{UAH} JANAN LUWUUM: Was Amin set up to murder the Archbishop?
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Amin was known to act impulsively and not to compromise with anyone who threatened his grip on power. He was prone to moving fast without much reasoning; he was a paranoid and would do something then regret soon after. In haste he ordered or personally killed many people on the basis of unsubstantiated intelligence. His enemies are said to have taken advantage of this and as a strategy reported to him on important people in the country so as to put them in a line of danger and have them eliminated.
From Tanzania it is said, a group of mercenaries would lay around implicating evidence against a prominent person and make sure that Amin gets to know about it. Amin would then swing into action against an innocent person and hurt him if only to prove the invincibility of his regime to his enemies. With time Amin had killed many people and he couldn't escape the anger of the international community.
The SPEARTEAM BRINGS YOU AN ACCOUNT OF THE EYE WITNESS
At about 1:30am on February 5, 1977, Janani Luwum heard a dog barking outside his home in Namirembe. His worry was that perhaps there were thugs. Luwum left his bedroom and went downstairs without switching the lights on. His wife, Mary, was sound asleep so he did not want to raise any alarm.
Standing at the door of his living room, he pulled the curtain aside to peep outside. He was able to see the face of a man at his front door. It was Ben Ongom. According to Luwum's narration as quoted in Henry Kyemba's book The State of Blood, Ongom had cuts on his face and was shouting: "Archbishop! Archbishop! Open! We have come!"
"(Since) I knew him in the past, I thought he was in some kind of danger needing help. So I opened the door," Luwum narrated.
As soon as the door flung open, armed men who had been hiding in the compound sprang towards Luwum, corking their rifles and shouting: 'Archbishop! Archbishop, show us the arms!"
Luwum replied: "What arms?"
They replied: "There are arms in this house."
There was no time to give an answer.
The leader of the group whom Luwum remembered as speaking in Arabic, wearing a red Kaunda suit, pressed his rifle so hard on the right side of Luwum's tummy. Another man searched him from head to toe.
"He pushed me with the rifle, shouting: "Walk, run, show us the arms, take us to your bedroom. So we went up to the bedroom where Mary, my wife, was asleep. We woke her up and they began crawling underneath the bed," Luwum is quoted as having said.
The men opened the wardrobe and began throwing things around in search of the said arms. They reportedly even climbed as high up into the upper deckers of the cupboard. They searched the bedroom thoroughly, including suitcases and boxes.
The famous search of the Archbishop's house on allegations that he was hiding guns in the house. (Illustration by Danny Barongo)
They proceeded to search the children's bedrooms, and searched even more aggressively. Fortunately, the younger children slept through it.
"But the bigger children woke up and went around with us," Luwum recounted.
The group then went back downstairs.
Ongom, who was by now handcuffed, claimed that he, the archbishop and two other men only identified as Olobo and Dr. Lalobo had struck a deal involving sneaking ammunition into the country to overthrow Idi Amin. Ongwom claimed that they related easily because they were all Acholi.
"Please help us. If the arms are not here, tell us the location of any Acholi or Langi homes in Namirembe so that they may be searched," Ongwom said.
Shortly, Bakka says, security then ordered the clergy men to leave the gathering and be locked up in a room at Nile Mansions.
"Even Bishop Kivengere was there. We all started singing the Christian hymn I have decided to follow Jesus… We were singing loudly. And our intention was to protest being locked up. Later, the late Cardinal Nsubuga prayed. Luwum was to pray next. Before he did, he said the Church of Uganda was founded by blood, referring to the story of the Uganda martyrs. He said he knew he would die in a similar manner. Luwum said this day should be the same as the Uganda Martyrs' Day.
"He was not afraid of death. The British had contacted him and were ready to rescue the archbishop, but he refused to run away, because 'Jesus himself didn't run away from being crucified'. He said he knew they would hurt us but we needed to be strong. Then he prayed."
They had just said "amen", when all hell broke loose. Soldiers, led by Brigadier Isaac Maliyamungu, forcefully banged open the door.
"You are under arrest pending investigation over subversive activities. The rest of you are given five minutes to disappear from this room," one of the soldiers said.
The men of God would not budge, saying if the soldiers wanted to, they should kill them.
Bakka says: "We were over 50 in the room and there was only one door. They decided to take Luwum away and we heard a car driving off with him. We didn't know the destination. When we came out, we found our cars had been taken. We started singing I have decided to follow Jesus, and marched to Namirembe Cathedral for prayers."
Bakka says later that day, the BBC Focus on Africa programme, broke the news: Janani Luwum had been killed by Amin. Where, when, how, and who actually killed, no one knew.
The next day, the government announced that Luwum and two cabinet ministers – Erinayo Oryema and Oboth Ofumbi — had been killed when the car transporting them to an interrogation centre collided with another vehicle.
The accident, it was claimed, had occurred when the victims had tried to overpower the driver in an attempt to escape.
Luwum's family members, however, believe that he was killed somewhere in Nakasero by Idi Amin.
"Soldiers secretly transported his desecrated body to Mucwini (his ancestral home and birthplace), and dumped it in a hurriedly dug grave at the church yard at Wii Gweng on 19 February 19, 1977. This has been St. Janani's resting place ever since," reads a statement obtained from Otunnu, a member of the Janani Luwum memorial committee.
Luwum is survived by his wife, Mary Luwum, six children (two deceased), four sisters, two brothers, and several grandchildren.
After the arrest, Luwum is killed and his body quickly transported to Mucwini and dumped in a hurriedly dug grave at the church yard at Wii Gweng. (Illustration by Danny Barongo)
When the door of Cell Two was forcefully opened, the prisoners thought it was an ordinary person being brought to suffer the injustices of wrongful arrest under the Idi Amin regime. To their horror, it was Archbishop Janani Luwum, stripped to his underwear. Andrew Lawoko was in that cell. He shares his memories with Moses Walubiri.
On the day of Luwum's death, one-time senior manager of the defunct Radio Uganda, Wod Okello Lawoko, now in his 80s, was among the many Ugandans wasting away in an underground dungeon at the State Research Bureau (SRB) in Nakasero.
The author of a poignant book about his narrow escape from Amin's clutches, Dungeons of Nakasero, Lawoko recalls Luwum's arrival at SRB one Thursday afternoon (February 17, 1977). He was humiliated and beaten before getting shot in Farouk Minawa's office – most likely by Amin. Minawa was head of SRB.
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