00:00:56.003 --> 00:00:57.001
How did I survive?

00:00:58.005 --> 00:00:59.018
I survived because I believed in myself and I trusted God.

00:01:10,014 --> 00:01:03,006
I live with a cause... otherwise
I would not have been here today.

00:01:15.010 --> 00:01:16.020
No... no, I wouldn't.

00:01:31.023 --> 00:01:33.020
I kill him.
I kill the enemy.

00:01:36.024 --> 00:01:37.000
That's your best friend, your own gun.

00:01:40.004 --> 00:01:41.000
You keep it nice, it will protect you.

00:01:42.024 --> 00:01:44.003
You don't keep it nice, it will betray you.

00:01:45.007 --> 00:01:49.011
And that's how we grew up, knowing that my gun is my best friend.

00:01:50.015 --> 00:01:54.011
Every answer is in this gun.
It's real, it's alive.

00:01:55.015 --> 00:01:57.012
You mess with it, you're dead.

00:01:58.016 --> 00:02:03.012
Assembling guns, it was something... it was like a toy.

00:02:06.012 --> 00:02:13.000
Steven Ndugga is thirty and living in Denmark when
he gets in touch with us to have his story told.

00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.000
He was thirteen when he became a soldier in Uganda.

00:02:24.006 --> 00:02:27.018
He killed the first time.
He killed the second time.

00:02:28.022 --> 00:02:30.010
The third time it is nothing.

00:02:32.014 --> 00:02:37.021
He has been at the battle,
fighting against the government.

00:02:39.024 --> 00:02:40.022
He overcomes that -

00:02:41.001 --> 00:02:43.018
- and he finds that at the other end,
there are a lot of dead bodies.

00:02:44.022 --> 00:02:45.015
So he knows he has killed.

00:02:46.019 --> 00:02:51.017
So from there human life starts becoming nothing.

00:03:00.011 --> 00:03:02.021
To some of the kids,
it was really exciting.

00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:07.007
Having a gun in your hands,
he has control.

00:03:08.011 --> 00:03:11.020
He can smoke, he can drink,
he can sleep out.

00:03:11.024 --> 00:03:14.011
He never had this kind of choices, he can drive.

00:03:15.015 --> 00:03:16.008
Was it fun?

00:03:17.012 --> 00:03:20.011
Yes, it was, because you didn't care anything.

00:03:21.015 --> 00:03:24.013
You had forgotten your mother,
your dad, everything.

00:03:25.017 --> 00:03:26.017
Your family is this group, -

00:03:27.021 --> 00:03:30.011
- because now it has become
a part of your everyday.

00:03:31.015 --> 00:03:33.011
That's what you are, there.

00:03:40.023 --> 00:03:44.023
Steven grew up in Luwero, central Uganda.

00:03:45.012 --> 00:03:52.000
Uganda is a fertile country right on the equator,
with a population of 26 million.

00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:03.000
In 1962 Uganda gained its independence from Britain
but was ruled for years by cruel dictators.

00:04:06.005 --> 00:04:08.000
First came Idi Amin.

00:04:12.005 --> 00:04:14.040
Then Milton Obote.

00:04:21.017 --> 00:04:26.000
In the bush rebel groups formed to overthrow the government.

00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:30.000
In 1981 the Bush War erupted.

00:04:34.010 --> 00:04:46.000
Five years later, in 1986, the rebels defeated the government
army and the capital, Kampala, fell.

00:04:48.020 --> 00:04:54.020
Yoweri Museveni, the leader of the largest rebel group,
became Uganda's new president.

00:04:58.007 --> 00:05:05.000
President Museveni has succeeded in stabilizing the country and avoiding
tribal wars like those we've seen in next-door Rwanda.

00:05:08.150 --> 00:05:19.000
His government has achieved economic growth and reduced the incidence of AIDS.
Uganda is regarded as a model nation and 52% of its budget is paid for by foreign aid.

00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:24.000
Denmark is one of the largest contributors.

00:05:27.016 --> 00:05:33.000
But thousands of the soldiers who fought to put Museveni in power were children.

00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:39.000
At the time child soldiers were accepted as quite normal.

00:05:41.022 --> 00:05:44.006
Okay, so I have brought
the children you want...

00:05:51.008 --> 00:05:56.002
In Africa here, even by the age of
four, you learn how to fight.

00:05:57.006 --> 00:06:01.015
That is our tradition,
if you don't know.

00:06:02.019 --> 00:06:04.002
To fight with sticks,
with spears, with arrows.

00:06:05.006 --> 00:06:08.019
So if you think that this might
disorient them psychologically -

00:06:09.023 --> 00:06:10.012
- that is not the case.

00:06:10.016 --> 00:06:13.014
They are never deployed
until the right age.

00:06:14.018 --> 00:06:17.019
But they learn
the skills of war, of warfare.

00:06:19.021 --> 00:06:24.000
But after the war President Museveni's use of child soldiers was
condemned abroad and the government has since changed its views.

00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:30.000
Uganda now officially disapproves of child soldiers.

00:06:37.005 --> 00:06:45.000
And when later on we have the opportunity to talk to government representatives they tell us
that the children were in the army only because they were orphaned and needed looking after ...

00:06:46.008 --> 00:06:50.010
They were never allowed to fight.
Children can't fight!

00:06:51.014 --> 00:06:53.009
If you take children to fight
either they will shoot you -

00:06:53.013 --> 00:06:57.010
- or they will start playing
games, or they will run.

00:06:57.014 --> 00:06:59.018
Children can't fight.
Children are children.

00:07:00.024 --> 00:07:05.001
Enemy soldiers?
I think we will kill them.

00:07:07.004 --> 00:07:10.022
I feel happy,
because I have killed the enemy.

00:07:13.005 --> 00:07:18.003
They tell ... you will do anything.
You do anything. You do anything ...

00:07:18.007 --> 00:07:19.000
You refuse, you are dead.

00:07:20.004 --> 00:07:22.012
To give an example to the rest, -

00:07:22.016 --> 00:07:26.022
- they will just kill you
in front of the rest.

00:07:27.001 --> 00:07:30.004
They don't even shoot, because
that's wasting their bullets.

00:07:31.008 --> 00:07:34.011
They just put an axe
on your head, and you're dead.

00:07:45.009 --> 00:07:47.023
For me, what I went through, -

00:07:48.002 --> 00:07:52.024
- I don't think
I can give you a picture of it, -

00:07:53.003 --> 00:07:57.023
- because that is
where you get the hate.

00:07:58.002 --> 00:08:01.016
Hatred comes from there,
disappointments ...

00:08:02.020 --> 00:08:04.013
You don't respect
your life, by that time.

00:08:05.009 --> 00:08:12.003
Most of the hatred just grows inside
you, but you don't talk about it.

00:08:12.015 --> 00:08:22.008
- because this whole thing
is just too much to take.

00:08:14.007 --> 00:08:16.011
I don't know if I can explain it, -

00:08:23.012 --> 00:08:27.022
If today someone is talking about
freedom like Museveni today -

00:08:28.001 --> 00:08:29.013
- I have all these pictures ...

00:08:30.017 --> 00:08:34.010
What they did to people, what they
killed, I mean people who died ...

00:08:35.014 --> 00:08:38.006
And now today when I see
some people praising him ...

00:08:39.010 --> 00:08:40.024
No, this is wrong.

00:08:57.100 --> 00:09:07.000
A few years after the war ended Steven clashed with the regime
and was forced to flee the country with his family.

00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:15.000
He tells us that his wife got caught by Ugandan intelligence and was tortured to death.
He lost his son, too, but later on his daughter made it to Denmark,

00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.000
where Steven had been given political asylum.

00:09:21.006 --> 00:09:24.000
"One day when the boys
come home from school -

00:09:24.004 --> 00:09:30.006
- there is nobody to welcome them.
Where is mummy?"

00:09:31.010 --> 00:09:37.013
"They begin to snap at each other".

00:09:39.020 --> 00:09:46.000
When we meet Steven he has been in Denmark for 6 years.
He is living on the outskirts of Copenhagen with his daughter Agnes and his younger brother, Dickson.

00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:57.000
When Steven approaches us we think our film will be about the child soldier,
but only a few months later there is a completely new development.

00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:05.000
An anonymous tip-off from somebody in the Ugandan army sparks off
a series of events that will last for years and prove entirely unpredictable

00:10:12.023 --> 00:10:14.005
Hello, Steven here.

00:10:15.009 --> 00:10:17.004
I'm fine; and you?

00:10:19.008 --> 00:10:21.014
Do you think the fax is through?

00:10:21.018 --> 00:10:24.006
Okay, I'm going to call
within ten minutes from now.

00:10:29.024 --> 00:10:36.000
Steven has been contacted by somebody in the
Ugandan army who tells him his son is alive.

00:10:40.011 --> 00:10:49.000
The person in question has discovered that a ten-year-old boy by the
name of Frances Ndugga is serving as a soldier in barracks near the Zaire frontier.

00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:52.000
Zaire is now known as the Democratic Republic Congo.

00:10:56.016 --> 00:11:00.015
I said "Come on. Are there some
people who wants to get me?"

00:11:01.019 --> 00:11:05.014
"Who wants to get money?"
Something like this, like a trap.

00:11:06.004 --> 00:11:07.010
They told me -

00:11:08.015 --> 00:11:13.002
- "Your son is in a military camp
where they train kids for war".

00:11:14.006 --> 00:11:19.022
Uganda is supporting the guerillas
to overthrow the government in Zaire.

00:11:20.001 --> 00:11:21.012
They are based there.

00:11:22.016 --> 00:11:26.017
So these kids are trained
to go to Zaire to fight.

00:11:27.014 --> 00:11:30.000
Steven's half-brother has visited the barracks and
confirms that the boy is Steven's long lost son.

00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:40.000
Steven sets about planning an action to
get his son out of the army and to bring him to Denmark.

00:11:40.012 --> 00:11:41.021
This is my son.

00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:46.011
This is my son here; today
he is alive, tomorrow he is dead.

00:11:49.013 --> 00:11:51.013
I was there,
I never cared about my life.

00:11:53.017 --> 00:11:57.013
Today, it's the same thing with my
son, he doesn't care about his life.

00:12:00.001 --> 00:12:04.021
So, I have to come
into his life right now.

00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:08.011
To get him out and have
a normal life like any other kid.

00:12:09.009 --> 00:12:12.000
I mean,
I'm talking whatever it takes.

00:12:12.001 --> 00:12:20.000
Steven has received a coded fax. An officer has demanded payment
for letting Steven's son out of the army.

00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:25.000
Steven has paid up and the fax announces the receipt of the money.
116
00:12:26:00 --> 00:12:35:00
Meanwhile Frances has been stationed in Congo. Steven sets off to find him.
He has informed the authorities in Denmark.

00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:46.000
Steven has to travel on false documents and he does not want us to go
to Congo with him. We agree he'll get in touch when he has found Frances.

00:12:56.011 --> 00:13:05.000
Some refugees may feel tempted to exaggerate their stories in order to
improve their chances of asylum.

00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:11.000
Steven has given us official permission to examine his records with the
Danish immigration services so while he is away we study the details.

00:13:12.017 --> 00:13:24.000
The records show that Steven was a soldier from 1982 to 1988 when he was imprisoned.
He has explained that he had visiting privileges, and had two children while in prison.

00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:39.000
Red Cross files show that he fled from Uganda in 1991 after spending three years
eight months in prison without trial. His files also include a medical report stating that he was tortured.

00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:50.000
The UN report on Steven says that the refugee office in Nairobi recognized him as a political
refugee with his wife and his children Agnes and Frances Ndugga.

00:13:51.000 --> 00:14:02.000
While the family was waiting to be sent to a safe country his wife and children disappeared.
The report says that presumably, Ugandan Intelligence has kidnapped them.

00:14:00.011 --> 00:15:03.022
There is no way anybody
is going to lead this country -

00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:10.000
Steven's wife has died after being tortured in a Ugandan prison. The fate of the children is unknown.

00:14:06.018 --> 00:14:15.000
We find more details showing why Steven had to flee.

00:14:20.002 --> 00:14:32.000
During the war many rebel groups fought alongside President Museveni's rebels.
The other rebel leaders had to be paid off when the new government was formed.
127
00:14:35:12 --> 00:14:45:00
One of them was the popular Dr. Kayiira, who was made minister of energy,
despite the fact that he and President Museveni had opposing political views.

00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:54.000
President Museveni wanted a one-party system: Kayiira went
in for a federal government with a multi-party system.

00:14:54.012 --> 00:14:57.007
... I will preserve protect
and defend the constitution.

00:15:04.001 --> 00:15:05.015
- by using only one group.

00:15:06.019 --> 00:15:09.021
This country can only be led -

00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:15.005
- with the consensus
of the majority of the people.

00:15:16.006 --> 00:15:27.000
Six months after his appointment Kayiira was imprisoned for treason,
but the courts released him due to lack of evidence. A week after his release he was shot to death.

00:15:34.021 --> 00:15:44.000
The government was accused of the murder. President Museveni felt compelled to
call in Scotland Yard to investigate. The results have never been published.

00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:52.000
It is still the general view that Kayiira's murder was politically inspired.
It is also claimed that Kayiira's soldiers were persecuted

00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:58.000
and that since his murder many have vanished without trace.

00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:04.000
Steven was one of Kayiira's soldiers.
The UN report says this is what is behind his escape.

00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:29.000
A picture of Steven's past begins to emerge. But can it really be true that his
ten year old son is also a child soldier now?
140
00:16:20,000--> 00:16:24,000
Would Uganda risk her status as a model state by using child soldiers?

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:30.000
That is what Steven tells us next time we hear from him.
He has found his son at an army camp in Congo.

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:44.000
He has marched across the war-ravaged country with a guide
and has reached the place where Frances is stationed.

00:16:46.008 --> 00:16:50.000
He has managed to get his son and they have made it out of Congo together.

00:17:10.006 --> 00:17:15.000
They are now going to try to make it home via the Danish embassy in Nairobi.

00:17:18.015 --> 00:17:20.002


00:17:20.006 --> 00:17:22.020


00:17:23.024 --> 00:17:28.006



00:17:29.010 --> 00:17:33.006



00:17:34.010 --> 00:17:36.001



00:17:37.005 --> 00:17:40.011



00:17:41.015 --> 00:17:42.001


00:17:43.012 --> 00:17:50.000
Steven sends numerous faxes to the Danish immigration service
asking for protection. He never receives a reply.

00:18:00.017 --> 00:18:07.000
But Steven and Frances have no choice but to go to Nairobi:
a family reunification permit is required for Steven to take Frances to Denmark.

00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:16.000
They have to show up at the embassy many times.
Steven is sure Ugandan Intelligence is onto him.

00:18:17.016 --> 00:18:21.018
Leaving the embassy the first day
I was informed -

00:18:21.022 --> 00:18:24.019
- "They know you are in Nairobi
and they know you have your son".

00:18:25.024 --> 00:18:29.015
At the embassy downstairs,
at the reception, -

00:18:29.019 --> 00:18:33.019
- those guys down there,
they knew me, and I didn't know them.

00:18:34.023 --> 00:18:37.019
They are just security guards,
but I think they were paid.

00:18:38.023 --> 00:18:43.018
"If you ever see this person here,
just make a phone call!"

00:18:47.023 --> 00:18:54.000
We have agreed to meet with Steven in Nairobi and we are just
about to leave, when we receive a disturbing phone-call.

00:18:55.011 --> 00:18:59.013



00:19:00.017 --> 00:19:05.010



00:19:06.014 --> 00:19:12.024



00:19:13.003 --> 00:19:19.001



00:19:22.002 --> 00:19:26.000
After that we loose all contact with Steven.

00:19:38.010 --> 00:19:49.000
Steven has told us later that he was forced to leave Nairobi. He leaves Frances
with relatives, goes to Tanzania, and will try to get back to Denmark from there.

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.000
In Denmark he will sort out the paperwork and go back to get his son.

00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:10.000
But in Dar Es Salaam he is stopped by two cars of armed men. They don't identify
themselves but handcuff him, take him out of the city, and put him into a cell.

00:20:11.011 --> 00:20:14.017
One of the guards said:
"You have to eat."

00:20:15.021 --> 00:20:20.009
"You need it.
It is a long ride you have tomorrow."
172
00:20:21,130 ----> 00:20:25:050
Then I knew. There are two rides:
either death or back to Uganda.

00:20:33.008 --> 00:20:42.000
Steven says he was taken from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to a "safehouse" in Uganda.
In Uganda the term "safe-house" is used for secret, illegal prisons.

00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:54.000
Steven is interrogated by several high-ranking officers.
They accuse him of undermining the government.

00:20:57.002 --> 00:20:59.014
I said:
You may call me a rebel.

00:21:00.018 --> 00:21:03.008
But being a rebel can
depend on many, many things.

00:21:04.012 --> 00:21:07.019
I don't agree with you,
and I am doing my own things.

00:21:08.023 --> 00:21:11.023
If you put that as a rebel,
yes, I agree.

00:21:12.013 --> 00:21:18.000
They confront him with so-called proof that he has been
indulging in rebel activities since the war ended.

00:21:18.014 --> 00:21:23.004
You cannot argue with them; they
have the answers and the questions.

00:21:25.008 --> 00:21:30.004
So it was like this: I have to agree
with them and sign some papers.

00:21:34.002 --> 00:21:42.000
Uganda has an Amnesty Act but many Ugandans in exile don't trust the
government enough to make use of the act. According to Steven the officers demand that
183
00:21:43,000--> 00:21:52,000
he publicly urge rebels and politicians in exile to apply for amnesty.
They want him to sign a statement saying that he has returned voluntarily to the army,

00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:54.000
thus proving that it is safe to give yourself up.

00:21:57.017 --> 00:22:01.001
The moment I sign any papers,
I am under that chain of command.

00:22:02.005 --> 00:22:08.021
I have to fulfil it. And I am not
ready to go to Congo or Sudan.

00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:12.001
And if I sign the papers,
I have signed everything.

00:22:13.005 --> 00:22:16.012
I am not ready to do that.
I am not ready to lie.

00:22:20.190 --> 00:22:24.000
Steven refuses to sign the statement.

00:22:29.010 --> 00:22:33.020
That's when I started having
these slaps in my face, -

00:22:34.024 --> 00:22:38.007
- some kicks, and electricity.

00:22:38.010 --> 00:22:43.013
They pour water in the room, and
someone just puts on the electricity.

00:22:44.017 --> 00:22:49.023
Just some few seconds.
You have to jump around, make noise.

00:22:51.002 --> 00:22:53.003
But the voice cannot go anywhere.

00:22:54.011 --> 00:22:57.006
I remember Mayombo.

00:22:58.010 --> 00:23:00.018
He is the Internal Security
Intelligence Officer.

00:23:00.022 --> 00:23:01.000
He told me -

00:23:02.004 --> 00:23:09.022
- "Then we are going on plan B",
when I refused to sign the papers.

00:23:11.017 --> 00:23:19.000
Steven doesn't know what Plan B is ...
And back in Denmark we don't know where Steven is.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:29.000
We haven't heard from him for months, and all our investigations have ended blindly
When news finally comes, it is on the front pages of the Ugandan newspapers.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:32.000
They write that Steven has been captured as a rebel.

00:23:34.013 --> 00:23:38.018
It was an armed group
in the bushes of Luwero.

00:23:39.012 --> 00:23:43.014
Based on the information
we had, we attacked them.

00:23:49.011 --> 00:23:51.001
He was found
addressing new recruits.

00:23:53.005 --> 00:23:56.020
They told us two of them were
arrested and the rest took off.

00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:02.015
He was shot in the leg,
so we are treating that wound.

00:24:04.019 --> 00:24:09.006
He is believed to be linked
to a rebel group called the NDA.

00:24:10.010 --> 00:24:15.019
There was a fax sent
to the head office here, -

00:24:15.023 --> 00:24:19.024
- by the external
coordinator of the NDA.

00:24:20.003 --> 00:24:24.012
He denied allegations that this man
has been arrested from Uganda.

00:24:27.008 --> 00:24:44.000
Steven tells us the headlines are a result of the Plan B he has been threatened with.
One morning he is escorted from the safe-house where he is incarcerated to a banana plantation

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:54.000
To his great surprise some of his former fellow soldiers are already in the plantation.
They say they've been picked up from their homes by soldiers and ordered to wait.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:25:01.000
Steven says his handcuffs are then removed and the soldiers withdraw.

00:25:09.018 --> 00:25:11.004
After two or three minutes -

00:25:12.008 --> 00:25:22.016
- one guy jumped from the banana
plantation, and told me: "Hands up!"

00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:27.015
At that moment I sensed:
This is a plant!

00:25:28.019 --> 00:25:32.012
"It looks like I am
a rebel leader now here!"

00:25:33.016 --> 00:25:38.011
And then these three guys jumped
just beside me in the bush.

00:25:39.015 --> 00:25:41.024
The other guy below me ... fired!

00:25:48.023 --> 00:25:54.000
Steven is badly wounded. He's been hit by two bullets
in the ankle and one thigh bone has been shot in two.

00:25:55.023 --> 00:25:59.000
He is transported to a hospital at the military headquarters.

00:26:00.022 --> 00:26:03.022
They just carried me like a sack.

00:26:04.001 --> 00:26:07.015
You find that the leg
is looking the other side -

00:26:07.019 --> 00:26:10.008
- so this was horrible.
It was painful.

00:26:12.007 --> 00:26:20.000
Steven says he spends more than a day and a night without
treatment or water to drink. A major comes by.

00:26:21.020 --> 00:26:24.011
"I can't believe it!
You are the rebel they are saying?"

00:26:25.015 --> 00:26:27.017
I don't know him. I don't
remember him; he knows me well.

00:26:28.021 --> 00:26:32.022
And that is when I had some one
who gave me a bottle of fruit soda.

00:26:33.001 --> 00:26:36.006
Something like orange.

00:26:36.010 --> 00:26:39.002
He gave me my life back.

00:26:44.019 --> 00:26:54.000
Steven claims that he was set up when he refused to cooperate.
Ugandan Intelligence staged the shooting in the banana plantation

00:26:55.019 --> 00:26:59.000
in order to be able to put Steven on trial
as a rebel and to make an example of him.

00:27:04.023 --> 00:27:07.023
I can't determine
what will take place in court.

00:27:08.002 --> 00:27:10.011
I hope justice will prevail.

00:27:11.015 --> 00:27:13.024
If some one is convicted of treason -

00:27:14.003 --> 00:27:20.013
- it carries a capital sentence,
and that is death.

00:27:21.021 --> 00:27:26.001
Death, yes ... if you are convicted.

00:27:32.012 --> 00:27:39.000
We tried in vain to get in touch with Steven. Dickson, his brother,
approached the Red Cross.

00:27:39.002 --> 00:27:42.024
That's what we call
Red Cross messages.

00:27:43.003 --> 00:27:47.016
It is used when normal means of
communication are out of order

00:27:47.020 --> 00:27:50.002
You can write him a message, -

00:27:50.006 --> 00:27:55.011
- also that the Danish authorities
say he can come back to Denmark.

00:27:56.004 --> 00:27:58.008
And when it is visit to prisons, -

00:27:58.012 --> 00:28:01.007
- it is a kind of prison,
it is the delegate -

00:28:01.011 --> 00:28:03.016
- from the Red Cross.

00:28:03.020 --> 00:28:07.017
Swiss people go to the prison.
Not Ugandan people.
248
00:28:08:20 --> 00:28:16:00
As planned, Red Cross representatives should have handed Dickson's
letter to Steven in person, but the letter never reaches him.

00:28:20.012 --> 00:28:23.015
And he wrote his message here.

00:28:23.019 --> 00:28:26.011
Partly in Ugandan,
partly in Danish.

00:28:26.015 --> 00:28:32.024
"Your daughter Agnes sends much
greetings. I hope you will improve".

00:28:34.018 --> 00:28:39.020
- But that is from the Red Cross!
- How do you have Red Cross papers?

00:28:39.024 --> 00:28:44.024
How do we have anything?
How do you have anything yourself?

00:28:45.003 --> 00:28:48.022
Information is
not very difficult to access.

00:28:51.006 --> 00:29:05.000
Steven has been detained as a rebel leader. Rebel activities are a recurrent
phenomenon in Uganda. President Museveni himself came to power as a rebel.

00:29:05.016 --> 00:29:08.014
Point number one on our program
is the restoration of democracy.

00:29:09.007 --> 00:29:19.000
But the regime is still based on a one-party system. The Movement, the government party,
is the only one allowed. All other parties are in practice banned,

00:29:20.007 --> 00:29:29.000
although individuals are entitled to be politically active.
Winnie Byanyima is one of the most prominent representatives of the legal opposition.

00:29:29.003 --> 00:29:32.007
If you read today's paper,
you will see -

00:29:32.011 --> 00:29:39.013
- that I was trying to hold
a meeting on Saturday.

00:29:39.017 --> 00:29:43.007
"Police block Byanyima meeting".

00:29:44.010 --> 00:29:54.000
Winnie Byanyima describes how she is constantly harassed and obstructed.
In just two years the government has filed seven lawsuits against her.

00:29:55.010 --> 00:30:00.000
She is married to Kizza Besigye, who ran against
President Museveni in the 2001 elections.

00:30:00.011 --> 00:30:02.013
It was a very difficult election.

00:30:02.017 --> 00:30:05.009
We were constantly surveilled.

00:30:05.013 --> 00:30:05.017
Our house was all the time
surrounded by security agencies.

00:30:10.021 --> 00:30:13.016
When the pressure
became unbearable -

00:30:13.020 --> 00:30:18.011
- and it became clear that they were
about to arrest him and frame him -

00:30:18.015 --> 00:30:21.012
- he slipped out of the country
and left.

00:30:23.021 --> 00:30:32.000
Uganda's many rebel groups may be the result of the
impossible conditions imposed on the opposition.

00:30:32.020 --> 00:30:35.017
You see,
in this part of the world, -

00:30:35.021 --> 00:30:38.005
- sometimes if you are
a politician in opposition -

00:30:38.009 --> 00:30:43.002
- you're taken more seriously
when you threaten to use violence.

00:30:43.006 --> 00:30:46.023
The Government would offer
UGS 4 billion to armed groups -

00:30:47.002 --> 00:30:50.003
- and even spend the time
trying to talk to them.

00:30:50.007 --> 00:30:53.023
But they won't even give a chance
to the Democratic People's leader, -

00:30:54.002 --> 00:30:58.014
- who doesn't believe in violence
They don't take him seriously.

00:30:58.018 --> 00:31:52.017
Until you pose a threat
in terms of armed rebellion -

00:31:02.021 --> 00:31:04.015
- the government
doesn't take you seriously.

00:31:05.019 --> 00:31:09.002
This is a government who came to
power through violence, so it knows!

00:31:09.006 --> 00:31:11.021
When you speak their language,
they take you seriously.

00:31:13.008 --> 00:31:22.000
Ugandan Intelligence claims that Steven is a member of the NDA rebel group.
If so, he is a criminal and a traitor.

00:31:22.017 --> 00:33:27.002
Even President Museveni himself
when he began his guerilla war ...

00:31:27.006 --> 00:31:29.021
Those are the same words
people were using!

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.011
They were talking of him
being a criminal, ambushing cars ...

00:31:34.015 --> 00:31:39.001
That he was planting landmines,
that he was robbing banks ...

00:31:39.005 --> 00:31:42.005
The President would say
he needed the money.

00:31:42.009 --> 00:31:44.009
So it depends on
who is saying it.

00:31:44.013 --> 00:31:50.000
You see, at that time, even if we got
some money out of the bank, -

00:31:50.004 --> 00:31:53.011
- it was in order
to feed our fighters.

00:31:53.015 --> 00:31:56.018
You can't fight
on an empty stomach.

00:31:56.022 --> 00:32:00.005
No, but it still was a robbery,
seen from the government.

00:32:00.009 --> 00:32:03.001
Well, it can be,
but it is explainable.

00:32:03.005 --> 00:32:07.007
Certainly the Government will
criminalize any armed dissent -

00:32:07.011 --> 00:32:12.020
- as being terrorist, or
simply criminal like that.

00:32:12.024 --> 00:32:16.021
So until you come to power,
like President Museveni did, -

00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:19.009
- that's when you can say -

00:32:19.013 --> 00:32:23.005
- "Okay, the end justifies the means
at the end of the day".

00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:49.000
After the shooting episode in the banana plantation Steven spends three
months at the army hospital. The hospital is full of soldiers wounded in Congo.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:57.000
But Steven is in a private room.
One day a lieutenant comes to see him.

00:32:58.020 --> 00:33:01.022
He told me: "You know what, Sir,
you have to leave here".

00:33:02.001 --> 00:33:06.006
"I don't think these people
are going to let you go".

00:33:06.022 --> 00:33:17.000
Steven decides to escape. Some officers help him to make a map of the hospital,
the grounds, and where the guards are.

00:33:17.019 --> 00:33:21.021
From here, you come like
this, that's the corridor -

00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:23.024
- you find me behind there.

00:33:24.003 --> 00:33:27.024
So the only way out
was here in front.

00:33:28.003 --> 00:33:36.003
Then the problem was that there
was a lot of light everywhere.

00:33:36.007 --> 00:33:37.018
That was hard.

00:33:43.013 --> 00:33:50.023
Actually, there was a conspiracy by
some officers to help him escape.

00:33:51.002 --> 00:33:55.002
I think you know that on that day
there was a power black-out.

00:33:55.006 --> 00:33:57.023
It was caused by officers -

00:33:58.002 --> 00:34:02.002
- who felt that
he was being victimized.

00:34:03.011 --> 00:34:15.000
From his sickbed Steven plans his escape and the officers help him to execute it.
Why a faction from the very army that has captured Steven decides

00:34:16.011 --> 00:34:22.000
to help him get away remains a mystery. But it's a fact that Steven's leg
is put in a plaster cast so he can walk, and at the city power station

00:34:23.011 --> 00:34:27.000
a power cut is organized to black out the entire area.

00:34:28.013 --> 00:34:30.013
It was something like 7.10.

00:34:32.001 --> 00:34:34.006
The lights went off.

00:34:34.010 --> 00:34:40.020
And you have these small, small
words in your head: "This is it!"

00:34:44.016 --> 00:34:48.022
I came out in that small
dark corridor I was in.

00:34:49.001 --> 00:34:52.003
I looked.
There was nobody!

00:34:52.007 --> 00:34:57.001
Here I am
at the main entrance of the ward.

00:34:57.005 --> 00:35:01.024
There was one nurse standing to
the side of the door, and a soldier.

00:35:02.003 --> 00:35:04.004
They did not notice me -

00:35:04.008 --> 00:35:07.007
- because they did
not expect me to do that.

00:35:07.011 --> 00:35:13.005
I just walk like this, then I came
to the fence, and then I crossed.

00:35:13.017 --> 00:35:17.016
At the fence
I had people waiting for me -

00:35:17.020 --> 00:35:22.008
- because they knew
I could not go up at the fence.

00:35:23.018 --> 00:35:28.000
Roadblocks are set up on all the roads out of the city,
but Steven manages to escape.

00:35:29.018 --> 00:35:36.000
Two weeks later the government is forced to announce that
the "rebel leader" has escaped from army headquarters.

00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:45.000
With a shot-up leg in a home-made plaster cast,
Steven crosses the border into Kenya on the back of a moped.

00:35:45.002 --> 00:35:50.000
Steven makes it to the Danish embassy in Nairobi and
is immediately flown to Copenhagen.

00:36:13.019 --> 00:36:19.006
I mean why? Why should I be shot?
Why should I have this?

00:36:20.012 --> 00:36:23.021
The whole thing is like a circus!

00:36:24.019 --> 00:36:29.000
I always feel we are betrayed.
Why?

00:36:29.004 --> 00:36:33.003
We have money,
we have the best soil in Africa, -

00:36:33.007 --> 00:36:37.017
- we can work, but why?
You know you have these questions.

00:36:37.021 --> 00:36:42.005
In Uganda we need
what you call a federal system ...

00:36:42.009 --> 00:36:45.013
Like here in Denmark,
you have a federal system.

00:36:45.017 --> 00:36:50.013
In Germany it's a federal system,
in the States, it's a federal system.

00:36:50.017 --> 00:36:55.004
We had a federal system
when we built Uganda.

00:36:55.008 --> 00:37:02.023
It is almost now 30 years
since we were given independence.

00:37:03.002 --> 00:37:06.019
And up until now people cannot
understand how to behave.

00:37:06.023 --> 00:37:11.017
When will we ever
understand the value of life?

00:37:11.021 --> 00:37:15.021
I mean: work for ourselves, you know.
That thing! When?

00:37:16.021 --> 00:37:22.007
You see, that is why I have told you
that they have pushed me enough.

00:37:22.011 --> 00:37:26.011
I have never thought of putting on
a combat uniform again on my body -

00:37:26.015 --> 00:37:28.023
- and saying:
"Now it's combat time"; no.

00:37:29.002 --> 00:37:32.003
Sometimes freedom ... to get it, and
to get people to understand it ...

00:37:32.007 --> 00:37:35.012
... you have to use force.
Sometimes it does.

00:37:35.016 --> 00:37:39.010
It is not the best way of
using it, but sometimes: yes.

00:37:42.006 --> 00:37:59.000
Steven�s son is still in Africa. So Steven has to go back as soon as his leg is better. This time we accompany him.

00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:07.000
At a bar in a Nairobi suburb Steven and Frances meet up.

00:38:35.006 --> 00:38:46.000
Frances has been concealed in this remote house since Steven left him; friends and relatives have taken turns to look after him.

00:38:46.023 --> 00:38:53.012
Frances doesn't talk, I don't know
why. He's not used of talking.

00:39:04.021 --> 00:39:10.014
If you ask him to narrate
the story to you, he cries.

00:39:10.018 --> 00:39:14.008
He doesn't want to talk
about it. I don't know why.

00:39:14.012 --> 00:39:20.006
Maybe he was harassed, or
what ... Maybe it was terrible ...

00:39:20.010 --> 00:39:23.008
He doesn't talk about it.
The moment you ask him -

00:39:23.012 --> 00:39:27.005
- if he doesn't keep quiet
he starts crying.

00:39:30.002 --> 00:39:34.016
I try to explain to him ... It is
still very hard for me here now, -

00:39:34.020 --> 00:39:40.021
- because he has got questions
which I cannot answer just like that.

00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:43.023
"What happened?"
"How did I end up this way?"

00:39:44.002 --> 00:39:46.024
How can I answer
these questions?

00:39:58.005 --> 00:40:00.013
Welcome home.

00:40:01.009 --> 00:40:05.000
At last Steven has brought his son to Denmark.
Two years have passed, since he first set out.

00:40:32.022 --> 00:40:35.016
Frances, you are home.

00:41:15.019 --> 00:41:33.000
But this happy reunion doesn't last long. In the summer of 2002 Steven vanishes.
We have arranged more interviews with him and we wait for ages, but he never shows up.

00:41:34.019 --> 00:41:39.000
We also want to interview Frances, but only Steven can grant us permission.

00:41:39.030 --> 00:41:48.000
Nobody can tell us where he is or what has happened.
We don't know if he's been captured again or if he is even alive.

00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:57.000
Frances and Agnes are on their own with Steven's younger brother, Dickson.
They can't tell us where Steven is, either.

00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:08.000
We decide to go back to Uganda in the hope of finding out what has happened.
We also want to investigate whether Frances really could have been a child soldier in the Ugandan army.

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:19.000
But the Ugandan authorities have become aware of our film, and President Museveni's
senior advisor has come to Denmark to get it aborted.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:30.000
He has approached the heads of the Danish Film Institute and the Danish Broadcasting Corporation,
and now it is our turn. We are summoned to a meeting at the Ugandan Embassy in Copenhagen.

00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:39.000
The Ugandans, too, have made a film, which presents Steven as a criminal and a terrorist,
and in which they state that our film "as yet unmade" is based on untruths.

00:42:40.018 --> 00:42:45.006
Why is the Danish Film Institute,
with European Union funding -

00:42:45.010 --> 00:42:48.018
- involved in making
a film with a terrorist?

00:42:48.022 --> 00:42:55.000
Yes it is odd indeed, to say
the least, that professional ...

00:42:56.001 --> 00:43:00.010
Let us face it: Uganda is
not interested in this film.

00:43:00.014 --> 00:43:05.020
Because to the country it doesn't
pay. What do we benefit? Nothing!

00:43:05.024 --> 00:43:10.003
But for us to appear open people, -

00:43:10.007 --> 00:43:14.021
- we are saying: "Please
come. Come and verify"; Okay?

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.021
We have no intention
of stopping your film.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:27.024
Perhaps we'll go further:
we would like our side to be heard.

00:43:28.018 --> 00:43:31.016
Ndugga is supposed
to tell his experiences -

00:43:31.020 --> 00:43:37.002
- of survival as a child soldier,
brutalized by Ugandan authorities.

00:43:37.006 --> 00:43:40.024
It is yet another
grand tale of fiction.

00:43:41.019 --> 00:43:44.024
All the above Ndugga
claims are false.

00:43:45.003 --> 00:43:48.002
Ndugga is a criminal, actually.

00:43:48.006 --> 00:43:53.007
Ndugga's fact file reads like
a Who is Who in the criminal world.

00:43:53.011 --> 00:43:57.024
If he comes to Uganda,
as an absconded criminal, -

00:43:58.003 --> 00:44:01.023
- the law will take it's ...
will do what is right.

00:44:02.002 --> 00:44:03.024
On 24 May 1988, -

00:44:04.003 --> 00:44:09.021
- Ndugga with others
stole an Isuzu pick-up ...

00:44:10.016 --> 00:44:13.008
It is on this page, -

00:44:13.012 --> 00:44:17.022
- where there is the summary
of a case of a stolen vehicle.

00:44:18.024 --> 00:44:21.010
As you saw in our film, -

00:44:21.014 --> 00:44:25.015
- the man
who is leading our inquires, -

00:44:25.019 --> 00:44:31.000
- who is from Military Intelligence,
has never been in any doubt.
389
00:44:32,002 --> 00:44:24,014
This is the charge sheet.

00:44:34.018 --> 00:44:39.014
Robbery, contrary to section 272
and 273 (2) of the Penal Code Act.

00:44:39.018 --> 00:44:43.004
And one point you must know
is that with aggravated robbery -

00:44:43.008 --> 00:44:45.024
- the sentence is death.
It is a capital offence.

00:44:46.020 --> 00:44:52.021
If he had been convicted, he would
have been sentenced to death.

00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:56.004
He was charged,
but he was not sentenced?

00:44:56.008 --> 00:45:00.000
No, but he was on bail,
and he jumped bail in 1990.

00:45:00.004 --> 00:45:05.003
- But he was in prison for 3 years?!
- For three years?

00:45:05.007 --> 00:45:10.017
Even if he was, at that time I have
to tell you, you remember maybe, -

00:45:10.021 --> 00:45:15.010
- that the courts
did not sit every day.

00:45:16.009 --> 00:45:19.023
Don't you sentence people
in order to put them into jail?

00:45:20.002 --> 00:45:25.002
There were not many
judges and magistrates.

00:45:25.006 --> 00:45:27.023
- But we are talking about 88?
- Even now it might happen.

00:45:28.002 --> 00:45:30.019
But then it happened a lot.

00:45:30.023 --> 00:45:33.003
Don't let that worry you.

00:45:33.007 --> 00:45:37.019
You can say the bugger
was there for three years ...

00:45:37.023 --> 00:45:39.015
What a pity for him!

00:45:42.009 --> 00:45:50.000
When Steven escaped from Uganda with his family he had been in prison
for three years eight months without being brought before a magistrate.

00:45:50.002 --> 00:45:55.018
We have no interest whatsoever
in producing a film based on any lie.

00:45:55.022 --> 00:46:00.014
We want to find out
the truth about this man -

00:46:00.018 --> 00:46:03.005
- and what he
claims to have experienced.

00:46:03.009 --> 00:46:06.019
Couldn't be better.
And that is why from day one -

00:46:06.023 --> 00:46:11.004
- we promise our full cooperation -

00:46:11.008 --> 00:46:15.023
- if we also get
a fair crack of the whip.

00:46:16.002 --> 00:46:18.016
Now ...
If you want us to help you ...

00:46:18.020 --> 00:46:24.003
But you may say that our sources
are not good enough for you.

00:46:24.007 --> 00:46:29.005
In which case you are most welcome
to go and ask the people you want.

00:46:29.009 --> 00:46:34.009
You can get up and go to
the country side. Up to you.

00:46:34.013 --> 00:46:39.000
Now if you ...
This is a practical point.

00:46:39.004 --> 00:46:43.022
If you are going to get
some of these people involved, -

00:46:44.001 --> 00:46:46.024
- you will not do so
without paying them.

00:46:47.003 --> 00:46:53.003
Because they know Ndugga
for a very vicious person.

00:46:53.007 --> 00:46:56.021
They will think he might
arrange to have them killed.

00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:01.011
So to get
their faith and confidence, -

00:47:01.015 --> 00:47:04.008
- I suspect you will
have to pay them.

00:47:04.012 --> 00:47:07.010
Mr. Nagenda,
cheque-book journalism -

00:47:07.014 --> 00:47:11.019
- is not part of the business
of journalism in Denmark.

00:47:11.023 --> 00:47:15.020
People could accuse me
of paying them -

00:47:15.024 --> 00:47:19.018
- for saying
what I'd like them to say.

00:47:19.022 --> 00:47:23.012
That is absolutely true:
so your work will be longer.

00:47:23.016 --> 00:47:25.013
Yes.

00:47:25.017 --> 00:47:28.011
Your work will be longer.

00:47:30.004 --> 00:47:36.001
Our own cooperation -

00:47:36.005 --> 00:47:40.022
- will also depend on what kind
of film you are going to make.

00:47:41.001 --> 00:47:45.008
So are we going to be periodically
able to see your script?

00:47:46.009 --> 00:47:50.013
Honestly, I don't think
there will be a script, -

00:47:50.017 --> 00:47:53.000
- because in documentary -

00:47:53.004 --> 00:47:57.003
- it is reality
that writes the script in a way.

00:47:57.007 --> 00:48:02.007
- What if you try to dupe us?
- Then you can take us to court.

00:48:02.011 --> 00:48:08.014
No! Court! In Uganda
that would take a few years!

00:48:10.003 --> 00:48:13.004
We'll have to spend three years ...

00:48:13.008 --> 00:48:16.006
But we'll have to
feed you, probably ...

00:48:16.010 --> 00:48:21.011
We are not going to lay on
all these places and people -

00:48:21.015 --> 00:48:24.017
- before we know
what sort of film it is going to be.

00:48:24.021 --> 00:48:27.009
Once you have talked
to these people -

00:48:27.013 --> 00:48:31.010
- we can see
if we are going forward together.

00:48:31.014 --> 00:48:34.004
I do have a small
problem with that, -

00:48:34.008 --> 00:48:39.010
- because the film itself
is very much the process.

00:48:39.014 --> 00:48:46.017
If we go and make the whole process
before we even make the film ...

00:48:46.021 --> 00:48:50.010
Let's resolve that one ...

00:48:50.014 --> 00:48:52.009
... because otherwise -

00:48:52.013 --> 00:48:56.010
- there will certainly be
no movie, no cooperation.

00:49:01.021 --> 00:49:13.000
Finally we arrive at an agreement. We are allowed to go to Uganda and
shoot our film as long as the film also airs the authorities' side of the story.

00:49:14.009 --> 00:49:20.000
In July 2003 we set off for Uganda: the director, the journalist, and a small film crew.

00:49:29.023 --> 00:49:39.000
On arrival in Kampala, the capital, we are issued with press cards, and Mr. Nagenda,
the president's advisor, confirms our agreement.

00:49:39.016 --> 00:49:42.024
You come, you go around.

00:49:43.003 --> 00:49:46.008
On your own. If you want our help,
we will give it to you.

00:49:46.012 --> 00:49:50.022
But we don't want you to think
that we are in any way -

00:49:51.001 --> 00:49:53.011
- telling you where to
go or where not to go.

00:49:53.015 --> 00:49:57.020
You will be free. This is a free
country. Get what you want.

00:50:21.022 --> 00:50:26.000
During our meeting at the embassy the conversation focused on Steven's
supposed car theft and imprisonment in 1988.

00:50:27.022 --> 00:50:35.000
The fact that they had captured him in the year 2000
as a rebel was passed over in silence.

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:45.000
But we wanted to know what happened in the banana plantation.
We are granted a meeting with Colonel Mayombo, head of Ugandan Intelligence.

00:50:45.011 --> 00:50:49.005
According to what
Steven Ndugga says, -

00:50:49.009 --> 00:50:56.022
- in May 2000
he was captured in Tanzania, -

00:50:57.001 --> 00:51:01.004
- and brought to Uganda,
to here, where he met you.

00:51:01.008 --> 00:51:02.023
No, that is not true.
That is not true.

00:51:03.002 --> 00:51:07.008
At no time did I meet Ndugga, -

00:51:07.012 --> 00:51:11.012
- coming from
Dar Es Salaam in Kololo.

00:51:11.016 --> 00:51:17.002
- Why did you say Dar Es Salaam?
- It is the capital of Tanzania.

00:51:17.006 --> 00:51:22.022
Yes, but we didn't ask whether Steven
was taken from Dar Es Salaam.

00:51:23.001 --> 00:51:25.022
I use this loosely to mean Tanzania.

00:51:26.001 --> 00:51:31.020
We have never organized operations
against anybody outside Uganda.

00:51:31.024 --> 00:51:37.022
Not in Tanzania, not in Rwanda, not
in Sudan, not in Kenya, not in Congo.

00:51:39.022 --> 00:51:42.013
You have never seen
the man before June 2000?

00:51:42.017 --> 00:51:46.005
No; I had read files about him.

00:51:46.009 --> 00:51:49.000
I had been interested
very much in his activities.

00:51:49.004 --> 00:51:52.012
First because he was in the army, -

00:51:52.016 --> 00:51:55.019
- a non-commissioned officer
who had a case to answer.

00:51:55.023 --> 00:51:59.012
Secondly, he was active in
anti-government activities.

00:51:59.016 --> 00:52:02.006
He had been involved in
the kidnapping of a minister, -

00:52:02.010 --> 00:52:03.013
- in the killing of
a regional police commander -

00:52:03.017 --> 00:52:07.000
- in attacking police stations
in the central region, -

00:52:07.004 --> 00:52:10.019
- and there are numerous sources
of information here to prove that.

00:52:11.024 --> 00:52:19.000
Steven has told us that Colonel Mayombo personally took part in his interrogation.
We read Steven's statement to the Colonel.

00:52:20.011 --> 00:52:28.017
Then you tell Steven you have
spent fortunes keeping track of him.

00:52:28.021 --> 00:52:34.008
You get very angry and take out
your pistol and threaten with it.

00:52:33.012 --> 00:52:43.023
Mr. Mugume intervenes and has
to ask you to go out of the room.

00:52:44.002 --> 00:52:47.022
Then Mr. Mugume
asks Steven Ndugga -

00:52:48.001 --> 00:52:53.016
- how much money he needs to go
public on TV and confess his sins -

00:52:53.020 --> 00:53:00.014
- and say that now he wants
to enrol in the Ugandan Army again.

00:53:00.018 --> 00:53:03.015
Then you come back
and ask him to admit -

00:53:03.019 --> 00:53:07.019
- that he is connected to ADF,
UNA, the UPM, and others.

00:53:07.023 --> 00:53:13.023
Then he is tortured.
with water and electricity.

00:53:15.023 --> 00:53:19.022
That is one of the things he said.
What is your comment?

00:53:20.001 --> 00:53:24.010
One: An interrogation of a sergeant
would not be carried out -

00:53:24.014 --> 00:53:27.014
- by a colonel or
a chief of military intelligence.

00:53:27.018 --> 00:53:29.018
And a deputy army commander.

00:53:29.022 --> 00:53:32.015
Interrogation of
a sergeant would be carried out -

00:53:32.019 --> 00:53:37.006
- by somebody of equal rank.
I was very senior to him.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:43.000
Steven claims he was tortured at the safe-house.

00:53:44.001 --> 00:53:47.010
We don't torture.
Why would we torture?

00:53:47.014 --> 00:53:50.024
First of all, about Steven:
torture to prove what?

00:53:51.003 --> 00:53:55.004
He had not been involved
in an assassination or a coup, -

00:53:55.008 --> 00:53:58.017
- or an operation
which involved me ...

00:53:58.021 --> 00:54:01.023
Where in these facts
would I need to torture?

00:54:03.010 --> 00:54:08.000
Does this mean that Colonel Mayombo thinks there are
instances in which torture is justified?

00:54:09.017 --> 00:54:14.002
What I want to conclude
with you at this point is, one:

00:54:14.006 --> 00:54:18.022
We don't fabricate charges; they
would be knocked out by the courts.

00:54:19.001 --> 00:54:21.024
In the Ugandan legal system -

00:54:22.003 --> 00:54:26.013
- a confession obtained
by torture is inadmissible.

00:54:26.017 --> 00:54:29.015
As a lawyer I know that.

00:54:29.015 --> 00:54:40.000
But perhaps they never intended to bring Steven to trial? According to him, he was tortured
- not because they wanted a confession  - but because he refused to cooperate.

00:54:45.008 --> 00:54:46.021
Terrorism charges usually
don't have a standard of proof -
513
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:40,009
- that can stand
up in a court of law.

00:54:50.013 --> 00:54:54.006
So instead
of giving them to the police -

00:54:54.010 --> 00:54:57.001
- and doing a proper investigation, -

00:54:57.005 --> 00:55:02.021
- they keep them in safe-houses,
and essentially they torture them.

00:55:07.013 --> 00:55:15.000
When the newspapers featured the arrest in the banana plantation:
they said that Steven had been caught red-handed with a group of rebels.

00:55:16.013 --> 00:55:18.000
We want to hear the Colonel's version:

00:55:18.022 --> 00:55:21.020
How many other rebels
did you arrest out there?

00:55:21.024 --> 00:55:26.000
The record shows
that he was arrested alone.

00:55:26.004 --> 00:55:29.002
He was arrested alone
at Kitjo's farm?

00:55:29.006 --> 00:55:34.018
The record shows
that he was arrested alone.

00:55:37.022 --> 00:55:42.005
- Where did you find him in Luwero?
- I found him in hospital.

00:55:42.009 --> 00:55:46.021
- Oh, yes, but ...
- He was brought as one of those ...

00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:50.006
But when he was arrested
how did you find him?

00:55:50.010 --> 00:55:54.015
Was he sitting in a bar, or standing
in the road, or with his family?

00:55:54.019 --> 00:55:59.006
- Where was he?
- I don't have that information now.

00:56:01.005 --> 00:56:05.014
My last question is:
who can I talk to who was there?

00:56:05.018 --> 00:56:12.012
Because I'd really like to know how
it took place. Because I have got ...

00:56:12.016 --> 00:56:14.024
Then you would
need to stay longer here.

00:56:15.003 --> 00:56:18.008
If you stay longer we will keep
putting pieces and bits together.

00:56:18.012 --> 00:56:23.011
Of individuals, of people, of the
area, of who you need to talk to.

00:56:23.015 --> 00:56:26.001
You just have to
reschedule your programme, -

00:56:26.005 --> 00:56:30.001
- and then we will assist
you as much as humanly possible -

00:56:30.005 --> 00:56:35.007
- to arrive at the truth,
because I think it is very important.

00:56:37.007 --> 00:56:50.000
How can you be caught red-handed recruiting rebels when you're on your own?
Why does the Colonel insist that Steven was alone?

00:56:51.007 --> 00:56:54.000
To stop us from getting interested in anyone else involved?

00:56:54.015 --> 00:57:02.000
Colonel Mayombo refers us to Captain Kanyogonya;
he should have the relevant files.

00:57:03.007 --> 00:57:05.024
What about his latest
criminal records, -

00:57:06.003 --> 00:57:11.011
- about the attack
in Luwero in 2000 in June?

00:57:11.015 --> 00:57:17.009
- We are aware that he was arrested.
- Have you any documentation?

00:57:19.018 --> 00:57:24.024
What they say is that so-and-so
was arrested on this date, -

00:57:25.003 --> 00:57:27.004
- and escaped on this date.

00:57:27.008 --> 00:57:31.015
There are no reports from
eye-witnesses whatsoever?

00:57:31.019 --> 00:57:35.007
No ... Well, I have the documents.

00:57:35.011 --> 00:57:39.024
Though they are
internal correspondence.

00:57:40.003 --> 00:57:43.009
I don't think
this is what you are looking for.

00:57:42.022 --> 00:57:48.000
But that is exactly what we are looking for:
details about what happened in the plantation.

00:57:43.021 --> 00:57:57.018
- when there are no papers
on the 2000 incident.

00:57:48.020 --> 00:57:53.017
Strange that we can get so much
documentation on this 1988 incident -

00:57:57.022 --> 00:58:05.011
Now if I got security documents
about an operation -

00:58:05.015 --> 00:58:07.017
- I may not give it to you, -

00:58:07.021 --> 00:58:11.019
- because it does not talk
about only one person.

00:58:11.023 --> 00:58:18.006
But then you can erase the sentences
dealing with other persons.

00:58:18.010 --> 00:58:20.019
What will it help you?

00:58:20.023 --> 00:58:23.020
If it deals with other incidents -

00:58:23.024 --> 00:58:27.020
- and it is a long report
mixed up with so and so?

00:58:27.024 --> 00:58:30.009
But if there was only
one person involved, -

00:58:30.013 --> 00:58:36.007
- and that he was the only
person arrested that day?

00:58:36.011 --> 00:58:42.021
- Why should we tell you?
- You can erase those sentences.

00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:46.015
Why don't you take
what I am telling you, -

00:58:46.019 --> 00:58:55.001
- instead of getting a document which
is tampered with? Erasing, etc. ...

00:58:55.005 --> 00:58:58.022
If I give you the facts,
why don't you take the facts?

00:58:59.001 --> 00:59:04.018
The document I refuse to give you,
was talking about many other things -

00:59:04.022 --> 00:59:06.022
- not for your consumption.
I told you!

00:59:07.001 --> 00:59:11.017
I can't give you a report which is
multi ... which talks about 5 people!

00:59:11.021 --> 00:59:16.000
I am referring to what
the colonel has been telling me.

00:59:16.004 --> 00:59:20.006
He said that he'd find that report,
and if he could not find it ...

00:59:20.010 --> 00:59:23.008
Please, let us talk off record.

00:59:25.014 --> 00:59:30.004
- I hope we shall play a clean game.
- We are doing our utmost.

00:59:30.008 --> 00:59:35.005
- If we don't it will be a shame.
- We agree.

00:59:35.009 --> 00:59:37.002
We are on record as you can see.

00:59:37.006 --> 00:59:40.019
Whatever you have captured,
we have captured.

00:59:40.023 --> 00:59:43.006
Excellent.

00:59:47.011 --> 00:59:56.000
We set up another meeting with the captain for the next day and he promises to bring more files.

00:59:57.004 --> 01:00:05.010
Sgt. Ndugga was arrested
on 16 June 2000 from Nakaseke.

01:00:07.014 --> 01:00:10.012
At Kitjo's farm, -

01:00:10.016 --> 01:00:17.001
- where he was
heading a UNA rebel group, -

01:00:17.005 --> 01:00:23.000
- with the mission of attacking
police posts and looting drug stores.

01:00:23.004 --> 01:00:26.021
He was injured in the left leg
during the process of arrest -

01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:34.005
- and admitted to General Military
Hospital Mbuya, until he escaped.

01:00:36.012 --> 01:00:40.003
On 10 October 2000.

01:00:50.006 --> 01:00:51.018
Due to laxity -

01:00:51.022 --> 01:01:00.008
- at the General Military Hospital -

01:01:00.012 --> 01:01:02.008
- he was able to escape.

01:01:02.012 --> 01:01:06.009
But as the other details about ...

01:01:07.011 --> 01:01:10.007
... who was with him
and so on ...

01:01:10.011 --> 01:01:12.014
... I think the colonel
told you about it.

01:01:12.018 --> 01:01:15.020
- No he did not.
- I remember him telling you.

01:01:15.024 --> 01:01:21.000
You just told me now that
there was a number of other rebels.

01:01:21.004 --> 01:01:23.010
- No, I did not!
- What did you say then?

01:01:23.014 --> 01:01:31.020
That he was arrested
heading a rebel group, the UNA.

01:01:31.024 --> 01:01:35.004
So that group
was there at the arrest?

01:01:35.008 --> 01:01:39.009
The details of the arrest: I remember
the colonel discussed them with you.

01:01:39.013 --> 01:01:45.013
- No, he said he knew nothing.
- He said he was alone.

01:01:45.017 --> 01:01:49.005
- As far as he knew.
- Yes, as far as he knew.

01:01:49.009 --> 01:01:55.013
- So I am asking you.
- That's the information I have.

01:01:56.006 --> 01:02:00.024
- I don't have any other details.
- But who will have the details?

01:02:01.003 --> 01:02:04.020
You asked
the Chief of Military Intelligence, -

01:02:04.024 --> 01:02:09.011
- and that is what he gave you:
who else do you want to meet?

01:02:09.015 --> 01:02:12.019
I talked to him
this morning about the report, -

01:02:12.023 --> 01:02:17.020
- and he said that we could have it.
He said he'd find it.

01:02:17.024 --> 01:02:21.001
- With the details.
- About the arrest.

01:02:21.005 --> 01:02:23.019
Then maybe he will give it to you, -

01:02:23.023 --> 01:02:28.003
- if he has another detailed report.
This one is not detailed.
606
01:02:28,007 --> 01:02:20,019
No, I could not say so.

01:02:32.004 --> 01:02:35.000
Three years have passed since Steven was
shot in the banana plantation.

01:02:36.004 --> 01:02:45.000
Yet the government is unable to furnish us with a single document
supporting their version of what happened.

01:02:50.023 --> 01:02:59.000
We decide to proceed with our other big question: whether Steven's son
could have been a child soldier in Congo.

01:03:00.023 --> 01:03:07.000
The Ugandan authorities say Steven has never had a son,
so we can get no details about Frances out of them.

01:03:08.000 --> 01:03:16.000
In 1997 Ugandan troops entered Congo.
The war involved five other neighbouring states.

01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:33.000
The conflict has cost close to 3 million lives. International pressure
persuaded Uganda to withdraw her troops in the spring of 2003.

01:03:33.014 --> 01:03:38.023
You have been fighting in Congo;
Did you use child soldiers there?

01:03:39.002 --> 01:03:42.006
Please, you have seen
our army and the way it is.

01:03:42.010 --> 01:03:45.021
We are actually reducing it.
Are we completely mad, -

01:03:46.000 --> 01:03:50.018
- that we will go into Congo
and take little children soldiers?

01:03:50.022 --> 01:03:56.005
Are you confusing us
with the Lord's Resistance Army -

01:03:56.009 --> 01:04:01.018
- run by the mad man Kony?
Because he uses child soldiers.

01:04:03.002 --> 01:04:13.000
It is common knowledge that the fanatically religious Kony uses child soldiers,
but Steven has told us, that Frances served in Uganda's national army.

01:04:13.017 --> 01:04:17.005
We never took a single child soldier
to Congo.

01:04:17.009 --> 01:04:21.007
And if you can prove it,
I will give you a thousand pounds.

01:04:21.011 --> 01:04:23.014
- Not more?
- You don't deserve more.

01:04:28.012 --> 01:04:39.000
We have heard rumours that there are child soldiers in the northern province of Gulu.
The province is being terrorized by Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army.

01:04:40.012 --> 01:04:53.000
The LRA carries out widespread plundering and abduction of children.
The area is like a war zone, and seldom visited by reporters or media from abroad.

01:04:59.001 --> 01:05:03.000
The destitution in the north is massive. 1.6 million civilians have been
driven from their homes and are living in refugee camps.

01:05:11.000 --> 01:05:21.000
When darkness falls tens of thousands of children crowd into the towns.
They dare not sleep in the camps with their families for fear of

01:05:22.000 --> 01:05:24.000
the nightly attacks and abductions by the LRA.

01:05:49.004 --> 01:05:52.000
The rumours of child soldiers prove true.

01:05:52.006 --> 01:05:57.000
In the morning
they began to register us.

01:05:57.004 --> 01:06:03.018
They noted our names down
and then we began just training.

01:06:03.022 --> 01:06:09.002
- Did they ask for your age?
- They did not consider that.

01:06:11.005 --> 01:06:19.000
This centre was set up a week before our arrival to help children who've
served in the government army, the UPDF.

01:06:20.005 --> 01:06:28.000
Some of the children have deserted the army by themselves;
others have been helped to leave by UNICEF.

01:06:29.005 --> 01:06:34.021
Sometimes we were injured.
We were running barefoot, -

01:06:35.000 --> 01:06:37.020
- getting wounds ...

01:06:37.024 --> 01:06:43.020
At the medical centre they just
beat you; that is the medicine.

01:06:43.024 --> 01:06:48.009
- What is the medicine?
- Beating. Caning.

01:06:48.013 --> 01:06:53.009
You receive a lot of strokes
and then they send you away.

01:06:55.002 --> 01:06:58.006
If you are very, very weak,
they just leave you, -

01:06:58.010 --> 01:07:03.010
- and if you die,
they just bury you there.

01:07:03.014 --> 01:07:06.019
In the training camp.

01:07:06.023 --> 01:07:10.017
- Did you have friends who died?
- Yes.

01:07:10.021 --> 01:07:15.016
The rules and regulations for
recruitment into UPDF are clear.

01:07:15.020 --> 01:07:21.023
They state clearly that no children
under 18 should be recruited.

01:07:22.002 --> 01:07:26.021
The issue, of course,
is that commanders in the field -

01:07:27.000 --> 01:07:29.014
- who recruit in
the different areas -

01:07:29.018 --> 01:07:33.022
- are not taking
the time or the effort -

01:07:33.001 --> 01:07:38.004
- to verify the ages
of these children.

01:07:39.000 --> 01:07:44.000
But some of the children we meet are so small that nobody could ever
believe they were eighteen.

01:07:45.000 --> 01:07:55.000
Their recruitment bears witness to a deliberate, cynical practice:
the children are enticed into an army training camp near the capital on false pretences.

01:07:56.000 --> 01:08:00.000
The camp is under the command of one of the president's senior advisors,
Major Kagoza Mutale.

01:08:00.011 --> 01:08:02.022
Before we reached that place, -

01:08:03.001 --> 01:08:05.022
- Kagoza Mutale brought a form -

01:08:06.001 --> 01:08:08.021
- we should fill out
for free education.

01:08:09.000 --> 01:08:11.012
He said that
we should get prepared -

01:08:11.016 --> 01:08:16.001
- for the journey to go to school.
Then we prepared and then we went.

01:08:17.001 --> 01:08:25.000
This boy says that he and some 250 other children were taken to the camp on government buses.

01:08:25.018 --> 01:08:28.016
The children were
promised a scholarship -

01:08:28.020 --> 01:08:32.016
- at a secondary school in Luwero.
But when they got there -

01:08:32.020 --> 01:08:37.009
- they found it was
a camp for military training.

01:08:37.013 --> 01:08:42.005
There has been a lot of publicity
on the radio in the district -

01:08:42.009 --> 01:08:45.024
- encouraging children
to join this institution -

01:08:46.003 --> 01:08:48.007
- which under the cover
of a secondary school -

01:08:48.011 --> 01:08:50.022
- is actually a military camp.

01:08:51.018 --> 01:08:57.007
Others are still 13 years old,
others are 12 years.

01:08:57.011 --> 01:09:01.015
- They thought it was a school?
- Yes.

01:09:01.019 --> 01:09:06.021
The reason why, here, as well as in
many other parts of the world ...

01:09:07.000 --> 01:09:12.008
... there are groups,
governments or rebel groups, -

01:09:12.012 --> 01:09:14.022
- interested in child soldiers -

01:09:15.001 --> 01:09:19.010
- is because they realize
that when you get a child soldier -

01:09:18.017 --> 01:09:23.003
Right! I am not happy
with you at all.

01:09:19.014 --> 01:09:21.019
- he will obey anything.

01:09:21.023 --> 01:09:25.015
He will not question anything, -

01:09:25.019 --> 01:09:29.001
- because a child does not
have a sense of judgement yet.

01:09:28.019 --> 01:09:31.010
You never told me
you were going to Gulu.

01:09:29.005 --> 01:09:31.021
So it is very easy
to manipulate his brain.

01:09:31.014 --> 01:09:35.001
I don't see what Gulu has to do
with the film we are doing.

01:09:32.000 --> 01:09:36.014
You can put him in the front line,
you can ask him to do anything.

01:09:35.005 --> 01:09:42.005
And now I am being asked questions
by my colleagues in UPDF.

01:09:42.006 --> 01:10:01.000
Father Carlos says that children from the refugee camps have also ended
up in Congo as soldiers: he suggests we talk to their families.

01:10:01.020 --> 01:10:30.000
We are about to set off for a refugee camp when the local army commander appears
at our hotel. We are ordered to leave Gulu immediately and to report to Kampala.

01:10:44.009 --> 01:10:46.013
"Who are these people?
Did you send them?"

01:10:46.017 --> 01:10:50.004
I said "No, as far as
I know they are in Kampala".

01:10:50.008 --> 01:10:51.005
So we have a problem.

01:10:51.009 --> 01:11:02.013
We went up there to see some camps,
with UPDF soldiers, child soldiers.

01:11:02.017 --> 01:11:04.014
Child soldiers in UPDF?

01:11:04.018 --> 01:11:06.019
No, they were taken out of UPDF -

01:11:06.023 --> 01:11:12.002
- and now posted in a special camp;
Gusco, it's called.

01:11:12.006 --> 01:11:15.009
These were the kids
that were found in Congo, I believe?

01:11:15.013 --> 01:11:16.021
- No, no, no.
- Others?

01:11:17.000 --> 01:11:20.007
- From Uganda.
- OK.

01:11:20.011 --> 01:11:23.011
From Luwero and up northwards.

01:11:24.014 --> 01:11:29.001
I asked you to open it here.
I explained it very well.

01:11:29.005 --> 01:11:30.007
Take it away!

01:11:34.020 --> 01:11:38.011
Before we left we called
Captain Timothy Kanyogonya -

01:11:38.015 --> 01:11:40.015
- and asked if our
press cards also ...

01:11:40.019 --> 01:11:43.014
- Extended to there.
- Yes. And he said yes.

01:11:43.018 --> 01:11:50.013
So the only person in the world who
doesn't know about this trip is me.

01:11:50.017 --> 01:11:53.008
I thought you communicated
with the Captain.

01:11:53.012 --> 01:11:57.017
No, but ... I should have been told.

01:11:57.021 --> 01:11:59.011
And if you had told me, -

01:11:59.015 --> 01:12:03.003
- I'd have said:
"What has this to do with our film?"

01:12:03.007 --> 01:12:07.019
That is how trust works,
in my view.

01:12:08.018 --> 01:12:16.000
Our trip to Gulu has caught the government unawares.
From now on we are told to report our every move.

01:12:16.023 --> 01:12:19.019
They know where you have been,
by the way, if I may tell you.

01:12:19.023 --> 01:12:23.017
- So we don't have to write a diary?
- Yes, so I can compare notes.

01:12:32.014 --> 01:12:39.000
We've been emailing Steven ever since he disappeared but in vain.
As he apparently cannot or will not make an appearance,

01:12:40.014 --> 01:12:49.000
we have asked him to put us in touch with somebody c
apable of confirming his story. We have heard nothing.

01:12:50.014 --> 01:12:57.000
So on our own initiative we try to track
down some of his relatives and friends.

01:12:57.006 --> 01:13:00.003
Hi, Lise.
Listen to this!

01:13:00.007 --> 01:13:04.021
We'd arranged to meet
his half-sister -

01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:07.021
- in Luwero
this morning.

01:13:08.000 --> 01:13:10.016
Then last night
she phoned.

01:13:10.020 --> 01:13:13.009
She'd talked to Steven -

01:13:13.013 --> 01:13:16.020
- and he'd said he didn't
know these white people.

01:13:16.024 --> 01:13:21.009
And that she should
keep her mouth shut.

01:13:21.013 --> 01:13:24.010
We're on our way there now.

01:13:24.014 --> 01:13:27.000
We'll be there in an hour.

01:13:27.004 --> 01:13:30.005
Maybe he is just
trying to protect her.

01:13:30.009 --> 01:13:34.008
But there is
so much conflicting information -

01:13:34.012 --> 01:13:37.014
- that we've just got
to talk to somebody.

01:13:37.018 --> 01:13:41.013
But it's Nagenda's territory,
isn't it?

01:13:41.017 --> 01:13:46.012
And he is furious
because we went to Gulu.

01:13:49.005 --> 01:13:53.000
And now every two hours
we have to report what we are doing.

01:13:53.004 --> 01:13:56.009
That's what he'd prefer.

01:13:56.013 --> 01:13:59.003
We are still friends.

01:13:59.007 --> 01:14:01.019
But when the camera
wasn't running -

01:14:01.023 --> 01:14:04.006
- he told us how big
the cells were here -

01:14:04.010 --> 01:14:09.006
- and how many whites you
could get into a cell 3 feet by six.

01:14:14.024 --> 01:14:19.016
We'll be on our way.
Yes. 'Bye.

01:14:37.015 --> 01:14:52.000
But our trip is in vain. His sister refuses to talk to us.
Then for the first time for almost a year we hear from Steven.

01:14:52.011 --> 01:14:54.016
Okay.

01:14:54.020 --> 01:14:57.015
Yeah, but I force nobody.
Of course not.

01:15:04.007 --> 01:15:09.020
He is desperate.
Really. He is desperate.

01:15:10.017 --> 01:15:13.003
He said that the brother ...

01:15:13.007 --> 01:15:17.019
You know I asked about
his brother Saul with the scar.

01:15:17.023 --> 01:15:21.016
They have taken his place
apart this morning.

01:15:21.020 --> 01:15:24.013
That is what he says.

01:15:24.017 --> 01:15:27.013
I asked him: "Is it because we are
here?" and then he said: "Yes".

01:15:27.017 --> 01:15:30.020
But then he kept saying:

01:15:30.024 --> 01:15:36.019
"Don't go to their homes. If you have
to talk to them, take them away".

01:15:36.023 --> 01:15:41.001
I think that is what he said, and
that is what we did wrong yesterday.

01:15:42.006 --> 01:15:46.024
Did he say where his brother was?
We could go there ...

01:15:47.003 --> 01:15:51.008
Maybe it's what he said,
but I understood so little of it.

01:15:51.012 --> 01:15:54.005
Some things he only said once.

01:15:54.009 --> 01:15:58.024
I don't know how many things
weren't just repetitions.

01:16:01.008 --> 01:16:05.014
How annoying!
That the signal was so bad!

01:16:23.011 --> 01:16:33.000
At 8 o'clock on Sunday morning the Danish ambassador appears at our hotel.
The government newspaper has written that we are to be deported.

01:16:35.007 --> 01:16:40.012
I phoned the minister of defence
at 9 a.m. precisely.

01:16:40.016 --> 01:16:45.019
I told him that in Denmark freedom
of speech is quite fundamental -
751
01:16:45,023 --> 01:15:49,004
- and that if word
got out in Denmark -

01:16:49.008 --> 01:16:52.023
- that Uganda was
obstructing a Danish film crew -

01:16:53.002 --> 01:16:57.003
- which was here by agreement
and had been given press cards -

01:16:57.007 --> 01:17:01.006
- with no restrictions
on where they could go -

01:17:01.010 --> 01:17:04.001
- it would arouse
considerable surprise.

01:17:04.020 --> 01:17:13.000
With the ambassadors help a meeting is arranged with the minister of defence,
the chief of staff for the Ugandan armed forces, and the head of Ugandan Intelligence.

01:17:14.020 --> 01:17:21.000
The meeting takes place at army headquarters.
We are not permitted to film it.

01:17:23.000 --> 01:17:33.000
It is our trip to Gulu that has led to the threat of deportation.
But we have broken no agreements, as they have not forbidden us to go to Gulu.

01:17:34.000 --> 01:17:36.000
The end result is that we are not deported.

01:17:37.015 --> 01:17:46.000
They have no comment on the child soldiers in Gulu.
After the meeting we hear no more of Mr. Nagenda.

01:17:47.015 --> 01:17:55.000
It's as if responsibility for the Danish film crew
has been transferred to the head of intelligence.

01:18:04.002 --> 01:18:09.000
We resume our search for people who have known Steven;
but nobody dares talk to us.

01:18:15.010 --> 01:18:22.000
We visit the offices of the Monitor,
the only independent national newspaper in Uganda.

01:18:29.005 --> 01:18:35.008
Do you know if there is a comrade of
Steven who dares to talk to us?

01:18:35.012 --> 01:18:38.005
I don't think anyone
will talk to you.

01:18:38.009 --> 01:18:40.018
Definitely,
they have to be scared.

01:18:40.022 --> 01:18:43.013
They might think that you are
working for the government.

01:18:43.017 --> 01:18:47.012
But they also seem
to be scared of Steven?

01:18:47.016 --> 01:18:52.006
Definitely, for his own safety
and even for his family.

01:18:52.010 --> 01:18:59.016
The problem in Africa is that
when you have divergent views -

01:18:59.020 --> 01:19:03.002
- and you disagree
with the establishment, -

01:19:03.006 --> 01:19:07.001
- even your parents,
even your relatives are persecuted.

01:19:07.005 --> 01:19:12.017
I don't think they would like to
be associated with Steven at all.

01:19:12.021 --> 01:19:16.021
Because it might cost them a lot.

01:19:17.000 --> 01:19:21.006
Soldiers may not be able to talk
to you on record so easily.

01:19:21.010 --> 01:19:24.018
If they said anything
the government didn't like, -

01:19:24.022 --> 01:19:27.016
- they would be arrested
and prosecuted.

01:19:28.014 --> 01:19:36.000
Freedom of speech and thus freedom of the press - are part of any democracy.
The Monitor is often held out as proof of Uganda's desire for democracy.

01:19:37.014 --> 01:19:40.000
But the paper's freedom of speech has its price.

01:19:43.000 --> 01:19:50.000
The editor in chief tells us he's been arrested many times;
once for printing a photo of a woman being beaten up by soldiers.

01:19:50.013 --> 01:19:54.010
Even for a media offence
you are treated like a criminal, -

01:19:54.014 --> 01:19:58.013
- thrown into a cell with
all the hard-core criminals.

01:19:58.017 --> 01:20:01.010
You go to the dock for 2 years, -

01:20:01.014 --> 01:20:05.001
- and then you win the case,
and it ends there.

01:20:05.005 --> 01:20:09.002
Sometimes you can stand
in the dock for 7 hours a day.

01:20:09.006 --> 01:20:15.018
And the trial goes on
for one year, two years ...

01:20:12.022 --> 01:20:16.023
You have to spend your time
between the office and the court.

01:20:17.002 --> 01:20:19.017
You win the case
and that is the end of it.

01:20:19.021 --> 01:20:23.019
But they've harassed
you and your family.

01:20:23.023 --> 01:20:27.015
You have a big legal bill
from your lawyers, -

01:20:27.019 --> 01:20:31.021
- often around USD 20 000
when the case has concluded.

01:20:32.000 --> 01:20:39.022
They will have dented
your work and your finances.

01:20:40.016 --> 01:20:45.003
Unfortunately, right now they
even have the anti-terrorism bill, -

01:20:45.007 --> 01:20:50.000
- which hands out a death sentence
if you publish or air information -

01:20:50.004 --> 01:20:55.021
- that is deemed to be supporting
the rebel activities in this country.

01:21:05.010 --> 01:21:13.000
Harassment, detention and safe-houses are apparently part of
everyday life for many Ugandans critical of the regime.

01:21:14.019 --> 01:21:18.024
I have been involved in getting
very many of our people, -

01:21:19.003 --> 01:21:21.018
- particularly those
who have been soldiers, -

01:21:21.022 --> 01:21:23.011
- out of what is
called safe-houses.

01:21:23.015 --> 01:21:28.013
And they torture them
there, they abuse them.

01:21:28.017 --> 01:21:30.021
They can hold them
there even for a year -

01:21:31.000 --> 01:21:33.018
- without their families knowing.

01:21:33.022 --> 01:21:36.018
When I get a tip off
I follow the trail.

01:21:36.022 --> 01:21:40.020
I make a lot of noise,
I get lawyers to go to court -

01:21:40.024 --> 01:21:45.000
- to demand the people
to be brought before a court.

01:21:45.004 --> 01:21:45.023
So I have spent the last two years
involved in a lot of that work.

01:21:50.002 --> 01:21:53.019
I could tell you so many horrendous stories.

01:21:53.023 --> 01:21:58.009
But this government has
got people in power -

01:21:58.013 --> 01:22:02.000
- who are well-educated,
and who know the law.

01:22:02.004 --> 01:22:07.009
The Chief of Military Intelligence,
is a human rights lawyer!

01:22:07.013 --> 01:22:13.008
They have got a facade,
a way of presentation, -

01:22:13.012 --> 01:22:20.019
- of explaining themselves,
of covering up their abuses.

01:22:20.023 --> 01:22:25.006
And it is quite difficult
for very simple, ordinary people -

01:22:25.010 --> 01:22:27.012
- who are treated like that, -

01:22:27.016 --> 01:22:32.023
- to get their stories
through that very, very perfect -

01:22:33.002 --> 01:22:37.012
- and sophisticated
projection of themselves.

01:22:57.020 --> 01:22:59.003
Yes?

01:23:08.016 --> 01:23:09.011
Okay.

01:23:15.024 --> 01:23:17.004
Okay.

01:23:17.008 --> 01:23:19.009
Steven ... Yeah.

01:23:27.001 --> 01:23:31.009
It's incredible; he can describe
the cars in the car park.

01:23:31.013 --> 01:23:35.023
He's got somebody placed in
Mayombo's office -

01:23:36.002 --> 01:23:38.019
- so he knows what's going on.

01:23:38.023 --> 01:23:44.020
He knows when they are
after us and when they aren't.

01:23:44.024 --> 01:23:52.007
The guy he had sent, his contact,
almost caught up with us yesterday.

01:23:52.011 --> 01:23:55.017
But then the two cars came.

01:23:55.021 --> 01:23:59.017
A woman at the hotel
who is also employed by them -

01:23:59.021 --> 01:24:02.023
- often tries to sit next to us.

01:24:03.002 --> 01:24:07.017
And the guy who helps us
with our bags is also one of them.

01:24:07.021 --> 01:24:11.019
But Steven's also
got one of his guys here.

01:24:12.013 --> 01:24:15.001
It's ...

01:24:15.005 --> 01:24:18.008
He can describe everything.

01:24:18.012 --> 01:24:22.001
He knew
we were sitting here right now.

01:24:23.017 --> 01:24:26.022
They can say what they like.

01:24:27.001 --> 01:24:32.003
But he's not entirely
uninformed about what's going on!

01:24:34.011 --> 01:24:37.009
He'll try between 7 and 8.

01:24:37.013 --> 01:24:41.024
I must get away
without them noticing.

01:24:44.009 --> 01:24:47.009
And meet one of his contacts.

01:25:07.006 --> 01:25:10.020
I've hit a limit.

01:25:13.000 --> 01:25:16.018
Steven phoned
a couple of hours ago.

01:25:16.022 --> 01:25:21.006
He said he'd send
somebody to meet us.

01:25:21.010 --> 01:25:25.016
He'd be 20 kilometres
outside the city -

01:25:25.020 --> 01:25:29.018
- at a road junction
... this evening.

01:25:30.017 --> 01:25:33.024
We talked about it.

01:25:34.003 --> 01:25:40.002
I could suddenly tell
that I couldn't go through with it.

01:25:40.006 --> 01:25:43.018
I just don't dare.
We just don't dare.

01:25:46.011 --> 01:25:49.021
I don't know
whom we're most afraid of.

01:25:52.014 --> 01:25:56.000
The next day we went home.

01:26:11.024 --> 01:26:19.000
We get no farther in our attempt to understand Steven and his story.
Who is the man we've been following for so many years?

01:26:21.000 --> 01:26:31.000
Is Steven a rebel? If so, has he been a rebel along or
has he become one as a result of what happened to him?

01:26:32.000 --> 01:26:36.000
And if Steven is a rebel, is he a terrorist or a freedom fighter?

01:26:42.000 --> 01:26:48.000
European Union members are obliged to prosecute political
refugees for crimes committed in their native countries.

01:26:49.000 --> 01:26:53.000
These may be the very transgressions that
originally earned them political asylum.

01:26:54.000 --> 01:27:04.000
Denmark has requested evidence on any crimes Steven may
have committed. Ugandan Intelligence has drawn up the file.

01:27:07.000 --> 01:27:17.000
We expect that this is why Steven disappeared.
Frances and Agnes no longer live in Denmark either.

01:27:18.000 --> 01:27:20.000
We don't know where they are.