Letter to Museveni by Concerned Ugandans in South Africa - 26 April 2016

The letter below, addressed to Mr. Yoweri Museveni, was handed over to the Uganda High Commission today by a group of concerned Ugandans in S Africa:

MR. YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI

THRU: UGANDA’S HIGH COMMISSIONER TO THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA,

PRETORIA.

DATE: 26/04/2016

Dear Mr. Museveni,

RE: PRESIDENTIAL SHAM ELECTIONS (2016) AND THE DETERIORATING HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN UGANDA

We the undersigned, on behalf of a wider Ugandan community living in South Africa would like to bring to raise our concern on the failing state of democracy and deteriorating human rights situation in Uganda.

We respected and supported you when you became President 30 years ago because we believed you were going to make Uganda different from the painful past it had gone through but we however note that under you, your regime has increasingly resorted to repressive and unjust means to maintain your grip on power, in the face of increasing discontent, and challenge over your style of leadership. You’ve erased any difference between you and the worst of any previous leader of Uganda.

Ugandans and the international community observed with alarm the manner in which the presidential campaigns leading to and elections held on 18^th February 2016 were conducted. The process was a sham as it was characterized by deliberate Government refusal to implement recommended Electoral Reforms in order to bring about credible, free & fair elections. Torture, harassment, intimidation and restrictions of opposition candidates and their supporters was a daily occurrence. Massive irregularities were widely reported by the media and election observers. Immediately after the sham elections, presidential candidate Dr. Kiiza Besigye was put under house arrest and prevented from rightfully launching an election petition. When Hon. Amama Mbabazi petitioned the elections, police reportedly broke into his lawyers’ offices and stole evidence. We know all the nine Judges hearing the petition were appointed by you and the eventual court verdict was therefore not surprisingly in line with previous court precedents. Consequently, Ugandans are very angry and frustrated because their vote was stolen and their will over-thrown by a regime that is increasingly resorting to the gun to stay in power.

Numerous election observers raised concern over the conduct of the campaign and elections. On a number of occasions, you yourself made statements that were meant to undermine the conducting of free and fair elections. The Electoral Commission acted as if its sole purpose was to have you re-elected at any cost and together with the police, made conditions difficult for your opponents. Even before the first vote was cast, it was difficult to see how the outcome could be credible.

We believe that because you lack the peoples’ mandate, your sense of insecurity has increased tremendously and so has your repression of the people by turning the country into a police/military state. Your main challenger, Dr. Kiiza Besigye, has been arrested repeatedly since the day of the elections. People are being harassed, tortured and arrested. Some have been brutally murdered. Many people are fleeing the country to escape the brutality and persecution by your state agents. Increasing numbers of Ugandans are seeking political asylum in other countries, including South Africa where we live. If the status quo remains, the situation is bound to get worse.

We remember you in your early years as president of Uganda bemoaning how the rest of the world looked on and even the then Organisation of African Union made Idi Amin its Chairman as the country continued to bleed. Sadly, the same is happening under you. We don’t want a situation where Ugandans eventually resort to violence to rescue themselves from the jaws of your dictatorship.

Given the above, we state thus:

1.      We don’t recognize you as the legitimate leader of Uganda and call upon other concerned people in and outside Uganda to do the same.

2.      We call upon you to think about the good of the country and hand over to a broad-based government of national unity to bring our now fractured country back together, and then chart a new future of hope that is urgently needed.

3.      We know you have continuously and heavily bankrolled your long stay in power using state resources and encouraging rampant corruption. As long as you hold onto power in an illegitimate manner and continue to repress the innocent people of Uganda, to isolate you and the people you use to brutally sustain yourself in power. We therefore hereby call on other countries to institute targeted sanctions against you and those people you’ve surrounded yourself with to repress innocent Ugandans.

4.      We, alongside other concerned Ugandans in the diaspora and other people concerned about Uganda, have called on those countries that have been selling arms and police equipment to your regime to halt doing so as these have become tools of brutal repression against innocent Ugandans.

5.      We have called upon other countries to favorably consider current and future Ugandans arriving in their countries to seek political asylum in line with Human Dignity and Freedom as these are genuinely fleeing oppression and persecution under your regime.

6.      It with great pain that we state the above and have reached our decisions with heavy hearts wondering how our country reached the state it is in. Our fundamental wish is for the people of Uganda and all those that live in the country to enjoy the freedoms and liberties that they deserve.

We hope you will hear our call and listen to our voice.

On behalf of the wider Ugandan community:

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