The eventual arrest and remand last week of the cultural leader of the Rwenzururu Kingdom, Charles Wesley Mumbere, caps a long period uneasy relations between him and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

The tipping point is traced to the 2011 elections, when President Museveni had expected to sweep Kasese district, the seat of Mr Mumbere’s Obusinga bwa Rwenzururu and the heartland of the restive Rwenzori region, in western Uganda.

Mr Mumbere and other pro-monarchists had been demanding the restoration of their institution since 1993 when Museveni agreed to reinstate all the traditional kingdoms that president Milton Obote had abolished in 1966. The abolition followed Mr Obote’s military assault on the palace of Sir Edward Mutesa II, the ceremonial president of Uganda and King of Buganda – home to Uganda’s largest ethnic group. 

The reluctance to grant the Obusinga was influenced by several forces. Key among these were the anti-monarchists in government led by former defence minister Dr Crispus Kiyonga, Tooro kingdom loyalists who still viewed the area claimed as part of their territory and privately held chunks of real estate they feared to lose if a new cultural institution were recognised in Kasese and, more importantly, the claimant to the new throne, Mr Mumbere, was linked to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebellion even when he had been thousands of miles away in the US.

Museveni won in Kasese district by 94,004 votes against his political archrival Kizza Besigye’s 79,341. His ruling NRM party equally shared the district’s six parliamentary seats with Mr Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change in 2011.

Moreover, it even lost a by-election by a wide margin on August 8, 2012, following the nullification of the victory of Winnie Kiiza, the current Leader of Opposition, over election irregularities.

Not an act of generosity

“President Museveni felt as though he had lost and that he, the King had not done enough to return the favour,” said a close associate to the Obusinga.

Indeed, among the Obusinga adherents, the restoration of the kingdom has never been viewed as an act of generosity by President Museveni that they were supposed to be eternally grateful for as some other cultural institutions tend to be. Rather, it is seen as the fitting culmination of a long term struggle, that goes back to precolonial times, to be recognised and respected as a distinct ethnic group and spared suppression and marginalisation. 

According to some analysts, feeling slighted by the “loss” in Kasese, Museveni reportedly set out to undercut Mr Mumbere’s supposed stature. He reportedly propped up Obudhingiya bwa Bwamba (OBB), a cultural institution in Bundibugyo district, which was part of the Obusinga and the birthplace of Mr Mumbere (his brother Christopher Kibanzanga, the junior minister of agriculture, is an MP of one of the constituencies there).

Headed by Lt-Col Martin Kamya, OBB had never been heard of until a meeting with elders about it was convened at State House, Entebbe on September 19, 2012. Five weeks later, on October 30, Bundibugyo District Council unanimously passed a resolution to recognise it as a cultural institution in the district.

According to Gen Jeje Odongo, Minister of Internal Affairs, the creation of OBB spawned tensions that resulted in the deadly attacks in 2014 in which at least 102 people died.

These attacks form the background of those in 2016 in which at least over 100 people died, eight security personnel and one civilian were critically injured, two guns stolen, and up to 5,000 people were displaced.

The government alleges that these attacks were orchestrated by the cultural guards Mumbere created and commands directly. It added they are the reason a joint security force moved on his palace on Sunday, November 27, to flush them out. Yet in what ended up as a horrifying assault, hundreds of people were gunned down and many more injured in a manner that invited comparisons with Obote’s attack on Mutesa in 1966.

Keepers of a secret

“While in 2014 the attacks were conducted by ‘Isyomango syo Businga,’ (Youth of the Kingdom), in the recent wave of violence the attackers have graduated into a militia that is trained, uniformed, armed, camped and under a command and control structure. This new structure is composed of ‘Kilhumira Mutima’ (the strong hearted and keepers of a secret) who have occasioned the most recent attacks,” Gen Odongo told parliament on Tuesday, November 29, while presenting the government’s statement on the security situation in the Rwenzori region. 

The raid on Mumbere followed a consultative meeting on November 21 by a consortium of leaders from the Rwenzori region that included Local Council V chairpersons, Resident District Commissioners, Regional Police Commanders, Divisional Police Commanders, Chief Administrative Officers, District Internal Security Officers, and army representatives.

According to a communique from that meeting, specific appeals were made to the central government to, among other things, take over the security of cultural institutions and disband royal guards in Obusinga and OBB both of whom, the leaders concluded, had assumed and exercised power beyond their jurisdiction.

“On learning about these impending operations, the cultural guards started attacking police stations and police posts. These attacks were carried out in a similar manner across the district where 16 policemen were killed and six guns stolen… They also ambushed and burned a police patrol vehicle that had gone to Kiburara to reinforce the unit there.

“In all these incidents, the attackers used assault rifles, petrol bombs, grenades, machetes, spears and daggers. In response to these attacks unfortunately 46 cultural guards have lost their lives while 149 have been arrested. Most of the attackers ‘Kilhumira Mutima’ retreated into the palace with their weapons,” said Gen Odongo, a former army commander.

'Soldiers shot at'

According to a source in the army, the decision to force their way into the palace was agonised over because of potential destruction such confrontation posed.

“We were being shot at. I’m a trained soldier and when as a soldier you hear that sound of a bullet aimed at you, once you survive it, you have little choice but to defend yourself,” the source said.

Gen Odongo defended the use of force, saying whereas there had been ongoing negotiations, “there was no likely positive outcome of those negotiations yet we couldn’t permit arms to remain in the hands of the militia, we feared they could be used again.”

Mr Mumbere, was, on Tuesday, November 29, arraigned before the Jinja Chief Magistrate, John Francis Kaggwa.

Police have not explained why Mumbere was transferred to the headquarters of its Flying Squad Unit, which handles violent crimes, at Nalufenya in Jinja.

Once there, however, the judiciary agreed to waive jurisdictional limitations after it was satisfied by the Director of Public Prosecutions that due to the disturbances in Kasese the Chief Magistrate’s Court there was not guaranteed to be operational.

He was charged with the murder of Police Constable Geoffrey Kasimba on March 24, at a Police Detach in Kidodo Cell, Central Division, Kasese Municipality.

If Mumbere is granted bail on December 13, there are fears he may be emboldened to return to the same actions that precipitated the horrifying assault against him.

Release Mumbere

Already, Members of Parliament from Kasese have demanded his immediate and unconditional release as a prerequisite for calming ongoing tensions and any long term amicable resolution to the crisis in the region.

If their demand is unmet, the situation is likely to be used to reinforce long running accusations of discrimination against Kasese and particularly its dominant Bakonzo ethnic group.

This feeling of ill-treatment is one of the factors the government also acknowledges has given rise to recurrent conflict in the region, according to its statement to Parliament on Tuesday, November 29.

“The stakes are high for the government either way. It faces the choice to release him with full knowledge of what he is likely to do afterwards. Or, it can insist on prosecuting him for the charges it has brought against him regardless of the pressure it faces if it believes it has sufficient evidence to back them up,” said Francis Tuhaise, who co-ordinates the non-profit Rwenzori Forum for Peace and Justice.

“There are many people, including many Bakonzo, who are not attached to the Obusinga bwa Rwenzururu who are bitter that they have lost loved ones yet have no space to air their views for fear of reprisals and are looking to the state for justice,” added Mr Tuhaise, whose RFPJ has done extensive research into the recurrent conflict in the region.