The former presidential candidate, Rtd. Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye, has said Uganda is currently on the brink of becoming a failed state, having one of the worst human rights records in the world.
According to 2019 human rights watch report, security forces of police, Uganda people’s Defence forces (UPDF) have been key in the gross violation of human rights. Giving specific examples of the battering of Associated Press journalist James Akena, brutal arrests of MPs during the expunging of presidential age limit, lack of accountability for torture, the reports indicate that Uganda has a long way to go in the observation of human rights.
Speaking on Thursday at Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) offices along Katonga road in Kampala, Besigye said Rule of law, Constitutionalism, Social Justice and respect for human dignity, have ceased to be treasured values by the current government.
“The Junta that usurped the people’s sovereign authority has jettisoned and abrogated the Constitution with reckless abandon consequent whereof pushing the country onto the cliff.”
“The state structure is without doubt in shambles, with a rubber stamp parliament, a defanged Judiciary, dysfunctional executive and a personalized state security apparatus. This dire state of affairs has inevitably occasioned a governance crisis characterised by despotism, impunity, intransigence, authoritarianism, oppression, repression, greed, exploitation and exclusion,” he said
Besigye alleged that the current NRM regime has institutionalised a reign of terror, committing crimes against humanity, subjecting the citizens to inhuman and degrading treatment, gross abuse of rights and freedoms, massacres, murders, kidnaps, illegal arrests and detentions, torture.
In the same vain, the nation is grappling with an escalating spate of mysterious killings, with no accountability or serious measures to address the same, the hefty budgetary allocations to security notwithstanding.
He said that the state security organs’ primary focus is regime protection and as a result, the majority of Ugandans have been abandoned in the wilderness. According to the Police Crime Reports, on average, 21 people are reported killed every day.
Records show that the over 6,000 armed LDUs who were deployed in Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono are posing a very serious security threat, for they arrest, torture, rob and sometimes, have been accused of murdering people. Crimes attributed to these militias and Paramilitary outfits, are on the rise across the country.
