Letter of Comfort and Solidarity to Dr. Warren Kiiza Besigye Kifeefe

Dr. Besigye,

C/o Family & Legal Team

Dear Dr. Besigye,

*”You will Never be Judged!! History will remember you as a great Hero. Future generations will live to celebrate your milestones”*

I write this letter with grief, but again; with a heart full of respect and with an echo of many Ugandans who remember and are critically watching and following your political script.

*”Persecution is a tribute the great must always pay for preeminence”, Oliver Goldsmith”*

As told by my great grandfather, Jajja Francis Sempebwa (RIP) a retired civil servant in the defunct UEB and a well-known Mutaka in Kalasa-Luwero; You’re one of the men who carried a gun and a dream through the bush when it was not fashionable to believe that Uganda could be different.

My granny before his death told me that you sacrificed a comfortable career as a medical Doctor and risked your life to help bring the NRM government to power.

Then a rabel group-NRA, you served as the personal doctor to President Gen. Y.K.T Museveni. You were great friends then.

This sounds like an eulogy but a sad script that defines how friends turn against their own vows for their own selfish interests to hurt the rest of their once trusted comrades.

As told my granny, 27 men started their guerilla war through the jungles of Luwero district; and in those days not for titles, but because you believed in a Uganda of discipline, justice, and rule of law.

And when that dream began to drift, you sacrificed again. You chose to stand up — not with anger, but with conviction — to speak for justice, for constitutionalism, and for the rule of law. That second sacrifice has cost you more than the first. Prison, harassment, exile, the pain of watching comrades fall, and now the uncertainty and indignity you are facing today.

I know this season feels heavy. It is painful when a man who gave everything for his country is treated as an enemy for asking that the country keep its promises. It is lonely when the very constitution you fought to defend is the one being tested.

But please hear this, Doctor:

*Your sacrifice was not in vain.* The courage you showed in the bush inspired a generation. The courage you are showing now is teaching another generation what integrity looks like. Young Ugandans, lawyers, students, market women — they quote you. They march because of you. They vote differently because of you.

*You are not alone.* There is a quiet army standing with you: families of political prisoners, pastors, lawyers, ordinary citizens in Kampala, in Rukungiri, in the diaspora. We may not all agree on politics, but we agree that no Ugandan should be broken for demanding the law be respected.

*History remembers this way.* Men who stand for principle in hard times are rarely understood in their own season. Mandela was in prison. Nyerere was called stubborn. Yet their countries later called them fathers. Your name is already written in that book of Ugandans who chose country over comfort.

*A great saying is quoted from Luke the Evangelist, “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you”*

Doctor, rest your spirit even as you fight. Eat well. Take your medicine. Let us all you. The struggle for justice is a marathon, not a sprint, and Uganda will need your wisdom when this storm passes.

We pray for your strength, for your health, and for your vindication. We pray that the rule of law you fought for will one day protect you the way you tried to protect it.

Thank you for refusing to be silent.

With deep respect and solidarity.

The writer is an investigative Journalist, Political activist, keen to the Law.