By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
KAMPALA
The opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) has tasked the government and security to investigate and present names of alleged perpetrators of human rights violations within the opposition.
This followed concerns by a one Moses Simbwa, a resident of Jinja city claiming that he was being used by the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) to mudsling security and taint the image of the government that he was tortured for supporting the opposition.
On Friday, 26 January 2024, during the celebration of the 38th NRM Liberation Day at Wakitaka CoU playground, Simbwa publicly confessed that the NUP and FDC paid him and promised him treatment before smuggling him to Nairobi, Kenya, where they paraded him in 2022 during the International Human Rights conference, as a victim of torture by Ugandan security forces.
He said the opposition took advantage of the scars he got after surviving a motor accident to allege that they were torture marks inflicted on him by security forces for supporting the opposition.
Simbwa apologised to Ugandans for involving himself in the opposition’s mudslinging campaign and affirmed that he has never been tortured by any Ugandan security personnel.
“I have been used by the opposition for chaotic scenes to stain the image of your government. I have come to apologise to you and Uganda at large,” Ssimbwa said.
Simbwa who said the opposition is on an evil scheme of staining the image of the government, asked for security to guard him and pledged to reveal more evils committed by the opposition when he meets President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
While addressing journalists at their party headquarters, Najjanankumbi on Monday, 29 January, 2024, John Kikonyogo the FDC spokesperson the government is giving a vote of no confidence to its own security for failing to investigate, arrest and charge in courts of law any opposition politician allegedly involved in human rights violations
“It is ridiculous to claim that the opposition is using drones to abduct and torture its supporters to taint the image of the government,” Kikonyogo said
Pointing out the March 2023, incident in which the UPDF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Felix Kulaigyye paraded to the media, Eric Mwesigwa who also claimed torture by the NUP, Kikonyogo said the opposition is not immune to the law and challenged security to thoroughly investigate this matter and have perpetrators apprehended and brought to book. He was however, quick to say that the people being paraded as victims of torture by the opposition is not a weakness of the security but selfish individuals seeking for political praise and positions from the president.
“They are giving a vote of no confidence in their own security that they cannot even arrest someone who is torturing Ugandans. And, what is so surprising they abduct and then and even take them to prison and safe houses. Those “opposition” people. It’s ridiculous,” Kikonyogo wondered.
FDC urged that the government and other stakeholders should go beyond this joke and preserve human rights of Ugandans because such acts of parading fake victims of torture does not only taint the image of NRM but also that of the country.
Reports of gross human rights violations such as abductions and torture started increasing in Uganda between January 2020 and January 2022, influenced by the enforcement of the standard operating procedures by law enforcement agencies to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 and during the 2021 elections and in the election aftermath.
Some victims of these abductions are still languishing in prisons as political prisoners while hundreds of thousand victims their whereabouts remain unknown. The opposition political parties have hitherto demanded that government frees all political prisoners and stop charging civilians on framed political charges in the General Court Martial.
