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Museveni resorts to archaic laws to muzzle opposition
The Uganda government has detained two senior journalist from the Sunday Monitor on allegations of criminal libel resulting from an article published six weeks ago detailing the ruling NRM plans to militarily train its youth wing and "equip them with tacitics" during the upcoming 2011 elections.
The Sunday Monitor, editor Henry Ochieng and senior Reporter Angelo Izama are being held at Makindye waiting to be charged at the Magistrate's Court after Police at at the CIDheadquarters questioned them for several hours on Wednesday morning.
 Prosecution alleges that the article titled "Preparing For the 2011 elections by arming troops", authored by Angelo Izama, and published on 20th December 2009, defamed President Museveni.
The article contained information indicating that President Yoweri Museveni took time off his busy schedule to preside over the passing-out of 2,500 youth who had completed their para-military/politicisation training on December 12. The low key event that hardly made a splash in the media took place at Kololo Airstrip - a place which holds some of the strongest symbolism of Uganda's post-independence history - from the lowering of the Union Jack to the controversial statements of Col. Muammar Gadaffi on why revolutionaries should remain in power in perpetuity.
The passing-out was officially following military science and patriotism training but it had alarmed political watchers and opposition party strategists increasingly convinced that the ruling National Resistance Movement party is muscling up for violence in the next polls.
"This is an old trick by African dictators, from the days of Kamuzu Banda to the Museveni's of today. They resort to archaic laws enacted by the colonial governments to muzzle the opposition. Museveni is in a tight corner... the media and the opposition must ready themselves for a violent and turbulent political season until after the elections." Said a Democratic Party legislator who preferred not to be named "because my party is working on internal reconciliation and we are advised to stay away from the media."
The articles carried views of leaders from across Uganda's political spectrum. According to the article as young men re-assembled AK-47 assault rifles the question according to Forum for Democratic Change's spokesman, Wafula Oguttu, who caught the action on TV, is "which war are they preparing for?" Mr Omar Kalinge Nnyago, a programme officer at the IPC secretariat which coordinates the joint strategy says the threat of violence was real.
The article quotes Mr Yonasani Kanyomozi, a veteran politician with the Uganda People's Congress, the IPC envisages an orderly change of regime. "We are going into this fully knowing that the incumbent is intent on staying on in power and may not go quietly."
Mr Oguttu, a retired journalist and entrepreneur-turned-politician, however says overall, organised violence is a more serious problem. "Military training and the military uniforms are for the purposes of violence. When they are defeated they will resort to violence," he said about the pass-out of Movement's cadres.
After the September riots again large scale violence has re-emerged as a worry. On the one hand there is no doubt that the politics of the country is wired by such high-tension topics as land, oil in Bunyoro, the dearth of public services and political transition/succession to President Museveni.
However, the Buganda riots showed how such violence could occur and the State response to it. "This is a quasi-military regime. It's dominated by the control of partisan forces of coercion by President Museveni who has never considered multiparty competition and still runs the NRM, which he dominates, like he did the National Resistance Army in the bush," Mr Oguttu added.
"The other scenario is that it is meant to intimidate or act as a deterrence. It's brinkmanship and could depress participation in the political process. It's the doctrine of preventative deployment," said the diplomatic source whose bleak forecast is shared by Lira Municipality MP Jimmy Akena.
"[These militia] is tantamount to the Kiboko squad on a massive scale. The NRM is preparing for a violent election and it is a serious concern for us," said Mr Akena who is vying for UPC leadership as a prelude to joining the presidential contest.
Within villages, say members of the opposition, it's no longer unusual to see a local official turn up in full dress military uniform as a show of force. And many are armed it's alleged. "Right now terror is projected as security," said Mr Nobert Mao the Gulu LCV boss who has made his intention to contest in the next election known. Speaking at the Buganda Conference, the first large meeting to address Buganda's place within Uganda since the September riots, Chairman Mao warned that the "primary problem in Uganda is dictatorship". He said this has complicated civilised political contest.
Concerns about violence are heightened by rights groups' warnings. The US-based Human Rights Watch in a report this month said there was little accountability for election violence. "Alleged crimes are rarely investigated or prosecuted," it said in the report titled Preparing for Polls: Improving Accountability for Electoral Violence in Uganda. The report notes that rather than be punished those accused of violence have been rewarded instead.
It notes the high profile example of Ali Kirunda Kivejinja, Uganda's minister of internal affairs, who was stripped of a parliamentary seat after a court said his election campaign had been managed like "a war" with the result of "widespread intimidation, violence and torture of [opposition] supporters and agents".
Despite this record as internal affairs minister, Kivejinja is still responsible for the police and security sector HRW notes.
The issue of violence may legitimately cause worry for the opposition but it reflects the increasing control of the NRM. It also casts a shadow over some of the gains the political opposition has made this year.
In conclusion the article warned that 2011 threatens to bring bad tidings on Uganda's political landscape is all the doomsayers are to be believed. However, at the end of the day it all seems to hinge on how President Museveni will behave -- in the event that Ugandans do not vote for him.
In the recent past the media has been violently targeted by the Uganda government. A report on media freedom in Uganda released by The Human Rights Network for Journalists in January, under its Press Freedom Index For 2009 shows that 2009 was a year during which the mistreating and torturing of journalists in Uganda by security agencies reached an alarming scale.
The report noted that last year eighteen journalists were fired from work by media houses under duress by the state. these included Robert Sserumaga of radio one, Anthony Kibuuka and Hebert Yawe Kabanda of Radio Buddu, Peter Kibazo of WBS/Simba, Charles Odongo Otto of Vision Voice, and Matovu Joy of Radio Sapientia, among others. Nine Journalists faced temporary arrests without charges and 35 journalists who were threatened and attacked in course of their duties in 2009. According to the report 21 journalist were charged with trumped up charges ranging from criminal trespass, criminal defamation, Secterianism and treason as in the case of Patrick Otim of Mega fm.
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