Life presidency project leading to uncertainty in Uganda As the three East African presidents were in Kampala striking agreements for building oil pipelines, some distinguished Ugandans were under house arrest or detained in Police cells and most shops in the central trading area of Kampala were closed by traders. These two goings-on starkly bring out the fact that once again Uganda is at crossroads. Uganda may move forward on the path of development, democracy and stability or move backwards to chaos and instability. How can people in the business of making money (generally small traders) decide to intentionally deny themselves the opportunity to make money? There must be something grossly wrong. Dr Kizza Besigye and Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago are among a list of opposition leaders announced to the media as “banned” from exercising their freedoms of movement and assembly. These are politicians who have been prevented from doing what politicians do, namely to freely move, access people and tell them their views on various issues. In apartheid South Africa, there was a law that allowed the apartheid state to ban people, but in Uganda there is no such law and yet the fact of the matter is that “banned” leaders were announced by the police by name to the public. Lukwago was even surrounded in a mosque when he went to attend prayers at Nakasero Mosque. There must be something grossly wrong in a country where such things happen, where immense public resources are expended on enforcement of a ban on the exercise of fundamental freedoms without any pretence of legal cover. The police have banned legitimate, legal opposition activities that may expose the incompetence and failures of the regime and yet the political system in Uganda is said to be a multi-party system! The police have thus cast themselves into an NRM wing to ensure that there are no opposition activities. Mr Ken Lukyamuzi informed the Police that he was organising a rally at Ndeba in his constituency and the Police dispersed the rally. The DP organised a rally in Mityana and informed the police as the law requires and the police dispersed it with tear gas. It is good if the police fights corruption but of all municipalities in Uganda, how come the police have arrested the Mayor of Mbale who happens to be an FDC member and soon after we read in the media that he is holding talks with NRM leaders, possibly to find ways to save him from police action? An army general, who also happens to be an MP, expresses his views on certain matters of public interest, but considers it prudent to run out of the country because of the expected dire consequences that would follow the exercise of his right to express himself. Indeed, threats of court martial and arrest followed fast. If this is happening to a senior regime pillar, how much suffocation there is in the country can be gauged from what happened to some of the media houses which covered the general’s missives and views. The Monitor and Red Pepper newspapers as well as KFM and Dembe FM radio stations were closed by the police for more than 10 days, just to teach them a lesson. There is something grossly wrong in a country where such capricious suffocation takes place just to show where power lies. The greatest failure of the regime is that after almost three decades in power, it has failed to build effective State institutions that serve all people and for its survival the regime subjects all State institutions to serving regime partisan interests. For example, all States have a coercive arm to protect peoples’ rights and public safety but in current Uganda, the abuse of rights exceeds the protection role. It seems the regime has abandoned the attempt to win the hearts of the people in favour of being feared by the people. Unfortunately, the people are gradually overcoming their fear of the coercive forces and thus the level of force used is rising from beating to tear gas and live bullets. Kampala, in particular, looks like an occupied city when you consider the heavy police and other forces deployments. What is sad is that the country need not have come to this predicament, if the life presidency project had not been adopted as the guiding principle of NRM.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:21:01 +0000
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