How Uganda’s opposition has got its groove back

The army move to quell protestors in Kampala on Thursday. PHOTO BY STEPHEN WANDERA  

By Timothy Kalyegira
Posted  Sunday, April 24 2011 at 00:00

On Monday April 11, several opposition political leaders, among them DP president Norbert Mao, FDC president Kizza Besigye, Jeema president Asuman Basalirwa, and countless others like Anne Mugisha, Salaam Musumba, Abdu Katuntu, Nathan Nandala Mafabi, Wafula Oguttu, Kenneth Paul Kakande, Mohammed Kibirige Mayanja, started their promised campaign against the rising inflation in Uganda.

Under the banner of Action for Change (or A4C), they would leave their respective homes every Monday and Thursday and head to the city or town centre, on foot, to protest against the high cost of fuel and as a way of calling on the government to curb the rising fuel and commodity prices. The government of President Museveni immediately understood this to be a new public order threat, seeing in it the long-anticipated post-election political action by the opposition.

The opposition insisted that it was only a civic action, not political. The government for its part also insisted that its clampdown on the opposition leaders was only a matter of public order and not politically-motivated.

Both the government and the opposition formally postured to the public that none of their clearly politically-motivated actions were political.

After the April 11 walk-to-work demonstration took place and was blocked, a second walk was staged on Thursday April 15, and a third on Monday April 18. And as usually happens when Ugandan opposition officials encounter Ugandan police on the streets, tear gas, beatings, burning car tyres, running battles, stone-throwing, and the flow of blood resulted.

Leaders arrests
The arrest of the various opposition leaders, most visibly Dr Besigye, was breaking news on the BBC and Al-Jazeera websites and was widely covered by Western news agencies. Inevitably, the demonstrations dominated the news the next day, April 12 and have been the biggest news story all week in Uganda.

Previous public demonstrations and riots since 2005 - the arrest of Dr Besigye in November 2005, the riots over the DP’s publication of the Andrew Kayiira murder report in January 2007, the sale-of-Mabira forest demonstrations in April 2007, the Buganda riots of September 2009 - had on average lasted three days before fizzling out. For the first time since 1986, in these walk-to-work demonstrations, Uganda’s opposition has managed to sustain a series of protests for a minimum of a week.

Just when the opposition seemed to have been comprehensively defeated in the February 18 general election and Dr Besigye’s era as the leading opposition leader over, the opposition suddenly found new vigour and relevance.

Unified front
The unified electoral front they failed to agree upon before the election unexpectedly took shape with the walking protests, and identifying themselves with the pressing financial crisis facing Ugandans of most walks of life.

The British High Commission, the European Union mission, and the United States embassy as well as the United Nations Office for Human Rights have all condemned the use of excessive force against the opposition and the three embassies asserted the opposition’s right to express their views. There was, until this point, a widespread perception that the Western powers regard President Museveni as a vital ally in the Great Lakes region and therefore will always cast their lot with him. In light of the decision by the British and Americans to openly express their support of the rights of demonstrators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and other Arab states, Uganda’s opposition can take this endorsement of their protest walk as significant.Continued