Inter Press Service - February 9, 2000
Peter Owuor

Captain Paddy Steven Sekyalo, 40, of the Uganda People's Defense Force (UPDF), announced during prayers at an Islamic Mosque in Gaba, a suburb of Kampala, the capital of Uganda, on Dec 17, that he lives with AIDS and is taking some experimental vaccines from Ugandan hospitals.

In a period of 12 years, he told a shocked congregation, he has passed the virus, which causes AIDS, to at least 30 partners including school children and petty traders engaged in illicit alcohol selling.

"I have been an HIV carrier for 12 years and have spread the deadly HIV/AIDS virus to more than 30 women in this area. Some of them are married and others are school girls," the soldier told the congregation.

The disclosure has put the army in an embarrassing situation as pressure from women activists to discipline the errant officer mounted.

Last week the UPDF announced that they had arrested Sekyalo and would proceed to court martial him - in a move likely to appease women groups who have been demanding greater protection for women against HIV/AIDS.

The move also will lend credence to demands by health and legal groups like the Uganda Network on Law, Ethics and HIV/AIDS, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), which has, since 1998, been lobbying for stiff punishment against persons who infect others knowingly, according to the group's coordinator, Sarah Baite.

Uganda, with a population of about 20 million people, has 10 percent of its population living with HIV/AIDS, according to ngos dealing with the scourge. Sekyalo was arrested, on Feb 7, on the orders of the acting army Chief-of-Staff, Brigadier Stephen Kashaka, but no date has been set to court-martial him. Army Spokesman, Captain. Shaban Bantariza said the soldier's acts violated the army code of conduct.

Sekyalo, formerly attached to the army's personnel department, is being held at Bombo Army headquarters, 48 kilometres west of Kampala, said Bantariza. "It is unacceptable because there is no free woman. One is either somebody's daughter or wife. He will be court martialled to show the public that the army is not in the habit of deliberately spreading diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS", said the army spokesman.

Bantariza said Sekyalo committed a crime by deliberately infecting his partners with disease, and then made it worse by publicising it.

Following Sekyalo's pronouncement in December, women activists reacted angrily and demanded his immediate arrest and prosecution.

"The fact that he confessed, does not make him a Saint. A separate case should be brought against Sekyalo for each of the 30 women he infected so that if he is convicted, there is no chance of him getting away with a light sentence," Jennifer Bakyawa, a rights activist, wrote in The Monitor, a local newspaper, soon after the officer's arrest.

She also regretted that: "Sekyalo has the guts to warn the public against the disease while his victims suffer".

Bakyawa urged "the army to discipline" Sekyalo "of malice." Uganda's penal code, Section 166, considers, "any person who unlawfully or negligently...spread...any disease dangerous to life" as guilty of an offence -- which carries a jail term of seven years.

If it is proved that some of the persons Sekyalo infected were minors below 18 years of age, he could as well be charged with defilement which carries a death sentence.

According to the country's Ministry of Health, the average age of first sexual encounter for girls is between 15-16 years. About 20 percent of Uganda's girls celebrate their 18th birthday when they are already pregnant.

Aware of the risks women face, Uganda has been emphasising the vulnerability of women against AIDS in various messages used in awareness campaigns. The use of female condoms is among the strategies currently being tried out in an attempt to protect women against HIV/AIDS.

Nearly 300 pregnant women are also on azidothymidine/zidovudine (AZT) drug trials to establish if it can prevent mother-to-child infection and transmission during delivery. More women are participating in various vaccine trials being carried out in this East African country.

With nearly 2 million people out of 20 million infected with HIV/AIDS, Uganda has one of the highest incidences of the disease in Sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 500,000 people have died of the epidemic since the first case was diagnosed in the 1980s, the Ministry of Health says.

Uganda has adopted a multi-sectoral approach to try and fight the disease. The Government believes actual infection rates are falling because of heightened awareness, which has led to increasing abstinence from sex especially among teenagers, and availability of contraceptive gadgets especially condoms for adults.(END/IPS/po/mn/00)
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