UGANDA: Why the Museveni police made distressing murder scenes public

WHY THE MUSEVENI POLICE MADE DISTRESSING MURDER SCENES PUBLIC

CHANGE OF GUARDS - Like in any other civilized country, in Uganda posting and sharing online or publication of gruesome violent images is prohibited.  However, last week's incident involving a gruesome murder of a Boda Boda rider that was captured on CCTV cameras was later made public by the Museveni Police.  The footages were captured by the same police and even if they wanted the public to help in identifying the culprits, they ought to have edited the footage and images to remove the gruesomely distressing part.  Instead they posted the entire episode that has consequently left many viewers mentally and psychologically distressed.

The Museveni regime which pursues a policy of keeping citizens fearful, distressed and traumatized has always used its security goons to not only violently suppress Ugandans but to ensure that such violence acts as a permanent reminder to citizens of its resolve to apply violence of whatever proportion in order to retain power.  Most disturbing is that has become normal for children of this generation to watch live scenes of state inspired violence.

On 22 May 2016, the offices of Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum were broken into by assailants who murdered Emmanuel Alituha, a security guard from G4S that was on duty.  The CCTV footage showed the two men killing Alituha in cold blood before checking through all the files and taking away a couple of documents.  The police did not make public the part of the footages that showed murder but still even the other much clearer facial images (see pic) of the goons moving around did not yield anything because most likely there had been hired from outside Uganda.

However, the motive for the latest police public display of violent scenes was motivated not only by the usual criminal but sinister motives.  Its very clear that the public display has acted as a curtain riser for the grand militarisation of the police.  Amidst public distress, it has afforded Museveni the opportunity to further deploy his army officers to take over key units of the police. 

For quite sometime, the regime has been grappling with unresolved violent armed robberies and gruesome murders.  Initially these violent crimes gave way to the procurement of the multi billion CCTV cameras scheme.  The situation hasn't improved either simply because these organised crimes are in one way or the other perpetuated by the same security goons supposed to fight the vice.  The regime also benefits from the same perpetual violence.

Museveni has now appointed four more senior army officers to head some of the police's strategic units.  Brig. Jack Bakasumba is the newly created position of Police Staff.  Whatever that position entails, Bakasumba adds no value to the police.  With a minimal formal education, he started his military career with past armies and started his service with the NRA as a Sargent and an instructor in Field Craft at Kabamba Training School for some good years.  Its from training of recruits that he became the first Mwamba to become a senior army officer.  He had a short stint with Museveni's Special Forces before he went to head the Peace Support Operations Training Centre (PSOTC) at Singo.  His tenure at has been marred by accusations of abuse of office over bribery and extortion from those seeking to serve under the luxurious Peace Keeping Missions in foreign countries.  With no iota of security and law enforcement background, his appointment adds no value to the police.

The appointment of Col. Chris Sserunjogi Ddamulira from CMI's Counterintelligence to head the Police's Crime Intelligence unit will further aggravate the already ugly situation pertaining to arbitrary arrests, torture, summary executions and detention without trial.  Every crime will now be treated as terrorism and every Ugandan will be treated as a potential terrorist.  His focus will be on suppression of opposition political activism through framing with treasonous allegations.

However, CMI has two Ddamuliras; one of them is Col. Ddamulira whose other names are Sseruyange Chris who is a son of the former DP stalwart in Luweero, the Late Sseruyange.  He is reputed for torturing citizens.  The other Col. Sserunjogi Ddamulira joined the Army around 1996 under the defunct DMI and trained at Kaweweta.  During the tenure of Gen. Tumukunde as CMI in the early 2000, he displaced Ddamulira on the ground that he was married to an ethnic Munyarwanda.  That was during the height of Phase One of tension between Kigali and Kampala.  He had been displaced from CMI only to be brought back in March 2017 from distributing seeds under OWC.  Somehow, he managed to reassert his position within CMI and rose through the ranks to become a Colonel and Head of Counterintelligence.  

On the other hand, his removal from CMI to Police comes amidst recent reports of another Muganda senior army officer with CMI, Col. Muwonge accused of spying for Rwanda.  The matter was simply swept under the carpet to avoid embarrassment. The core mandate of Counterintelligence is to counter enemy infiltration and if the Col. Muwonge story is true, then CMI's Counterintelligence unit faulted and hence the displacement of its head to the police.  No wonder he is being replaced by Col. Mbeine!!

For the other two senior army officers posted to the police's Human Resource unit, the appointment is meant to enhance the training, appointment and promotion of police personnel based on nepotism and cadreship.  Therefore, Museveni's secondment to the Police of the four senior army officers and many more that are to follow suit adds no value to the deteriorating situation pertaining law enforcement.  If anything, the said army officers will simply act Aide-De-Camp (ADC) to the defacto Police Chief, Gen. Sabiiti Muzeyi.  All this gambling and manoeuvring with militarisation of civilian institutions is aimed at enhancing the Muhoozi Project.  Otherwise, Ugandans are being duped once again.

INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM