Commanders should be more thoughtful

On Thursday night, the Police arrested the Secretary General of the National Unity Platform (NUP), Mr David Lewis Rubongoya, as he was leaving the premises of NBS Television. 

His crime was appearing on the current affairs talk show, Frontline, while wearing a red beret.

In September last year, shortly after Mr Kyagulanyi had launched the red beret as one of its symbols ahead of next year’s general election, government published in the national gazette a list of uniforms and other paraphernalia, including the red berets, that non-members of the disciplined forces were barred from wearing. 

The army declared that whoever would be found to in breach of the directives would be prosecuted under the provisions of Section 119 (1) of the UPDF Act 2005, which says that suspects will be subjected to military law and can be tried in military courts. The offence carries a maximum sentence of imprisonment for life.

We do not have qualms about seeing the Police arrest those who run afoul of the law. We, however, have serious reservations about the manner of arrest and the image of the forces and the country that recent arrests are painting out there.

One wonders whether the commanders ever sit back to consider the possible ramifications of their commands before they issue them. 

There were no less than four patrol cars, a towaway truck and at least 40 police officers involved in the Thursday night arrest, but was it necessary to deploy so many men, guns and cars to apprehend one man?

Last week, security forces applied incommensurate force during the raid on the NUP offices. There have been arguments that this is Africa – that one cannot expect us to practice democracy in the same way that Western democracies do, but raiding an opposition party’s offices is a very archaic political manoeuvre even for an African country.

We now have many young prisoners whose were picked up simply because they believed and hoped. When did believing and hoping become crimes? Images of young people, some of them below 18 being carted off to prison left Uganda’s international image in tatters.

Such ugly incidents serve to remind one of state inspired brutalities witnessed during the regimes of Idi Amin, Milton Obote and the Okellos. 

There are fears that the country is crawling its way back to the panda gari days, but it is not too late to stop the ignoble. It should start with the commander thinking long and hard before issuing orders.