NGOs want military out of Kampala city streets

The military should quit Kampala City streets to enable Ugandans freely go about their businesses and exercise their civic duties, a coalition of 47 legal aid service providers has demanded.
Under their umbrella, the Legal Aid Service Providers Network (Laspnet), the coalition says the continued deployment of soldiers on the streets, in the aftermath of an election, portrays a situation of war.

“The army should be withdrawn from the streets so [that] there is that kind of freedom for people to express themselves and dialogue. Currently, people are grieving and they do not know how to express themselves,” Ms Sylvia Namubiru Mukasa, the executive director of Laspnet, told journalists in Kampala on Monday.

However, Col Shaban Bantariza, the deputy executive director of Uganda Media Centre, said the military and police will not be withdrawn from the streets until the Forum for Democratic Change presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, publicly denounces his proclaimed defiance campaign.

Dr Besigye’s 2016 campaign was hinged on defiance saying it is a rallying call for Ugandans to regain their power over their leaders and that attainment of that and victory would not be in complying with what the powers that be want, but rather defying any unlawful orders and doing what citizens deem right.

“The leadership of police is working on intelligence [to deploy]. If Dr Besigye denounces defiance, he will bring down the deployment and he will be a free man,” Col Bantariza, said yesterday.

UPDF spokesperson Lt Col Paddy Ankunda earlier said their work is complementary to that of the police and “is meant to secure the country” from wrongdoers. “All our actions are in support of police and based on intelligence. There are groups of people planning to set Kampala on fire,” Lt Col Ankunda told this paper by telephone on Tuesday.

“Whose interests are they [Laspnet] serving? It is only wrongdoers that should be scared [of army presence],” he added.

Ms Namubiru, however, says curtailing people from airing out their grievances by means of coercion “does not encourage the process of dialogue even if it has to be there.” She said Forum for Democratic Change presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye who feels aggrieved “cannot even be allowed to access his lawyers.” Dr Besigye remains confined in his house for the last two weeks in what police say is a preventive measure to stop him from committing crime.

Mr Samuel Nsubuga, the chairperson of Laspnet, said many people are arrested and moved from one police station to another without being informing their relatives about the actual police station where they are detained. Mr Nsubuga said 23 lawyers that were deployed during the elections around the country have secured police bond for only 15 people accused of electoral malpractices, mainly from Opposition, out of the 260 who were arrested in districts of Iganga, Kampala, Mukono, Kibaale and Oyam.

ptajuba@ug.nationmedia.com