By Karuhanga K Chapaa
[It’s an undisputed fact that apart from his close friend James Garuga Musinguzi who died sometime last year, there is no other figure in the opposition who is richer than Mzee Karuhanga K Chapaa who, among other things, owns the prime property in the leafy Nakasero neighborhood where Dr. Kizza Besigye’s Katonga offices are situated. In the following missive, Karuhanga has written an open letter to his old friend Gen Salim Saleh calling on him to become keenly interested in the ongoing political persecution of their mutual friend Dr. Kizza Besigye]
VERBATTIM:
My Dear Brother Gen Saley, Habari za kwetu!
There is a story told that before the Late Revolutionary Samora Machel (RIP) died he decided to visit what he was told were notorious prisons in his country Mozambique.
To his dismay, the people he found there looking miserable and in real life finished surprised him.
Some of them were his closest comrades in the bush war struggle!
He was shocked when some of them told him that they were arrested and incarcerated there immediately they entered Maputo from the bush war!
I am one of them. And our colleague Dr Kizza Besigye is one of them! At least visit KB in Luzira.
It is you who introduced him to me when you sent him from your office in Bombo to come to see whether SEREFACO CONSULTANTS LTD could do some work on resettlement of the army combatants/ veterans after the end of the war. Of course one top official refused us to do the job.
Unfortunately or fortunately for me , I am a refugee suffering in exile. That is my Revolutionary fate. Being a refugee is not by choice.
You sent me to Ndugu Eli Tumwine to Resolve the issue of my 49 vehicles. He became so hostile that how can I be compensated when the Government had already made me too rich?
The next time I approached him, he growled against me as if I was nothing, yet not only had we worked together in the Struggle, we were both in Lumumba Hall at Makerere before I run into exile in 1976 after organizing the 2nd Uprising of Black Tuesday in June 1976. Amin’s son who is in Security knows how their regime was searching for me then!
Remember my 3.5 acres of Land near Kirudu Hospital. Armed soldiers led by one a John Masembe claimed to be working under your instructions, forcefully armed to the teeth took over this land. Fortunately, you vehemently came out and denied their claim.
I went everywhere including State House, Bamugemerire Commission. The Commission told me that the case of grabbing my land was politically motivated. I filed a case in the land court through my lawyer Alex Kibandama.
All judges told my agents that the matter was political and that they could not give judgment. Even the lawyer Counsel Alex Kibandama who was handling the case had to abandon the case fearing politics. I think he was right because he now holds an important political position.
By the time, I left the file for my 3.5 acres mailo land was on the desk of the Principal Judge Zijja. I heard he too was reluctant to give judgment.
Then when I was there fearing losing my other lands in Kampala- a young Muganda called Paul Mukisa, who claimed to be working for Gen Kainerugaba in buying land for his boss came.
He talked and sympathized with me. He said he wanted to be my son. He bought my land on top of Masajja Hill Najjanankumbi and another chunk on top of Kazi Hill all at USD509,000.00. He made a payment plan.
I was already worried by Ndugu Eli Tumwine’s behavior towards me. He growled at me viciously. Now this young Muganda who I had thought was my messiah after paying nearly USD200,000.00 became also became hostile and by force took another chunk of my land valued at USD60,000.00 next to the land he had bought from me on top of Kazzi Hill. That was in 1919/20.
When people take your property and start talking rudely viciously to you like that, then the next thing is your LIFE. So once you are alert and vigilant, you escape.
I don’t want us to mind so much about the issues of my properties. Those can come later.
The most urgent is to Stand Together like Kenyans did to bring peace to their country by forgiving Moi and his regime and Saved their Country from becoming a Somalia or Iraq or Libya.
The resources Uganda has and Africa has is like having petrol in your bedroom and yet you use a lantern to light your bedroom.
All foreign countries especially the USA and EU are watching to take over every African country so that they can loot and plunder our resources.
Their appetite for our resources is insatiable-no matter what you give them, they will aim at organizing and taking over our resources.
Solving the problem of foreign looters and plunderers takes precedence over my problems.
If we hold Elections and People die they will bomb our country and create the so called No Fly Zone. And if their Agents Win they will still put a big debt on our heads for saving us from a dictator.
Let Ugandans as a United Family Sit together, forgive each other and Reconcile (like Kenyans did) to Develop our Country under a new Economic Structure model that will help create bonds of Unity among our different diversities.
Over to you my Revolutionary former Colleague.
I trust you will Act and Save Uganda. If President M7 is taken to The Hague it will be Uganda and Indeed Africa at The Hague because we don’t know how to solve our own problems.
KK CHAPAA CHAIRMAN
SEREFACO CONSULTANTS LIMITED
6 Katonga Road, Nakasero
Kampala, UGANDA.
Email : serefaco@serefacoconsultants.com serefaco@serefacoconsultants.com
serefaco2010@gmail.com serefaco2010@gmail.com
Website: www.serefacoconsu
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