Fighting in Kabale ahead of key by-election

Kampala/Kabale

Forum for Democratic Change Women’s League chairperson Ingrid Turinawe has been hospitalised after she was allegedly beaten into coma by police in Kabale as campaigns for the Rukiga by-election heats up.

The by-election that will be held on Tuesday has been a powder cage waiting to explode with stakes raised a notch higher after the ruling National Resistance Movement lost another critical by-election in Mbale Municipality to the FDC over a month ago.

President Museveni and FDC leader Kizza Besigye are pitching camp in Rukiga this weekend with each trying to shove support for their respective party candidates. Mr Adson Kakuru, the former Kabale district chairman, is the NRM flag bearer while Mr Jack Sabiiti is running on the FDC ticket.

Fracas genesis
A third candidate, Amos Mugisha is running as an independent after he lost in the NRM primaries—that he says were rigged. The fourth candidate is Medard Gumisiriza, an independent.

The seat fell vacant following the death of NRM’s Samuel Byanagwa in January.
The Thursday fracas began after the police arrested a group of FDC youth on fears that they were plotting to disrupt the by-election. The Regional Police Commander, Ms Olive Wabwiire, told Saturday Monitor, “We suspected that they wanted to cause chaos and that’s why we detained them. Most of these youth are not from Kabale. They have just been ferried here.” But according to the Kabale Municipality Mayor, Mr Pius Ruhemurana, from whose home the youth were arrested, the “boys” had been brought in to sensitise the electorate ahead of the election day.

According to sources, Ms Turinawe then led a group of FDC supporters to Kabale police station to demand the release of the detained youth. The group had also brought the detainees food. However, the police denied them access to the held youth, forcing Ms Turinawe to make a phone call to the police’s deputy director of operations, Mr Grace Turyagumanawe. He reportedly ordered the Kabale police to let the FDC group see their colleagues—and when they got into the cells, they discovered one of the detainees was sick. “Turinawe left to go buy some medicine for the boy,” the source, who preferred anonymity, said. “But when returning, she met the District Police Commander, Mr Charles Sembambulidde, who began kicking her.”

The DPC also reportedly ordered the police to flush the FDC supporters out of the station. In the ensuing melee, Mr Sembambulidde was manhandled and rolled into a nearby flower garden.

Ms Turinawe, reportedly beaten by the police into a comma, was rushed to a private clinic in Kabale town. Meanwhile, the police, armed with teargas and batons, fought running battles with FDC supporters until late into Thursday night, when some calm was restored. “They surrounded me, they started beating me everywhere,” Ms Turinawe told Saturday Monitor yesterday before her voice broke off.

When Saturday Monitor tried to get Mr Sembambulidde’s side of the story yesterday, he said he was at President Museveni’s rally and could not comment. Yesterday morning, Mr Ruhemurana and Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu, who is vying for the FDC presidential flag bearer post, negotiated a release of the arrested youth without any charged preferred against them.

Earlier violence
Earlier, the official vehicle of Agriculture Minister Hope Mwesigye was pelted with stones and crushed in similar violence involving the rivaling political factions. The violence in Rukiga will raise concerns on the country’s preparedness for the 2011 elections and the role of security agencies in the exercise. Mr Sabiiti told Saturday Monitor that he had reported eight electoral offences to the district returning officer but no action has been taken. This newspaper could not independently verify these claims. By press time, the situation in Rukiga was still tense with rival groups accusing each other of ferrying supporters from different districts into Kabale to cause chaos.

Donor warning
Three of Uganda’s leading development partners have already warned that the 2011 elections run a risk of being discredited unless the Electoral Commission urgently cleans a cluttered national voters’ register and engages political parties without bias. UK High Commissioner Martin Shearman, US ambassador Jerry Lanier and his Dutch counterpart Joroen Verhaul, on March 3, wrote to Eng. Badru Kiggundu, the EC chairman, telling him the commission’s questionable credibility is eroding public confidence in the “democratic process.”