Category: Politics

{The Kenyan leaders should not have been free during trial at the Hague, the former UN boss says.}

Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has questioned the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to allow President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, Mr William Ruto, to remain free as their cases proceeded.

In an article published by the UK-based Financial Times, Mr Annan also criticised the court for not doing enough to protect witnesses from intimidation.

“The President and Vice-President were the ones in the dock and so they put lots of effort and resources into fighting the case,” Mr Annan said.

ICC has a detention centre located within a Dutch prison complex in Scheveningen, on the outskirts of The Hague.

Among suspects who were detained in the cells in the Netherlands as their cases proceeded are former presidents Charles Taylor (Liberia), Laurent Gbagbo (Cote d’Ivoire) and a former vice-president of DR Congo, Jean-Pierre Bemba, whose sentencing is to be delivered today.

“I remind the Africans that it is wrong for them to say that only African leaders are put into the dock,” Mr Annan wrote in the Financial Times, adding that they “should not pretend that they were the first” or that the process is biased.

Mr Annan oversaw the mediation that led to the formation of a grand coalition government in Kenya after the disputed 2007 presidential election.

The chaos that erupted after PNU’s Mwai Kibaki was announced the winner by the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya led to investigation and prosecution of six Kenyans, among them President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto.

However, all the cases collapsed due to lack of concrete evidence, with the prosecution led by Ms Fatou Bensouda blaming the situation on witness intimidation, bribery and political interference by African leaders.

{The former FDC presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, has applied to the High Court in Kampala, seeking bail.}

Dr Besigye, who is currently incarcerated at Luzira prison on treason charges arising out of his alleged swearing-in of himself as president of Uganda, filed his bail application on June 7.

In his application, Dr Besigye, who states that he will represent himself with his current address being Luzira prison, cites about 10 grounds why he wants to be released.

These include being of advanced age of 60 years, uncertainty of when his treason trial will commence, having substantial sureties and non-interference with investigations, among others.

“It’s in the interest of justice that I be admitted to bail as I enjoy a presumption of innocence. I am in a position where the commencement of my trial cannot be ascertained particularly in view of the commitment of judicial resources to the disposal of election petitions around the country and therefore should not be punished by remaining in prison,” Dr Besigye states.

Dr Besigye also said he is a law abiding citizen who meets the criteria of admission to bail and that once released, he would return to court to face trial as and when required.
To that effect, the head of the Criminal Division of the High Court, Justice Wilson Masalu Musene, has been allocated the file.

The hearing of the same bail application has been fixed for July 6 at 9am and court has since issued a production warrant to Luzira prison officials to produce Dr Besigye on that day.

The application comes at a time when Nakawa Chief Magistrate’s Court had ordered the Directorate of Public Prosecutions and police to expedite and conclude Dr Besigye’s treason investigations so that he can be sent to the High Court.

Prosecution alleges that Dr Besigye and others at large between February 20 and May 11 this year formed an intention to compel by force government to change its measures as to the lawfully established methods of acceding to the office of president of Uganda.

{President Museveni will meet the legal costs of NRM MPs who are facing petitions challenging their election.}

The move is intended to facilitate legal teams for the embattled MPs and save the party from potential by-elections in which it has a record of awful performance.

During a Caucus meeting of NRM MPs at State House on Friday, Government Chief Whip Ruth Nankabirwa told the President that the party may lose seats in the 10th Parliament if he does not come to the financial rescue of those battling petitions in courts.

Mr Museveni subsequently directed the party secretary general, Ms Kasule Lumumba, to compile a list of NRM MPs with petitions in court and compile a budget of the financial requirements. More than 40 NRM MPs are defending their seats in court.

As the party was mulling over the proposal on Friday, NRM’s Busiro South MP Peter Sematimba was kicked out of Parliament after High Court ruled that he lacked the minimum academic qualifications for an MP. According to sources who attended the Caucus meeting, the members also resolved to initiate an arbitration process between NRM-leaning independents like Kabakumba Matsiko, who have filed petitions against official party MPs. Kabakumba is challenging the election of NRM’s Ernest Kiiza for Masindi Municipality seat.

Ms Nakanbirwa yesterday confirmed the President’s pledge to bail out MPs on petitions but declined to divulge further details, saying her office was still compiling the list.

“I was reminding the President of what he promised, to help MPs who were flag bearers of the party but are facing petitions in court. Our numbers in Parliament may diminish if we keep on losing cases and by-elections are more [politically] costly,” Ms Nankabirwa said.

At the same Caucus meeting, MPs expressed misgivings about the Cabinet line-up announced on Monday.

{{Banyoro on key cabinet position}}

Buyaga West MP Barnabas Tinkasiimire said Bunyoro is not happy with the removal of 88-year-old Henry Muganwa Kajura as Deputy Prime Minister and not replacing him with another from the region.

“I only delivered a message from the Banyoro who are saying that they have been having a deputy Prime Minister and that is what they want. I know it is his prerogative to appoint Cabinet but this is the demand from the people who elected him,” Mr Tinkasimiire said in an interview yesterday.

Lango NRM MPs voiced similar frustration that the President side-stepped them and appointed UPC’s Oyam County South MP Betty Amongi as Lands Minister.
Karamoja MPs raised similar issues complaining about the transfer of First Lady Janet Museveni from the Karamoja Affairs position and replacing her with John Byabagambi. Ms Janet was appointed minister of Education and Sports in the new cabinet.

Mr Museveni promised to meet the grumbling MPs and explain how he selected the Cabinet.

However, NRM’s Nankabirwa said: “What is happening happens all the time the President names Cabinet. It is next to impossible to satisfy everyone. There will always be a section of people that is complaining. We just need to sensitise our people that there are many positions which are equally important as Cabinet.”

{KINSHASA, Congo – Dozens of Congo opposition leaders are calling for elections to take place on time in November and for a review of the electoral commission, which says it needs more time.}

The head of the main opposition party, Etienne Tshisekedi, led a meeting in Brussels that on Friday also called for the international community to support the opposition’s call for free and fair elections.

Main opposition candidate Moise Katumbi had representatives at the meeting. Two other major parties were not present.

The opposition fears elections will be postponed to keep President Joseph Kabila in power beyond his mandate.

National Assembly President Aubin Minaku denounced the calls Friday, saying the government is respecting the constitution.

The electoral commission’s president has said electoral registration revisions could take more than a year.

{The jailed former presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, has written to the Chief Justice Bart Katureebe, seeking his intervention to deal with what the Opposition leader calls injustice in the courts and in particular, the Deputy Chief Justice Steven Kavuma, who heads the Constitutional Court.}

Now on remand for a month since May 11 on treason charges, Dr Besigye faces the prospect of being tried within the premises of Luzira prison if an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) succeeds in court on Wednesday.

The last time Dr Besigye was scheduled to appear before a magistrate at Nakawa court over the treason charges, the DPP, citing what he called security threats, applied that Dr Besigye should instead be tried in Luzira prison.

The Opposition leader was not produced in court that day and the magistrate set Wednesday, June 15, to rule on where Dr Besigye will appear for trial.

“It appears increasingly that I might be tried in secret and that the court will be facilitated to handle my matter in Luzira Prison,” reads Dr Besigye’s letter to Chief Justice Katureebe.

In his missive titled “complaint about mistreatment”, Dr Besigye singles out Mr Katureebe’s colleague, Deputy Chief Justice Kavuma, for issuing an ex parte order on April 29, which “included two very strange decisions.” The order arose from an application by the Attorney General (AG) and was issued in the presence of the Deputy AG Mwesigwa Rukutana.

The “very strange” decisions, Dr Besigye said, were to bar the magistrate at Kasangati court from ruling on whether his confinement at his residence in Kasangati by police was legal. He said Justice Kavuma’s order was also calculated to prevent the hearing of a civil suit Dr Besigye had filed in the High Court seeking removal of the police from his home to regain his freedom and enforce his other rights.

The police laid siege on Dr Besigye’s house shortly after the election, detaining him at his home for more than 40 days. The police claimed he would foment public disorder if he were allowed to get out of his home.

The petition he filed at the Magistrate’s Court in Kasangati was similar to the one he had filed in 2011 during the Walk-to-Work protests, as a result of which the court ordered the police to vacate his home.

“While I found it fit to attempt to secure my rights using the Constitution and the Courts of Judicature, Mr Kavuma and the Attorney General saw it best to deny me that avenue and effectively surrender me back to the whims of the Uganda Police Force,” Dr Besigye’s letter to the CJ reads in part.

“The effect of Mr Kavuma’s orders was to perpetuate my detention without trial,” Dr Besigye tells Chief Justice Katureebe.

Apart from the incidents Dr Besigye complains about, Mr Kavuma has also been criticised for some other decisions, including the order that removed Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago from office just hours after his reinstatement by the High Court.
Later, after Mr Lukwago won re-election to the office in February this year, the Lord Mayor had to rush to court to apply to “arrest judgment” as Justice Kavuma prepared to rule on an application to block him and other elected local government leaders in Kampala from being sworn in.

{{Let “good men” speak out}}

In the seven-page letter delivered to the Chief Justice’s office on June 1, Dr Besigye makes an impassioned plea to Mr Katureebe to take action and save him from injustice meted on him through the courts of law.

“My experiences may be viewed as personal to me,” Dr Besigye writes, “However, in my own analysis of the political landscape in Uganda, it is critical to keep in mind, while considering whether to attend to this letter or not, the words of Edmund Burke, who said that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Dr Besigye urges the Chief Justice “to recall the political events in Uganda’s history, including those that affected the office you currently occupy.”

Here, he was referring to the fate of the late Benedicto Kiwanuka, the former chief justice who, during Idi Amin’s rule in 1972, was picked from his office and killed. His remains have never been found to date.

Dr Besigye, who has on numerous occasions accused sections of Uganda’s elite class of failing to stand up in defence of human rights and civil liberties, borrowed a famous quotation from a reputed poet to make his point to Mr Katureebe.

“I am reminded in that context about the words of Martin Niemoller to whom a powerful poetic speech is attributed: ‘First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist; then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist; then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew; then they came for me – and there was no one to speak for me’.”

{{Long battle with Museveni}}

Formerly comrades in the Bush War enjoying a cordial doctor-patient relationship, the duels between Dr Besigye and President Museveni have dominated Uganda’s political space since late 2000, when Dr Besigye first declared that he would challenge his former commander-in-chief for the presidency. He has since challenged President Museveni in four consecutive elections since 2001, and he has on each of the four occasions blamed his defeat on rigging and other illegal acts.

In 2001 and 2006, the Opposition leader challenged the outcome of the elections in the Supreme Court, and on both occasions, the court ruled that the elections were flawed in a number of respects. On both occasions, however, the elections were upheld on majority verdict, with most of the judges arguing that the irregularities did not substantially affect the final outcomes.

Dr Besigye vowed not to return to the court over rigged elections after 2006, accusing the court of failing to annul an election even after acknowledging that it was not free or fair.

Indeed in the 2011 election, he did not petition court.

{{2011 elections}}

In his letter to the Chief Justice, Dr Besigye says the 2011 election saw “unprecedented use of money” and Mr Museveni won unfairly. He says he did not go to the courts, but instead opted for Walk-to-Work protests.

As the police held him at his home shortly after the February 18 election, Dr Besigye said he needed to be freed to compile evidence and decide whether to challenge the election or not, but he was kept under confinement until time elapsed.

He was later arrested in Kampala City centre on May 11, having beaten security surveillance to get there and a video of him being “sworn in” as president was later circulated on You Tube and social media.

Dr Besigye, in his letter to CJ Katureebe, narrates how he was incarcerated first at Nalufenya in Jinja, then flown to Moroto in Karamoja, where he was charged with treason after working hours. He would later be transferred to Luzira prison and then produced at Nakawa Magistrate’s Court, where he was charged afresh with treason without representation of a lawyer because the court changed the scheduled time for his appearance from 9am to 8am. He lists several alleged manipulations of the court processes by the State in order to deny him justice and perpetuate violation of his rights and freedoms with impunity.