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I spent the night of Tuesday 17^th March, at the 130-year-old Kasubi Tombs, the most recently active royal burial grounds of the Buganda Kingdom. This was my second night among the countless visits I have made there over the course of my life. The last time I spent the night there was in the course of a spiritual celebration nearly decade ago. Tuesday night was more like a funeral combined with a riot, as numerous Baganda gathered thereto fight the the ferocious fire that was to gut the place a few hours later.

The tombs are many things at once. Like all royal burial sites, it started life as the official residence of the reigning king (Kabaka) Muteesa I (1852-1884). The custom was for each monarch to establish his own premises, in which he would be buried on passing away. These are referred to as Amasiro,and can be found dotted all over the kingdom, as evidence of a long lineage. The greatest concentration being in the eponymous Buganda district of Busiro, just outside Kampala city.

It is believed that Kasubi is where Muteesa I received the various Arab traders/travellers as as well as the European explorer Morton Stanley, thus making it Uganda’s first “State House”.

The place was of particular significance as it broke with tradition and holds the remains of our last four Kabakas. These are men who struggled in their times to weather the storms that followed the arrival of the western and Arab worlds in their domains. There can be no argument that collectively, they were successful in preventing the country being swallowed up and losing its identity to the new European-founded state of Uganda. Cwa (1910-1939 ) in particular was also successful in laying the foundation for the prevention of Buganda being occupied by European settlers.

As evidence of those storms, two of those interred: Kabaka Mwanga (1884-1897) and his grandson Muteesa II (1939-1969), father to the present Kabaka, were buried there only after their remains were brought from exile.

In Ganda religion, every ancestor who performs deeds of greatness in his or her lifetime can become revered in death, with their grave site becoming a shrine through which their descendants can pray for intercession with God.

Being the tombs for those particular Kings, Kasubi functions also as a shrine for not just the royal clans, any Muganda who recognises our debt to them.

Its constant stream of visitors, who would sit barefoot on the matted floor and take in its intense stillness, could therefore be anyone from a native pilgrim, royal descendant, foreign tourist, visiting foreign dignitary or just a historian, all mingling in the quiet half-light.

Its status as a shrine made the tombs also a living museum. It was attended to by the female descendants of the wives and mothers of the various kings past, who worked on a monthly rotational basis. As such there was a substantial community of committed caretakers constantly on the site

The tombs were adopted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.

The basic story is that when fire broke out at about 8:30 PM, the first fire truck on the scene had no water. This incensed the crowd who voiced suspicions that the oversight -like the fire itself- was probably deliberate. Some gave accounts of an explosion and gun toting arsonists fleeing in a small truck. A small riot ensued, during which the police, and another fire truck making an approach were stoned and turned away.

It would appear that this is when the police -backed up by army units- sought to secure the premises. Given that Kasubi is located where some of the bitterest fighting during the September 2009 riots took place, this was a doomed venture.

On arrival, I was compelled to hit the ground as gunshots went off very close to the vehicle I was emerging from, and then take advantage of the momentary panic to run towards the tomb’s main gate.

The shooting was the reaction to the angry mob blocking the main gate and threatening the soldiers just a few feet from them. On working my way through them, I was greeted with the sight that had fed their rage: the entire gigantic thatched roof of the shrine had collapsed into itself amid sheets of bright red-white flame. What was once a still, quiet church looked like the very pit of hell.

I was to remain there until 3AM. At first the youth used wet earth and what little water there was to tackle the flames, while the rest maintained confrontations with the police and soldiers on the perimeter, who had resorted to snatch squads, firing more live rounds, and lobbing tear gas canisters over the fence into our midst.

Things only began to change after 11PM , after the arrival of General Katumba Wamala (Commander of the Army Land Forces), who indignantly complained into his phone that only one fire truck with water had shown up.

After a truce of sorts, where the youth assured him that his presence as a fellow muganda might be tolerated only if he left his guards outside, more fire trucks arrived, and we all helped to pull the sodden smouldering thatch from the shrine.

Such suspicions -irrational as they may seem- are not without foundation. This country has accumulated a whole catalogue of strange and unexplained misdeeds that the government has never cleared up.

Just before Kasubi was adopted by UNESCO, a renegade hitherto unknown member of the royal clan turned up and laid claim to the site. With a retinue of hired guards, she occupied the mausoleum, and threatened anyone who sought to enter. She was only rescued from the very large and angry crowd that subsequently gathered by the sudden arrival of General Caleb Akandwanaho, younger brother to the President, who personally drove her away in his convoy.

Between May and July 2008, something in excess of thirty schools caught fire, usually at night, and often with fatalities among the student population. Many of these establishments were among the numerous schools in Buganda clustered around the capital. Despite various promises to “investigate” there has been neither exonerating forensic reports, nor arsonists convicted.

Back at the tombs, matters deteriorated further the next morning when President Museveni elected to make a sympathy visit to the crowds helping with the clearing up. When many in the crowd made it loudly clear to his escorts that his presence was not welcome, another stand-off ensued.

It was only resolved through the arrival of more battle wagons and soldiers trucked in from a nearby barracks. Three protesters were then shot dead, and seven wounded as the sympathy visit then went ahead.

Never was the phrase “killing me with kindness” so appropriate.

kalundi@yahoo.com