Uganda's weapon of house arrest

By Halima Athumani

KAMPALA

House arrests, usually with no official charges, have been Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's mightiest weapon in silencing critics over the years, experts argue.

"The government has fallen back to colonial laws of preventive arrest," David Pulkol, a former Ugandan spy chief and security expert, told The Anadolu Agency.

"Freedom of movement is a fundamental right of citizens – one which cannot be taken away by any government," insisted Pulkol, who currently works for the African Security Sector Network, an NGO devoted to security reform, transformation and governance.

On Jan. 3, the home of Gen. David Sejusa, a former presidential advisor and intelligence chief, was surrounded by military police.

"We thought they had come to take him to prison, but they stayed there longer than 12 hours. Then we realized they were putting him under house arrest," Sejusa's lawyer, Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi, told AA.

The lawyer insisted that house arrest was only applicable if the person arrested had a contagious disease or was of unsound mind and had to be confined to their home.

"But for a person who is suspected of having committed an offence, it is not envisaged that they shall be arrested at home," added the lawyer.

He dismissed the practice as an "abrogation of the constitution."

"These situations happen to people who have expressed political views," noted Rwakafuuzi. "It's very selective in terms of persons [who are] put under house arrest."

"The state detains a person and still claims that person is free; it eats its cake and continues to have it," he said.

Sejusa recently returned to Uganda from exile in the U.K. after being accused of plotting a coup against Museveni.

He served as Museveni's senior presidential adviser and intelligence chief from 2005 to 2013.

Sejusa is only one of many critics of the ruling regime who has been placed under house arrest.

In 2005, Brigadier Henry Tumukunde, who was serving as intelligence chief, was placed under house arrest during which he was guarded by no fewer than 50 soldiers.

Tumukunde was forced to resign his parliamentary seat the same month.

He was reportedly taken later to a makeshift detention center where he was incarcerated for nearly two years, during which he had limited contact with the outside world.

His crimes, reportedly, were appearing on a radio talk show without obtaining approval from the appropriate authorities and criticizing the country's leadership.

Tumukunde was later taken to court in a case that finally ended eight years later in 2013 – by far the longest military trial in the history of the Ugandan military.

In November of 2013, Kampala City elected Mayor Erias Lukwago, an opposition politician. He, too, was placed under house arrest following a court verdict banning him from his office at City Hall.

Lukwago describes the ordeal as "a very nasty experience."

"It has an element of tension and traumatizing the family," he told AA.

"Whenever my children were going to school, the kind of checks they were subjected to created fear, with guns all over," he lamented. "Your entire family is treated as criminals and you don't know when you will regain your freedom."

Lukwago, a lawyer by profession, said the authorities did not tell him the offense he had allegedly committed. Nor did they take him to court, so he could not apply for bail.

"I was demonized as a 'danger to society'," he fumed. "I'm an elected official, not a rabid dog. I don't throw stones at people, I don't insult people – I just wanted to exercise my rights."

Weapon

Pulkol, the security analyst, accused Museveni of using house arrests to "protect his parochial selfish interests over any other call for the good of the country."

He suggested that Museveni was using house arrests to deter opponents.

"I have power; I can do anything with you," Pulkol said, doing an impression of the Ugandan leader.

"It's a kind of terror method to bring fear among the population and those who want to support such individuals," the former spy chief insisted.

Presidential Press Secretary Tamale Mirundi, for his part, said Museveni did not need to resort to house arrest.

"In fact, he is very lenient," Mirundi told AA. "The previous regimes would eliminate you; the opposition was not even allowed to hold press conferences."

No Redress

Lawyer Rwakafuuzi lamented that the government, which is supposed to enforce the law, appeared to be abusing it.

"You can't find redress when the state is abusing the law," he told AA. "They own the police and they own the prisons. So who will enforce the law?"

Mirundi, for his part, dismissed the allegations.

"Why don't they sue the government in court?" he asked. "That's a stupid argument."

The opposition, Mirundi asserted, "isn't principled at all."

Using a local adage, he said, "One cannot have twins in Africa and say one isn't his."

"That's what the opposition does," said the spokesman.

"The courts are only independent when they [the opposition] win cases; when they lose, the courts have been 'manipulated by the government'," he said.

In October of 2011, Kiiza Besigye, the former leader of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change party, was detained in his home.

After nine days under house arrest, his lawyer, David Mpanga, filed an application with the constitutional court challenging his client's detention at home.

He argued that the house arrest violated the constitution, which states that, if a citizen is detained, he or she must be brought to court – or else be released – within 48 hours.

A judgment in the case has never been issued.

Mpanga also filed another petition at a lower court. Grade One Magistrate Chemery Jessica ruled that Besigye's continued confinement to his home was unlawful.

The judge added that, while the move was lawful in the first two days, it lost its legality afterward, since the former opposition party leader had not been informed of the reasons for his arrest.

The ruling, however, has not detered the police, who continue to keep Besigye in confinement. 

Nicholas Opio, a political analyst and lawyer, argues that the way Museveni deals with his political opponents illustrates how vulnerable he is.

"He's ring fencing that position from competition because he knows there's a real chance that he can be footed out," he told AA.

"Museveni is not ready for fair competition; he will always rely on the coercive arms of the state – the police and the army – to bulldoze his way in any election," Opio opined.

"Where that fails, he will resort to using state resources and money to buy his way out of elections," the expert asserted. "That's what he is – he isn't a democrat."