This is the Height of Dictatorship

The violent disruption of peaceful protests in Uganda that led to the shooting of opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye is testament to President Yoweri Museveni’s authoritarian regime’s lack of respect for human rights. By deploying the army to mete violence on an opposition leader and civilians marching peacefully to protest escalating food and fuel prices shows that Museveni has yet to shed off the guerilla tag more than a quarter of a century after he ascended to power. For how else would one explain the use of the army to quell peaceful protests when that job should be left to the police? What is the rationale behind using brutal force on unarmed civilians whose only crime is to complain about skyrocketing food and fuel prices?

But to keen observers of Ugandan politics, the move should not come as a surprise. In the run up to the February presidential elections which Museveni was accused of rigging, Dr Besigye threatened to call mass action but Museveni dared him to bring it on. He threatened Dr Besigye and other opposition leaders with permanent incarceration at Luzira Maximum Security Prison. What Muiseveni does not realise is that the wind of change currently blowing in North Africa and the Middle East will soon have a domino effect in sub-Saharan Africa, however much the African despots try to suppress dissent. One morning, the Ugandans will wake up and say enough is enough.  Museveni should not think that he is sitting pretty. Whereas he sees the Lord’s Resistance Army and its leader Joseph Kony as the only threat, he has already alienated the Baganda as well as other ethnic communities that are only waiting for an opportunity to hit back.

We abhor this kind of military dictatorship in a country that is not at war and call upon the international community to condemn it in the strongest terms possible.