One killed, dozens arrested as Ugandan opposition chief taken for trial

Nov 15, 2005 (KAMPALA) — Ugandan security forces arrested dozens of people protesting the arrest of opposition leader Kizza Besigye as a magistrate committed him to the high court to stand trial on treason and rape charges.

At least one person was killed and 60 protestors were bundled into waiting police vehicles when forces dispersed demonstrators who had gathered in the capital during Besigye’s court appearance, an AFP journalist reported.

Police spokesman Athman Mugenyi said six people had been injured and 57 arrested in the skirmish in the city still strewn with the debris of Monday’s riots: broken glasses, abandoned shoes, and carcasses of government vehicles and others.

The dead man was shot by a security guard as he tried to loot a shop, bringing the death toll to two on the second day of rioting, Mugenyi added.

“Police is fully alert all over the country to deal with any act of lawlessness,” Mugenyi said in a statement, urging people to open their businesses.

The deserted city was under heavy patrol as magistrate Margaret Tiburua, whose court lacks jurisdiction over capital crimes, committed Besigye and 21 others to the high court, where they are expected to make a plea in the next few days.

Besigye is the only defendant facing rape charges.

The court was packed with people, including diplomats who are closely following the case of Besigye, who faces death if convicted of treason.

President Yoweri Museveni said it was time Besigye to prove his innocence.

“This is the chance for him to prove his innocence, if he is innocent,” Museveni said in a recorded speech to be broadcast later Tuesday.

“D. Besigye has been charged individually. His mistakes are necessarily not the mistakes of FDC (Basigye’s Forum for Democratic Change) as a political party,” he said.

“The FDC wasn’t involved, however, some individuals have been involved in those acts (of treason), including unfortunately Dr Besigye,” Museveni added. “No one is above the law, even the president of Uganda is not above the law.”

According to court papers, after he lost the 2001 presidential elections to Museveni, the opposition leader contrived a plot to overthrow the government.

Prosecutors allege Besigye’s delegation met with Joseph Kony, the leader of the rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and presented his plan to overthrow Museveni’s regime for allegedly rigging the 2001 elections.

The alleged treasonable insurrection was planned by former Ugandan army officers, who are now living in exile, but managed insurgent training camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Under the second charge, the opposition leader is accused of the rape in November 1997 of Kyakuwa Joanita, a friend’s daughter for whom he was paying school fees.

But his wife, former lawmaker Winnie Byanyima, laughed off the charges.

“The charges are ridiculous and laughable. They show a government in fear and desperately trying to stifle the opposition,” Byanyima told AFP by phone from New York.

“Besigye is, in my view is, a political prisoner. I demand that he be released unconditionally and immediately. The government would be responsible for anything that happens to him,” said Byanyima, adding that Ugandan prisons are notorious for prisoner abuse and death.

Meanwhile, a delegates’ conference of Museveni’s National Resistance Movement is expected to endorse the president as a candidate for next year’s general elections.

Besigye, who lost the disputed 2001 presidential elections to Museveni, fled Uganda for four years of self-imposed exile in South Africa after the president and other government officials accused him fomenting a coup.

If he does participate in elections next March, which is now considered highly unlikely, officials have said he is the likeliest opponent to face Museveni, who has been in power since 1986.

(AFP)