Dr. Ashad Sentongo Dies at 60: A Young Man in Spirit and Legacy
At 60, Dr. Ashad Sentongo died a young man in spirit. I last met Ashad on June 27th, when he came to my office. He was in good health and spirits. We had agreed to talk again on July 1st, 2024. Little did I know that I would be burying him on that very day. He died on 30th June 2024.
Shakespeare once consoled us by presenting life as a play and death as the final act, culminating in “mere oblivion.” Shakespeare himself died at 52 after accomplishing many things in a short time that we still remember and love since 1616. So, should we say that was Ashad’s last stage to oblivion? Just imagine if Shakespeare had reached 100 years, just like Henry Kissinger—who lived to foster America-China relations until his last days. This world would be better understood and splendid to live in. How I wish Ashad had lived for at least 40 more years. Ashad and I ironically had discussed Kissinger’s age and value to the world at age 100 and we had agreed that a 100 years should be the target as we leave the rest, in between, to God/Allah.
Ashad acted younger than his age; very energetic, agile, and swift in all he laid his hands on. He told me of his wonderful work with the late Gen. Aronda (RIP) on the NGO Bill and later with the late Gen. Pecos Kutesa (RIP) on the UPDF doctrine. Now he was with the Police on their doctrine while also helping the NRM on their structures. He had the capacity to multitask and work on many different assignments almost simultaneously and successfully deliver on them. On matters peace, Ashad had the sensitivity, the knowledge and the passion to keep it. That combination gives both satisfaction and success in what we do.
We always reminisced together about the late Gen. Aronda’s humility when we invited him on short notice in about 2010 to close our regional committee meeting that Ashad and I organized in Entebbe (supported by the UN Office of the Special Advisor on Prevention of Genocide). Gen. Aronda drove from Kampala to Entebbe to meet and address participants from the Great Lakes region. That is how some of our generals were committed to service, but that is also how they left, just like Ashad did. Suddenly.
Many participants still remember General Aronda’s off-the-cuff speech that evening and the free interaction afterward. To request God to have kept them around for us would never have been asking for too much. Ashad and I literally mourned when they passed on. This should not have been the stage for Ashad’s final exit.
It was simply too early and too fast for some of us to fathom out. Al-Hajji Moses Kigongo told mourners to always check their health status even when they feel fine but Ashad’s doctor later told mourners that Ashad ‘s blood pressure had been up a week before but had been contained and they even had spoken on 27th and Ashad had assured him that he was now “kabiriti” meaning very fit. So how could Ashad have done it better? Death is a terrible thief.
I first met Dr. Ashad Sentongo in Bujumbura, Burundi, in June 2010, and we last met on June 27, 2024 in Kampala. Two days later he was no more. He simply collapsed and died at his home. It had been a full 14 years of consistent friendship, deep intellectual exchanges, and practical engagements in service of the people. Ashad was a peaceful man; the way he spoke and walked—he loved peace and worked for peace. He researched, studied, disseminated and applied peace. He was very generous with his knowledge and loved to share it as widely as possible. He studied conflict analysis and resolution and always pushed for early warning and early action in conflict situations.
He worked to prevent genocide and mass atrocity crimes in Africa. He loved his country as much as his kingdom and culture. He loved Africa. He believed, just like I do, that we have theorized enough and what was needed now was action. He was a teacher and explained peace peacefully—in a manner he died—peacefully, without known pain.
He found me In Burundi, and we quickly connected. He did not have to rent a new house; we stayed together in my house for a year. We talked all night long, and he wrote his PhD thesis in my house.
I worked for the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), and my brief included establishing the Regional Committee on the Prevention of Genocide as required under the ICGLR Protocol for the Prevention and the Punishment of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, and All Forms of Discrimination (composed of what were then 11 member states, which later became 12 with the admission of South Sudan).
In Burundi, Ashad had come on secondment from George Mason University to support us in implementing our project on Genocide Prevention, at the request of our then ICGLR Executive Secretary, Ambassador Liberata Mulamula, to Prof. Andrea Bartoli from GMU. Meeting Prof. Bartoli in Kampala in early 2010, Andrea told us about a Ugandan doctoral student who was interested in the issue of genocide prevention. We quickly asked him to send him to us. He did.
For practical purposes, we needed to establish national committees, and we spent sleepless nights strategizing on the how until we got Ministers to allow these committees to be established at the national level. Uganda has such a committee, as do Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan, Sudan, DRC, Congo Brazzaville, Angola, Zambia, and CAR. Never mind the level of effectiveness of these committees on the ground, but we did our work. With Ashad’s support, all these countries have national committees on the prevention of genocide.
These committees’ roles were to alert ICGLR structures for action in case they detected indicators of possible violence that could lead to mass violence and atrocity crimes so that their information could trigger action at both national and regional levels for prevention and action.
He had kept these committees in his new role as Director of Africa Programs at the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR), which changed name to the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities (AIPG).
In April 2023, he came face to face with death, which he managed to escape by God’s grace. He was training members of genocide prevention committee in Sudan, Khartoum, when a new war broke out. He was at the airport when planes were bombed. He and his work colleague and cousin Mr Abbas Muluubya were trapped in a flat with very little to eat and drink. At some point, he wrote to me: “My brother, the ceasefire has not been respected. We are starving man, fighting widespread, all power off, water reduced, just holed up in an apartment. There was food in the apartment today, but we don’t know about tomorrow.” I tried to contact whoever we knew in Sudan, but there was no immediate help. One lady I knew had detected signals of possible violence in time and left the country two days earlier.
Ashad had not done his conflict analysis on Sudan very well before he travelled. Maybe this was his time to turn into a security expert also. We started communicating from April 15th, 2023, as he shared their ordeal until April 21st, 2023. Then he stopped communicating, and his phone was off until the 23rd.
When his colleague Abbas tried to remind himself about that incident at the funeral, he could not contain his tears. It was a horrible experience that could have taken his life a year ago. He survived. The message he sent to me on April 23rd after I lost his contact for almost two days and was fearing for the worst, he wrote: “Dear Nathan, we took a decision to evacuate ourselves on Eid Day by road to South Sudan, after everyone failed to get to our location, and the fighting is worse now.
We reached Juba last night after a nonstop travel for 22 hours. We hope to be in Kampala tomorrow by 5 pm, Insha’Allah. We felt your presence all the way through the long journey. Happy to say we pulled this off together. Thank you once again.” God gave Ashad a new lease on life, and he utilized this period well.
When I asked where he gathered the guts to move out of apartment to catch a bus on foot, he said he targeted when the Muslims were praying in the morning-they cease fire. This was beyond theory.
Together, we were intrigued by the levels of hate speech in our country, and we sought to take the issue to the UHRC because clearly, hate speech is a human rights issue, yet many mistook it for political banter. It is not. Hate speech is not free speech. It is toxic. So, we made several appointments with the UHRC, and we were well received and in some cases invited. We made our compelling presentation, after which the UHRC took an interest in the toxic speeches that followed, and the issue is addressed in its 26th Annual (2023) Report, Chapter 10. Ashad’s last paper according to Mufti Mubaje was on” Religious Tolerance as a Solution to Bigotry”. We were planning further concrete engagement in the coming months in providing more training and awareness on prevention capabilities to stakeholders against hate speech, which can be a precursor to violence and mass atrocities. Sudan had raised Ashad’s consciousness from conflict theory to praxis.
Ashad’s experience in Sudan paralleled mine in Karamoja when I entered Kotido in early 2000s only to be raised to intense fighting of the UPDF and the Karachunas blocking the road back to Moroto. I worked for UHRC then. I suffered all sorts of sicknesses, including malaria, until we were evacuated back to Moroto with my driver. Thanks to the late Col. Sula Semakula. I only fully recovered when I approached Soroti. You need to be in a situation of conflict to learn to hate and avoid conflict. Ashad hated conflict all through and demonstrated to all that tolerance, coexistence, reconciliation, and patience were essential.
Dr. Ashad Sentongo’s legacy will continue to inspire those who knew him and worked with him. His dedication to peace, his intellectual rigor, and his unwavering commitment to action over theory will remain a guiding light for many. His life may have ended too soon, but his impact and spirit will endure. My deepest condolences to family and friends. Rest in Peace Comrade Ashad.
Nathan is an international consultant, founder and executive Director of the Regional Centre for Human Security (RC4HS)
Email:Byam_nat@yahoo.com
0752646891
About the Author :
The writer, Mr. Nathan Mwesigye Byamukama, is the founder and Executive Director of the Regional Centre for Human Security –Great Lakes Region and a former regional director at the ICGLR
