{UAH} Go to hell, Museveni tells city protestors

Gen Kale Kayihura (R) and other officials welcome President Museveni at Paraa Safari Lodge where he opened the first East African police retreat yesterday. PPU PHOTO 

KAMPALA

Individuals or groups that insist on holding demonstrations in busy business areas were yesterday advised to go to hell by President Museveni even as he revealed that Uganda hired out police equipment to help prevent election violence in a neighbouring country.

The President's comments at a conference of regional police chiefs also included fresh praise for Uganda's police forces whose response to protests has been criticised as high-handed, brutal and extreme.

The conference taking place at Paraa Safari Lodge in the north-western district of Amuru has been convened in light of the 'Arab Spring' revolutions rattling governments across North Africa and the Middle East. President Museveni presented a paper titled: "The recent wave of violence and instability in North Africa and its implications to our region and the rest of Africa".

"You want to demonstrate? No problem; go to free space but after that go home because we have other things to do. Someone says 'no, I wish to go to the market and step on women selling their tomatoes in the market'. We, in Uganda, say go to hell. This man (Uganda's Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura) has enough tear gas once they take enough smoke they go home," President Museveni said.

Last evening, reaction to Mr Museveni was equally scathing with opposition leaders wondering who should go to hell first. 
Peaceful assembly and demonstration are protected as fundamental rights and freedoms under Uganda's Constitution. The government, however, has increasingly used force to stop its opponents from holding rallies in the city saying they cause chaos and disrupt commercial activity.

Since the 2011 general elections, members of the opposition have been protesting demanding the removal of what they describe as an illegitimate and corrupt government.

The President said Ugandans were lucky not to have elected a president with a village mindset who would have allowed the killing of those who trample on their businesses. "Those Ugandans have been lucky not to elect a man from the village... because in the village, if you step in my potato garden, I spear you and you are finished. If you step on the crops, you will not go home alive and the elders will say there is no case," he said. He said: "As far as I am concerned, the shop of an urban dweller is his garden."

Another theme the President warmed up to was the idea of a joint police force for Africa. Dwelling on the subject, he revealed how Uganda had lent out equipment and trained officers, in a country he didn't mention, to deal with elections "trouble causers".

"Recently, there was election in one country. As usual, some people wanted to reject results and cause trouble. Someone who knew our experience in dealing with trouble makers approached us and we rented them equipment. We helped them," he said.

President Museveni has been accused by Kenya's former premier Raila Odinga of meddling in that country's internal politics. Mr Odinga has twice contested the results of elections in which he has participated, noting that they were rigged. It was not immediately clear if Kenya was the country President Museveni was referring to.

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