{UAH} Besigye and 4GC Announce Fresh Protests

The activists revealed Friday that they are planning on remobilizing citizens against the June national budget which hiked taxes on basic utilities including piped water, kerosene, fuel and wheat.

 

The Group's chairperson and Masaka Municipality MP, Hon Mathias Mpuuga told reporters at their offices in Kampala that beginning next week on Monday July 22, 2013; on top of other previous activities, they will be engaging in "protest actions of various kinds."

 

The protests, which will be run under a Luganda theme "Tetujja Kusasulira Bubbi bwammwe [We shall not bear the brunt of government's entrenched corruption)" are geared towards rallying Ugandans to reject the proposed taxes and compel their respective legislators to do the same in parliament come next week.

 

Mpuuga noted that while government depicts the taxes as a good gesture: that Uganda can now support its budget by 80 percent they are hiding a huge gap left by government officials involved in nation rocking corruption scandals.

 

"When Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka cheerfully proclaimed that Ugandans were to contribute up to 81 percent of the national budget, she failed to tell Ugandans that he hard-hitting fiscal policies were just meant to bridge the gap created by a freeze on aid to Uganda," said Mpuuga.

 

"The freeze of aid by some major donor counties followed the misappropriation of funds in the office of the Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi who is also the NRM's Secretary General."

 

The 4GC has previously engaged in such riotous protests, triggering brutal police reaction that has often times enraged both local and international human rights defenders.

 

Police say political rallies in the heart of Kampala disrupt traffic and business and also cause destruction of property.

 

Kampala Metropolitan Police Commander Andrew Felix Kaweesi has since pointed out that police would not back down in fear of human rights and look on idly as the activists interrupt people's peace and stability.

 

"What they want to see is a weakened police force - one they can bark at and it trembles. But that will not happen. We will continue to execute our duties as per constitutional mandate," Kaweesi said recently.

 

On this, Hon Mpuuga told Chimp Reports that they have devised better means to outsmart the police.

 

"Since the partisan Uganda Police is on the rampage to stop citizens from peacefully protesting against the unacceptable government policies, we shall use our own creative ways of letting our people know of the specific protest actions," he said without elaborating

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"War is nothing but a  continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."