If you have read them, then you know Joseph Kabuleta's Facebook rants are venomous. If you haven't, the journalist-cum-pastor speaks at length in this interview about the last rant, which triggered his Friday, July 12 dramatic arrest at Lugogo, Forest mall by plainclothes police detectives.
He also speaks to Baker Batte Lule about his three-day ordeal in police custody and the express orders he got to carefully steer his rants away from the First family and army generals, especially First Son Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Released on July 16 on police bond, Kabuleta is required to report to police every after two days. His case file is still being processed by the director of public prosecutions.
Why did you call your 'column,' a rant?
Because that's what it is; it is something that I feel and I want to express. It wasn't usually pleasant; so, it couldn't have been called anything else. I think it truly fulfilled the true meaning of the word.
When you go into the meaning of the word rant; it presupposes an emotional outburst on things not necessarily correct….
I believe everything I write in those rants is correct; I'm yet to find anybody to convince me otherwise. I do my research before I put out those things and by the way, they are the things that so many people know but they just don't want to talk about.
There is a particular one in which you ranted about New Vision boss Robert Kabushenga; what's your issue with him?
I don't know why people think there is a personal issue between me and Robert Kabushenga; it's not there at all. My issue with him was right in that rant. I felt New Vision shouldn't go into the sleaze of some pastor's marital issues. I think they are above that. If those things had come out in The Kampala Sun or Bukedde, I wouldn't have ranted although both are sister papers to the New Vision.
I thought there was a specific agenda in them doing that. It has now come out. You concentrate on some pastor's marital wars, and then build it into a big issue and the minister of Ethics and Integrity comes up with a law to gag pastors. This is what I was fighting in the first place because I know Kabushenga sits with those people at All Saints to put up those laws. Imagine even in parliament we reduce ourselves to discussing some pastor's marital wars!
But if it's a national matter, why not?
Are you kidding me; there are more important things to talk about; our oil, our minerals are being stolen but everybody is obsessed with nudes, [Pastor] Bugingo's marital wars…what kind of society are we?
These are the things that make me rant because we are not having the conversation we should be having. Our national resources are being squeezed into a nucleus of people while the rest of the county is grassing [impoverished]. But you even find intellectuals going for very trivial things. The law that the government is bringing to regulate pastors I think it's meant to gag them come President Museveni's 2021 campaign.
Do you know that as a journalist you're supposed to have a practicing certificate for 2019 from government? You don't have one, so you're a [fake] journalist. But how did this come about? Government said they were professionalizing journalism; some people bought into it but they have no interest in professionalizing journalism but want to control them.
If today you write something that annoys the government they will ask you to produce your certificate. It's the same with that law that government intends to bring – it's going to put very stringent measures for someone to operate a church. Those measures are not enforced until you cross a certain line.
But what's wrong with having laws that streamline the operation of churches?
How do you tell a pastor to have a land title, board of directors, a degree in Theology? So you keep the law somewhere and when somebody is singing Museveni's praises, you don't need to have all those things but if somebody comes out and says something against him, you pull out the law?
That's what I'm fighting. But the myopia of Ugandans, they shout, you know pastors have become extortionists; government doesn't care. By the way, who exploits more than government? People come and form fake microfinance groups, collect millions of shillings and then run away; nobody follows them up; it just ends in newspapers. So, why would government bother pastors who are getting money from their followers willingly?
Even if that was exploitation, is that the biggest issue in the country right now? You try to explain these issues to the people, they don't understand. I normally don't read the comments but the few that I do see, people deviate from the issues they need to focus on.
You try to paint a picture of a church that is under attack but it's known to all and sundry that the Pentecostal churches are Museveni's walking stick.
That's true for the most part but give them the liberty to walk away; don't entrench it in the law. If there is no such law, you have the liberty to stand up and say; you people how can you be sycophants to that extent?
But now the man will say I have no choice. In the previous elections, some pastors had started moving away; you know the FDC Pastor Ngabo and the renowned pastor who invited Col Kizza Besigye to his Crossover on December 3; it was unheard of previously. People are beginning to wake up and you're trying to put them in a place that even if they wake up, they can't speak.
Tell me about how you were treated…
They took away my two laptops, my files, receipts, mobile phones, everything, they basically totally demobilized me. They also tortured me; because I wasn't taken for a picnic. They gave me bond where I have to appear at police every after two days.
I was there on Thursday and I was there today [Monday], I will be back on Wednesday. They are doing all this because I'm waking up a group of people who in your description are the walking stick.
There was a particular rant about how government is stealing our oil and in there you said we don't have a president; we have a thief. When you write stuff like that; don't you think there will be a reaction?
I know there would be consequences; the difference is that I don't fear them because first of all I was quoting somebody who said that. But secondly, let's be honest; if Museveni wasn't the president, he would be in prison.
You remember that exhibit 15 in the United States court where somebody was convicted and sentenced for having bribed the president? Am I the one who put that up? That is empirical evidence admitted in a court of law. Would I be lying if I stated that? Take everything away and accept that court takes only evidence that is proved empirically and basing on that evidence, somebody was convicted. So, can't I prove that, that is a fair comment based on that?
When I was talking to people in the oil sector, they said; Kabuleta doesn't know what he's talking about; you can't take oil through those means he's describing…
That's what they think; but let me give you an example; do you know the process you go through to print money as a country? It's the most stringent. If Kabuleta had written in his rants that Bank of Uganda was illegally printing money, the officials including the governor would have dismissed my rants as rubbish…but would it be? Printing money is more difficult than taking oil out of the country.
I come from Hoima, I have a piece of land very near to where the refinery is supposed to be. I know what I'm talking about. By the way, apart from the [First son] Muhoozi thing, that [oil] was the other thing that they were quizzing me about for the most part of the interrogation. But if it was as ridiculous as some people thought, why were they so interested in it?
Now that you know that touching project Muhoozi is touching a live wire; are we seeing another of such rants or you are a scared man now?
I had written so many rants but it's the [Muhoozi] one that caused problems. I'm not a scared man but the rants will come; let's see. What I wanted those people to understand is that dialogue should be handled with dialogue.
Don't use brute force because you don't have an argument to counter somebody. There are so many people paid to do PR for this government; let them earn their money. I'm alone without a budget; they have big budgets, why can't they have counter arguments instead of resorting to brute force? Why must they arrest and torture?
It's a cowardly thing when somebody publishes something and you can't counter it. There are so many people attacking me on Facebook and Twitter using pseudo names; fair game but let them not take me to Kireka when I hit back.
Did they tell you who ordered your arrest?
No; but they made me make a confession that from now onwards, I will not write anything about the first family and that I will respect generals, especially General Muhoozi. When I was bleeding, somebody was taking pictures and sending them to somebody who was very angry and wanted to see me in a certain state.
Was there any kind of deal before you were released because we normally see those arrested end up in court; but you were released without a charge.
I might still end up in court because they said the director of public prosecutions was still processing the file; I'm waiting.
What is your issue with General Muhoozi?
None; I don't even know the guy. Writing that they are preparing him to be president and describing him in the way I think he is, doesn't mean I have anything about him. If I was wrong, they would have come out and said that is not who he is.
Rhetoric should be answered with rhetoric because that's how civilized societies behave. Am I the best writer in the country? Why can't they get somebody who is as good as me to counter me? I'm a man of conviction; I don't just do things without thinking. If Museveni was not president, I wouldn't be writing about him. I used to write about Lawrence Mulindwa when he was still Fufa president; since he left, have I ever written about him?
So, if Muhoozi wasn't being groomed to become president, would I ever write about him? Have you ever seen me writing about Natasha, Patience or Diana Museveni who are not in public governance?
Do you have political ambitions?
Why do people ask me that? I have a right to have ambitions just like everybody else.
Reading your rants, you come off as a man very annoyed with the state but you work with a man; Prophet Elvis Mbonye who is very close to the state. How do you reconcile the two?
Who is saying he's very close to the state?
We see him protected by Special Forces Command officers; you cannot have those soldiers protecting you if you are a nobody to the establishment…
I don't believe those are SFC people protecting him, number one; number two, protection is just disguised spying. But I can tell you categorically, he has no connection to the state whatsoever. If you follow things he says, you would know that.
The so-called security, sometimes they are people imposed on you to follow your every move. Just because you see somebody with state-provided security, the most part they must be against you. You know the saying that keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
bakerbatte@observer.ug
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