Press Release by Ugandan Community in S Africa Regarding the 2016 Presidential & Parliamentary Elections in Uganda

PRESS RELEASE

CONCERNS AND POSITION OF THE UGANDAN COMMUNITY IN SOUTH AFRICA REGARDING

THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL AND PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN UGANDA

Following a meeting held in Pretoria on 28 February 2016, we members of Ugandan community living in the Republic of South Africa would like to congratulate the people of our motherland, Uganda, for turning up in large numbers on 18^th February 2016 to exercise their democratic right of choosing their leaders.

We are however gravely concerned about the manner in which the voting process was conducted and the environment that surrounded the entire electoral process. We in particular, note the following:

·         The Electoral Commission (EC) displayed alarming bias towards the incumbent Mr. Yoweri Museveni and acted more like an arm of his party. It instituted difficult campaign conditions for the opposition candidates; with its chairman Mr. Badru Kiggundu making open political statements against the incumbent’s main challenger, Dr. Kiiza Besigye.

·         Throughout the campaign, Mr. Museveni greatly employed state resources for his own use while using state organs to inhibit his opponents. State security agencies, most notoriously the police and the military, were used to arrest, torture, harass and intimidate members of the opposition.

·         The entire electoral process, right from the creation of a new voters’ register, was riddled with deliberate irregularities hence rendering conducting of a fair election virtually impossible.

·         The delivery of polling material, and the manner of voting left so many Ugandans disenfranchised.

      The voting process was conducted under deliberately disorganised conditions in many areas while the gathering of results was such a shambles that it would have been impossible for the EC to have announced a winner as fast as they did. To our knowledge, no authentic documents have been put forward by the electoral body to back the announced results. In many instances the results as announced by the EC are being contested.

·         The ongoing deplorable treatment of the opposition leader, Dr. Kiiza Besigye, has brought shame to the country. This is a clear indication that the current regime has no respect for human rights and democracy. Uganda, it would seem, has gone back to the conditions that Mr. Museveni says compelled him to wage a bloody bush war from 1981 to 1985, in which hundreds of thousands of Ugandans perished. The hope of Ugandans that the country will never return to such dark days has been dashed.

·         The generally heavy handed treatment of citizens since election has become a manifestation of the regime’s increasing brutality towards those that don’t agree with it.

·         Uganda has become a police state, so much so that the masses now live under the barrel of the gun as they go about their daily lives. The citizens’ freedom of movement has been severely curtailed. 

Many of the issues outlined above have been mentioned in the reports of the various observer missions that were deployed in Uganda to monitor the elections. Because Uganda is our motherland, we also get first-hand accounts from our dejected relatives and friends that have witnessed or continue to witness these occurrences.

We recognise that we cannot continually fold our hands as we see our beautiful motherland, and more importantly, our kith and kin, lose their basic human rights and be dehumanised by a power-crazed regime.

We have therefore reached the following as our position:

1.       We stand with the innocent Ugandans that are oppressed by the current regime on a daily basis and against the regime.

2.       We call for a six-to-nine months’ caretaker government to be tasked with a re-run of the elections under strict monitoring by independent international observers.

3.       We call upon donor countries and agencies to cut off aid to Uganda. This aid simply feed the regime and enhances its brutality. The government for instance prioritises the purchase of torturous police hardware and chemicals over ambulances or medicines in hospitals.

4.       We call upon the international community to institute targeted sanctions on key Ugandan leaders and projects. This should include travel bans, freezing of any foreign assets, targeted ban on some foreign trade and suffocating the funding of certain projects.

5.       We shall withhold our financial remittances to Uganda to make a moral statement that we are siding with our people and tighten the screws on the oppressors. We note that the money that flows into the country is the oxygen that sustains the brutal, corrupt and human-rights-suppressing regime.

6.       We earnestly call upon all peace loving nations around the world to ban sale of military and police torture equipment to Uganda. The ban should include all police equipment disguised as necessary for ‘crowd control’.

7.       We stand in solidarity with actions of other Ugandans in the diaspora like those in Dubai that boycotted performances of regime-propagandist artists.

8.       It is our view that Mr. Museveni has reached the end of his usefulness to Uganda as its president.

Signed on behalf of the Ugandan Community in South Africa:

1.  Stephen Twinoburyo        

      2. Henry Muhwezi

      3.  Fr Robert Ochola   

      4. Khalid Kakaire