Ugandan capital calm after riots
2009-09-12 18:30
Kampala - Calm returned to the centre of Uganda's capital on Saturday after two days of riots that killed 14 people, including a policeman, and injured nearly 100.
The violence that erupted on Thursday was triggered by land and power disputes between the government and leaders of Buganda - one of the east African country's four ancient kingdoms.
On Saturday shops remained closed in the centre of Kampala and residents walked cautiously past police with their hands in the air to try and avoid beatings, sometimes unsuccessfully.
Some youths tried to erect barricades in the outlying Kuburi and Kalelwe districts but security forces fired in the air and used tear gas to disperse them. A torrential downpour in the afternoon cleared the streets.
"We carried out our investigation and found that 14 people, including one policeman who was coming from leave and was ambushed by these hoodlums, have been killed since the beginning of the riots," said police chief Major General Kale Kayihura.
The police said in a statement 82 people and 13 police officers had sustained varying degrees of injuries during the unrest and that 550 suspects had been arrested.
On Thursday, the security forces stopped a senior official from Buganda from going to the town of Kayunga to prepare for a visit by the king on Saturday, sparking the clashes in the capital.
The king, or Kabaka, called off his trip to the town east of Kampala late on Friday night to avoid an esclation of violence.
"We think we have neutralised all the groups which have been causing disturbances for the last two days. The city and suburbs are calm now," police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba told Reuters.
Media crackdown
East Africa's third biggest economy has been hailed for its political and economic stability over the last two decades following years of civil war during the 1970s and 80s.
Museveni has been widely admired for his fiscal reforms and poverty alleviation programmes. But critics, including some Western donors, accuse him of rights abuses and repression.
A fight with Buganda only adds to the pressure on him after the opposition said major reforms were essential if the next election in 2011 was to be free and fair.
Uganda's former leader Milton Obote abolished the historical kingdoms in 1966. In the early 1990s, Museveni restored the traditional leaders, who are widely revered by their subjects, but he has since been accused of trying to undermine them.
Political commentator Gawaya Tegulle said the turmoil showed the leaders on both sides had learned nothing from their nation's blood-soaked past.
"The (Kayunga) visit grew more significant after the central government began chopping off chunks of Buganda and having them install their own traditional leaders, projects the president's inside men admit were systematically organised and nicely funded in order to weaken (Buganda leaders') influence," he wrote in the independent Daily Monitor newspaper.
"With two huge institutional egos up against each other, bloodshed was inevitable," he said.
The government has been cracking down on media outlets since the riots erupted in Kampala on Thursday. Four local stations were taken off the airwaves after Uganda's police chief said the violence had been inflamed by "sectarian" radio broadcasts.
CBS Radio, which is owned by the Buganda kingdom, was shut on Thursday, and on Friday the authorities closed three more stations they accused of inciting the violence: Suubi FM, Radio Sapientia and Radio Two Akabooza.
The Ugandan Broacasting Council said on Saturday it had instructed WBS TV to suspend host Peter Kibazo and Simba FM radio to suspend the hosts of its morning chat show. It also said Kalundi Serumaga, a prominent TV and radio talk show host, was under police investigation for inciting violence.
"The government is employing sweeping measures and making broad assertions to crack down on critical media," said Tom Rhodes, Africa programme coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
"They're not fooling anyone."
(Additional reporting by Frank Nyakaira and Dan Wallis in Nairobi; Editing by David Clarke)