to send everyone home, it was about 3:30PM.
When I got back to my flat about an hour later, my former colleague---and a person who loves Uganda and is an expert on its politics---Nate, was calling from Washington, DC via Skype.
"Holy crap, what is going on there?! Are you OK? I have never seen anything quite like this in Kampala. This seems to be getting ugly fast!" he said.
Still, even though I had seen that whole incident with the special police and the kid getting beaten, there was still some sort of "unreality" about the whole thing. I actually forgot to metion it to Nate and just filed it in some space in my head where I had seen such things in Africa before and just wanted to quickly forget about it. Isolated incident, I told myself.
I then watched the news for a few hours with the conviction that it would all be over by the next day, Friday, and went to bed.
I awoke at 7AM to weird popping noises that I had somehow, in my half-asleep and half-awake phase, incorporated into a dream.
Then I woke up fully.
"Jesus, that is gunfire," my mind stumbled.
As I listened more closely, I determined that not only was it gunfire, it was so damn close that the echoes were making it sound like it was hitting my building even though I knew that was impossible.
I moved out of my bedroom and turned on the news but only found the president giving a speech to try to calm the violence...unsuccessfully.
Then I called the Embassy and asked if it were possible that the riots had moved to Nakasero. They confirmed that they had not.
"What the hell is up with the gunfire, then?" I thought.
Later, I would come to learn, it was the very same "special police units" taking shots at the back of an abandoned school across from my housing complex. Target practice and also letting people further down the hill know that they were armed and ready to use live bullets.
I then noticed it was close to 9AM and there was no sign of Robert so I called him.
He was a wreck.
"Madame Boss, I am NOT coming for you today. Yesterday I got stuck in a riot on the way home and I had to give them all of my money, my watch and my wedding ring to get them not to burn the car. I am sorry but I am not leaving the house today!" he said.
I then felt tremendously guilty for not having sent my entire staff home sooner the day before but, in my mind, I still was thinking, "This is UGANDA...a peaceful country. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?"
The Embassy called an hour later and told me to stay home and most certainly not to leave Nakasero, which was under complete lock-down by this point.
So I reluctantly did, although I did manage to sneak a trip into the local shopping mall to grab a few provisions in case this was going to go on for days.
Scott called that night, worried as hell.
"It's on the international news now, are you OK?" he asked.
I assured him I was and he warned me about not going near windows and not leaving the house....not even for shopping.
I spent the next 48 hours in my apartment until things were firmly under control by Sunday night.
Still, though, it scared me a little bit.
Last night, on the phone with Scott, I brought up a topic we often talk about: what goes up, must come down.
"It just freaked me out to see these new security forces randomly firing their weapons into the air and then at an abandoned building," I related, for the hundredth time. "I see people in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and sometimes in Mexico, firing weapons into the air for celebrations or just to frighten people...but, tell me again, what happens to those bullets?"
"They come down, Patti. And when they do, they usually end up hitting some innocent bystander and either killing them or maiming them. Those bullets just don't disappear into the heavens, you know," Scott said.
Then he added, "Which is why I wanted you away from the windows."
"But these were government security forces," I related, also for the hundredth time.
"Yeah, that is not a good sign. But you saw that possibility months ago when you first spotted them. Your training and your instincts told you that. So use your training and your instincts again and stay as far away from these guys as possible. And if people are that upset to riot violently once in an otherwise peaceful society, then they will riot violently again. So next time when the regional security officer tells you to go home...then just go home, OK?" he said.
OK, I agreed.
Still, when I read articles in the press now warning of an "all-out ethnic war" in Uganda, I don't really buy it. What is happening in this society is a lot more complex than that and would take many more blog entries to address.
I love Uganda and I love living here. I hope that the past 72 hours of violence was an isolated incident but Robert doesn't think so.
"People are very upset and frustrated, Madame Boss," he conveyed, "And sometimes, well, it boils over in Uganda too."
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