What will happen when young people stop worrying about the law or prison?

Like many people in this country, many are the moments I have been angry at and frustrated by the government. I also happen to have a few used car tyres lying around the house. 

However, unlike some of the angry and frustrated young people in this country, I have never taken these tyres, set them up in the middle of the road and set them on fire. There are primarily two reasons for this.

The first is that, while I consider myself quite handy, I have never figured out how to set a used car tyre on fire, or even tried. I suspect there are more interesting things to light up that are ever blazing, ever blazing!

More importantly, we, together with our neighbours, paid for the tarmacking of the road outside our house. Not through taxes – that cash goes without saying – but through private contributions out of whatever is left after. Burning tyres in the road and thus ruining it would only add insult to financial injury. I invested in building the road, not destroying it. In trying to explain the widespread arrests, kidnaps and disappearances of hundreds of young Ugandan men and women over the past year, a narrative has emerged that these were terrorists attempting to overthrow the State or, at least make it ungovernable.

And that as a result, it was necessary, in fact inevitable, that their actions would be met, not by law enforcement mechanisms, but by military force. With this logic, it is assumed that their arrest and detention by the military special forces was necessary as has their continued detention without trial for many months, and the prosecution of some in military, rather than in civilian courts.

This argument is fatally flawed. 
First, the facts are inconsistent. Denials about knowledge of their whereabouts were followed by an admission, then a list from Internal Affairs with some names, then another from State House with some, but not all these names, as well as fresh names. An unknown number remains unlisted and unaccounted for. Picking people up causes fear, but it is terrifying when you can’t account for them all. 

The second flaw is the substance, or lack of it, in the allegations made against these detainees. There are widespread claims of foreign plots to overthrow the government, but nothing by way of evidence. What we have seen, from the few leaked charge sheets, are allegations that many of the detainees were in possession of military stores, specifically red berets.

Are we supposed to believe that there is a foreign power out there planning to overthrow the government by smuggling into the country consignments of red berets then dressing up an army of ghetto youth to sign and dance its way to power? Surely not!  

If there are genuine plots and plotters against the State, this evidence should be presented in open civilian courts so that free, fair and transparent trials can be held, with suspects presumed innocent until proven guilty and allowed access to legal counsel. If these words sound strangely familiar, it is because they. Are. In. Our. Constitution!

Without such evidence, we can only surmise that this is yet more criminalisation of political competition, an attack on civil liberties, including the freedoms of association, expression and political assembly, as well as a violation of the rights to fair trial. It is also an abrogation of rules forbidding torture, cruel and inhumane treatment, and the loss of plain old values. Like telling the truth.

Thirdly, while there are criminal elements within the Opposition (think that idiot that attacked a policewoman with a hammer) and within government (space issues, folks, space issues), many of the children speaking out and protesting are just angry and frustrated by a society on whose margins they struggle to survive. Some of them burn used car tyres and spoil the roads because they have no skin in the game.

The solution must be political, in building a society that is just, inclusive and accountable, and economic, in giving them services and opportunities.

Using brute force and violence to answer political questions of justice and equity can provide short-term gains, but few long-term solutions.

Abusing the law and due process merely breeds resentment and extremism. What shall we do when we wake up and these young people no longer worry about the law because we can’t arrest them all?

Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and  poor man’s freedom fighter. 
[email protected]; @Kalinaki