AFRICANEWS

Uganda

Museveni wins flawed poll

As we were going to press, incumbent President Yoweri Museveni had just won another five-year term as president of Uganda. Museveni's main contender, Dr Kizza Besigye, along with international and national journalists, human rights groups, churches, and others had expressed severe doubts over the validity of the election, citing allegations of violence, pre-filled voter cards, stuffed ballot boxes, and other allegations.

The streets of this normally bustling town in Western Uganda are virtually deserted except for soldiers on patrol and several passers-by. The few people who remain stare quietly out of doorways and verandahs, their suspicious and fearful glances penetrating the heat and heaviness of the afternoon air.

Two days before Uganda's March 12 presidential election, the people of Rukungiri should have been out cheering and supporting their presidential hopeful Col. (retired) Dr. Kizza Besigye, the main contender to incumbent President Yoweri Museveni. Instead, Besigye, Museveni's former doctor and co-architect of the ruling National Resistance Movement (now called "The Movement"), had made plans to cancel a rally in his hometown, mostly to avoid what happened at a similar rally on March 3.

There, according to eyewitnesses and human rights groups, soldiers of the Presidential Protection Unit, the PPU - Museveni's security detail - opened fire on the peaceful crowd leaving the rally, killing Besigye supporter Johnson Baronda and injuring scores of others. Rujumbura Member of Parliament, Brig. Jim Muhwezi, however, told the March 5 issues of New Vision that the PPU was merely defending itself against stone-throwing and other attacks from the crowd.

In the days leading up to the presidential election, the Uganda government had dispatched PPU and Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces (UPDF) soldiers all over the country, although the exact number of troops has remained a secret. "The UPDF troops will not merely watch when violence reigns among citizens," army commander Major General Jeje Odongo told the March 8 issue of New Vision. "We are very prepared to take up any mischief during elections. From now onwards, the public will realise that there is army deployment. Let them expect it, and that is what it's going to be like until the election exercise is over."

Odongo also told the March 11 Sunday Vision that the army was on standby only, at the disposal of the Electoral Commission and the police. He said the army would step in when the police was unable to handle demonstrations, looting, riots, and other forms of election violence.

But events leading up to the March 3 violence in Rukungiri paint a very different picture.

"We are all not safe," whispers a Rukungiri elder who is involved in election monitoring and polling. He spoke to Africanews on condition of anonymity. "We are not free to talk."

According to the elder, trouble started on March 2 when PPU soldiers, at the urging of Rukungiri's Resident District Commissioner (RDC)'s office, beat up and jailed Besigye officials who were putting up posters to prepare for Besigye's rally. After a few hours, police set the Besigye officials free, saying that they had not broken any law.

"This angered the PPU," said the elder. The soldiers were out for revenge. The elder says that he and others who left the rally the next day were met by PPU soldiers "with a stick in this hand and a gun in this hand." The soldiers beat Besigye's supporters and shot into the crowd, killing Baronda. (However, in a March 7 report, Paul Ssemogerere, president of the Democratic Party, said that monitors from the Foundation for African Development were investigating the cases of other people who died in that shoot-out). Speaking to a doctor at the local hospital, the elder knew of at least seven people who were injured.

Curiously, hours before the violence broke out, the Inspector General of Police ordered Stephen Okwalinga, South Western Regional Police Commander, to leave Rukungiri.

According to the NGO Election Monitoring Group - Uganda (NEMGROUP), the post-rally violence was all a set-up by the PPU acting independently from the police. "The NEMGROUP points out that the transfer of such senior police officer from a potentially explosive scene, which subsequently got violent, severely undermines the work of the police," said a March 5 release denouncing the violence.

"Secondly, the fact that the military took over the situation leading to an escalation of tensions, injury of many civilians, and the loss of property is a great blow to the role of the government in maintaining calm, law, and order during the electoral process," said the release.

The Uganda Joint Christian Council - consisting of the Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox churches - has criticized the government for stationing the PPU in Rukungiri District, the area where competition between Museveni and Besigye is the most intense.

"We believe that the whole electoral process should be demilitarised," Canon Rev. Grace Kaiso, UJCC executive secretary and national coordinator of NEMGROUP, told Africanews.

"Security officers should not get actively involved in the electoral process," he said. "The PPU is not expected to act like ordinary police, to be everywhere. They should only be where the president is going to visit.

"The PPU are not well trained to handle riots," said Kaiso. "What they will do is to shoot, because that_s what they_re trained to do."

"Such things are forcing us to think that, surely, one side is above the law," said Rev. Dr. Joseph Obunga, secretary general of the Uganda Catholic Secretariat, in commenting on the Rukungiri shooting and other election violence reported in the Press. "It seems that the official government organs are being used to crush the opponents."

In response to the outcry from NEMGROUP and other human rights groups, the government promised to withdraw PPU and UPDF soldiers from Rukungiri. Resident District Commissioner Mary Kemerwa announced on March 7 that only seven PPU soldiers remained in Rukungiri and 20 UPDF soldiers had also been withdrawn. She was quoted in the March 11 Sunday Monitor newspaper as saying that soldiers would work under the police and "their presence was to ensure a free and fair election in the district."

"The army presence intimidates people," counters the Rukungiri elder. "People will stay at home or vote for Museveni." He says he knows of at least 12 PPU soldiers in Rukungiri. In total, there are "hundreds of soldiers" scattered around the area, he said. Several of the elder's poll watchers have quit because of fear. "We are in danger," he says in a low voice.

"We live in fear of retaliation - we are afraid to speak out." The elder relates how a friend of his criticized Major Roland Kakooza Mutale, presidential advisor on political affairs, who human rights groups allege carries out torture and other intimidation against non-Museveni supporters. The person he was talking to reported the conversation to the PPU. Soldiers shot their way through the door of the man's house, and beat and robbed him. The man was able to escape.

In addition to on-site intimidation, poll results may be skewed because three government security agents from State House were able to break into the Data Centre of the Electoral Commission on March 2 and tamper with the voters register for western Uganda. The three were not charged.

According to a March 5 NEMGROUP release, "the register is at the heart of the electoral process and as such, it should be accorded the necessary security and protection from manipulation. This will reduce charges and counter charges on the character of the register and validity of the electoral process."

It is incidents like these that have prompted the New York-based Human Rights Watch to conclude in a March 5 report that there are "serious human rights concerns" that will "shed doubt on whether the election will be free and fair." Within a long list of violence and election fraud, it names the PPU, army soldiers, military intelligence officers, and the police as having conducted arbitrary arrests, attacks, and intimidation against supporters of opposition candidates.

The Uganda government subsequently dismissed the report, saying it sounded a lot like a report that Besigye released at the end of January. "Besigye knew he was going to lose the election and therefore prepared to justify his loss by writing to the international community," government spokesperson Basoga Nsadhu told the March 7 issue of The Monitor.

This report, along with others, has also documented violence and intimidation directed against Museveni supporters. However, these are much fewer than state-sponsored violence, as an analysis of newspaper coverage and reports from such groups as NEMGROUP reveals.

Widely-reported cases of election violence and fraud include:

• The February 20 arrest and detention of Besigye supporter and Member of Parliament Hon. Okwir Rabwoni, at the Entebbe airport by military intelligence officers;
• The February 14 abduction and torture of Besigye supporter Hajji Muwonge and his son at the Mbuya military barracks by two soldiers;
• Incidents of voter cards gone missing or being filled out in advance of the election, and the existence of "ghost polls

And here are the results at a glance:

Registered Voters	10,775,836
Total No. Polling stations	17,308
Total No. of polling stations entered	17,294

Source: East African Standard, March 15, 2001.

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