



On May 3, the New Vision Group Chief Executive Officer, Robert Kabushenga, Yoweri spoke to the BBC’s Akwasi Sarpong, who introduced him as a media advisor to the ruling NRM party. (Kabushenga starts) What has happened on our part is that Mr. Besigye did promise during the campaigns that this is exactly what he would do. And what we have on our hands is not a protest about the cost of living; what we have is the use of the excuse of the cost of living, which has justifiably gone up, to contest the victory and try and have the government removed by some kind of an insurrection, that is precisely what we are dealing with in Uganda. What do you mean by an insurrection, what we have seen is Mr. Besigye and a few protestors choosing to walk to make a statement about how the cost of living in Uganda has gone up, how is that an insurrection? People who walk to work do not burn tyres on highways and grab stones and pelt people and fire bows and arrows at the people. But the burning of tyres as you say, and throwing of stones has been a reaction to police action by deterring them from walking and in some cases an assault to some of their protestors? No, that is not true. These are very organised. What is the truth? The truth is, for instance two nights ago two trucks full of tyres were arrested doing rounds in the city distributing tyres that were to be burnt before people go to their work. So that is not a reaction to so called police provocation. Did Mr. Besigye instruct for those tyres to be distributed? He is responsible for the plan of action which includes the distribution of tyres for burning, organising of stone throwing youths whom we now know have been paid to carry out these protests. So what is being seen as a simple protest is actually an insurrection. Do you condemn how Mr. Besigye has been beaten by the police on all the times he has attempted to walk to protest? It is better to start from the begining, this was an act of provocation on his part. Who did he provoke? The police, actually the footage that you are seeing has been very well edited to remove his behavior for two and a half hours on different occasions. This is a person who has been told that his actions are interfering with the ability of other people to go about their business but he would not budge. Which people? Ordinary people going on about their business; because he is leading processions through market places, through highways- so that other people who are going on about their businesses are in danger. Last Thursday he was in his car trying to get into town, he was not protesting. No that was the tail end of the footage that you saw, he was out in his slide roof calling on processions to follow him, when he was asked to take a different route; he simply parked in the road and refused to leave. We are talking about issues of law and order. So why was the window smashed? Because Dr. Besigye before raising his windscreen, he had spray which he sprayed on a police officer who was asking him to leave. So there was an act of assault. What spray? Pepper spray. So they sprayed him in return? This was what happened. Now what you people were seeing is well edited material that removed all those acts. So someone who resists arrest should he be beaten up and manhandled the way Besigye was? Someone who resists arrest and breaks the law should be apprehended. How did he break the law? Because you are abstracting other road users, preventing them from moving, inciting groups of people to break the law and refuse police orders. Do you think the government has handled this as best as it could, why not allow the protests to carry on, they have their field day, everyone goes home; you are all happy? What you don’t see, those whose businesses have been inconvenienced, those who are not working because we have those who should be allowed to have a field day as call it. I think this country has 31 million people from the last time I checked and we are all entitled to co-exist. So tomorrow, I should wake up and have a big street party in the middle of town because it’s my right to go and have a field day? What are you scared of? What do you mean what are we scared of? You are talking about order and stability. Are we not entitled to it? In the U.K there was a lot of hooha because a couple of students were making a statement on the streets about school fees and you saw what damage they did. These (Uganda) are very fragile economies, we do not have insurance, we do not have the kind of monies that you guys have, you allow this kind of action to happen; we probably will take years to recover from the economic damages we suffer. This interview was first aired on the BBC World Service |
By Norman S Miwambo
Winnie Byanyima (centre) and her husband Dr Kizza Besigye - arguably the most harassed political family in East Africa.
It is feared that the leader of Uganda’s main opposition party, the Forum for democratic Change (FDC) Dr Kizza Besigye may be under house arrest following the deployment of several security officers that are now guarding any movements in and out of his house at Kasangati, a few miles from the country’s capital Kampala. Dr. Besigye, who has been spearheading the ‘Walk to Work’ protests for the last month, is now under house arrest and police surrounded his home on Monday, although a police spokesperson denied the allegations.
Dr Besigye who is a former personal physician to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, came second to Mr Museveni during last February’s general elections that the opposition parties claimed had been rigged by the Museveni-led National Resistance Movement (NRM). Dr. Besigye has been the main participant in the “Walk to Work” protests which have been appealing to the people to leave their cars at home every Monday and Thursday of the week and walk to their places of work to draw the government’s attention to the rising prices of fuel and food prices.
In a telephone conversation with The London Evening Post (TLEP), Dr Besigye’s wife Winnie Byanyima, a veteran Ugandan politician in her own right, who works with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York as a director for Gender in the Bureau for Development Policy said: “I can’t understand this anymore. Just after I came out of the gate to catch my flight to New York, armed police stopped me. I feared that they [the police] were going to spray some chemicals on me or were going to kill me and I raised the car windows, I thought they were going to kill me.” Sounding quite frightened, Mrs Besigye added: “They blocked my car and they towed us to the police.”
She went on: “When we reached the police, they left us to go. I feared and we tried to get back home because I had already missed my flight but still they blocked me. I’m worried because Kakooza Mutale has been coming and taking pictures of our house. He [Kakooza Mutale] has been taking pictures everywhere; I really don’t know why he trespasses on our properties,” said Mrs Besigye. Kakooza Mutale is a notorious pro-Museveni thug who heads the Kalangala Action Plan (KAP), a militia whose record is well documented by several Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports since as early as 2003. Several reports have documented and Kakooza Mutale’s KAP of gross human rights abuses.
Posted May 15, 2011 by Twino Speaks in Stephen Twinoburyo's blogs. Leave a Comment
By Stephen Twinoburyo
According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an institute that tracks military spending of 173 countries around the , in their Background Paper released in January 2011, Uganda in 2009 imported from S Africa arms worth Rand 169.2 million ($24 m). Uganda was by far the highest of the 32 African countries SA exported arms to. The 2nd highest country, Senegal, bought less than half (Rand 84 m) and the 3rd highest, Kenya, approx a third (Rand 55 m).
Uganda’s armed purchase from 2009 alone dwarfed what many Africa countries had spent on S African arms over a period of 10 years from 2000.
(http://books.sipri.org/files/misc/SIPRIBP1101.pdf)
The transfer of major conventional weapons by South Africa to Uganda between 2000 to 2009 included the following APC/ISV type military vehicles:
2002 15 RG-31 NYALAS
2OO4 5 MAMBAS
2005 31 BUFFELS
2009 6 GILLAS
According to SIPRI, armoured vehicles supplied from South Africa were also used in the violent suppression of demonstrations in Uganda in 2006.
Information from the South African National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), presented in a report by Peter Bachelor titled “South Africa’s Arms Trade and the Commonwealth: A Cause for Concern?” (http://carecon.org.uk/Leverhulme/P12.pdf) , shows that Uganda’s arms imports from post-apartheid South Africa between 1996 and 1998 amounted to only Rand 41.8 million. This however was second only to Congo-Brazzaville in Africa.
The BBC, on 1 March 2006 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4762386.stm), cited an Oxfarm report that showed how a South African subsidiary of the British company BAE Systems sold Mamba armoured personnel carriers to the Ugandan government ahead of the country’s general elections. The report said at least 32 such vehicles had been sold to Uganda by the subsidiary, called Land Systems OMC, since 2002, with the most recent consignment before the release of the report arriving just ahead of polling day. The report went further to say that at least three people had been killed when the vehicles were used to quell demonstrations a week before the elections.
Uganda’s overall military expenditure has risen from UG Shillings 234 billion to 583 billion (US $268 million).
There is concern in some circles about the sale of arms to African countries like Uganda. Peter Bachelor in his report quotes James Speth, an administrator at the United Nations Development Programme, as saying “ The world cannot ask Africa to develop and then blight its development efforts through the sale of arms and ammunition that fuel Africa’s civil conflicts”
South African armoured personnel carriers have been very prominent in the recent brutal crackdowns on the peaceful walk-to work protests which have seen the death of at least 10 people.
Recently, the country signed a deal for delivery of Russian military fighter jets worth US $740 million. But the real question should be, why is the Uganda government buying arms at such a massive level when their people are living in wallowing poverty? According to the International Monetary Fund, the country, GDP per capita stands at a lowly US $509. The country’s infrastructure is crumbling and public health is non-existent. Quality education is a thing of the past. Why then does the government need to spend heavily on arms?
Because of the threat of Lord Resistance Army’s Joseph Kony and the war on terror, the wold was quick to give Uganda arms without strict scrutiny. It’s now questionable whether the imported arms were indeed for these purposes. Following what has been witnessed in Uganda over the past few weeks, it’s prudent that developed democracies restrict arms sales to Uganda.
On 5 May 2011, a Ugandan newspaper, the Red Pepper, reported that the Ugandan Police Force had imported more that 40 South African made anti riot trucks called Nyalas (type RG-31) to bolster their already rich collection (http://redpepper.co.ug/welcome/?p=7753).
Ugandans in South Africa, in a petition to President Zuma, requested that South Africa puts a stop to the sale of arms to the present government of Uganda. Recent events in Uganda have shown that the weapons Uganda imports are for use against her people rather than advance their well-being. Unconfirmed reports say that much of the teargas used against demonstrators and the dyed spray used against opposition leaders are imported from South Africa. International media reported that the coloured spray was a common tool used by the apartheid police and what is being used in Uganda could be remnants of that.
http://ugandaspeaks.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/ugandas-arms-imports-from-south-africa/
I was written to because I cited Roku on this page at Balunywa Bytes. Here at KillTheCableBill.com, we're helping people beat inflati...
Editor, this partisan force have embarrassed our nation. They were not checking every car, they were simply waiting on to see what car drives out of Besigye’s compound and get it towed. The good lesson they have learnt is not to smash Dr. Besigye’s car but to tow it away otherwise let them give us another good excuse of stopping Winnie. If they were not bothered about Dr. Besigye’s movements, then why pick on this particular car coming out of his gate? They were there because they knew that it was a Monday and Besigye had vowed to continue walking and they will be there on Thursday too.
Nabakooba has lied to the entire world. We heard rumours even before Besigye returned that government was getting a helicopter to fly him to his compound and keep him under house arrest. Careful of government’s plan, he refused the offer but the last one has come true.
Editor, initially the president and all his subordinates said that he will crush those who will walk to work. It became a song in Uganda that walk to work, get crushed and all ministers, police, army, permanent secretaries echoed this message. A sudden change later emerged after realizing that they would be defeated someday by protesters who had vowed to depose government if they cracked them down to the effect that people should walk to work because its normal and healthy and the president has never condemned walkers but said let people walk. It is believed that the international community had spent hours in meetings and passed an ultimatum giving the Ugandan leader less time to fix the situation.
What we now see days down the road is that with the increasing support not only in Uganda but world wide of the main opposition leader, any injury on him sparks off a riot so the best thing to do is to keep him under house arrest. Today, people are hitting on look-alikes of perpetrators of injury on FDC leader. Many security operatives have suffered due to their brutal attack on the opposition and the government is beginning to realise that its wise not to injure Besigye. Restricting his movement will make people stop walking to work but they are wrong. People need solutions and are waiting for the president’s promises he made during the swearing in ceremony to come true. The police cannot earmark one leader and think it will solve the problems of the country, the walkers are bigger than just one person and solutions should start emerging.
http://www.thelondoneveningpost.com/uganda-police-deny-kizza-besigye-under-house-arrest/