In a televised address to the nation on July 4, Museveni praised a recent military-led security crackdown orchestrated by Gen. Muhoozi Kainerubaga, his son and Uganda’s military chief. Museveni said that security forces’ extrajudicial abductions and enforced disappearances were not a regression to the dark past of the Idi Amin era because those taken are consistently brought to court. He smeared opposition members as promoters of violence and lawbreakers, lambasted the Ugandan arm of East Africa’s leading Nation Media Group (NMG) for critical coverage of his regime, and backed his son’s move to “discipline” the news outlet, which has been sealed by soldiers since June 28.
In a sustained attack against Uganda’s constitution, Museveni presented the presumption of innocence as a foreign, colonial concept that should be abolished and defended courts’ practices of denying bail to jailed opponents. He blamed jailed veteran opposition leader Kizza Besigye — who has been held in prolonged pre-trial detention for more than a year and a half on politically-motivated treason charges — of delaying trial and said the burden is on Besigye to prove his innocence. In fact, Besigye’s lawyers have been contending with procedural delays by public prosecutors, as well as restrictions, harassment, and intimidation of his defense team.
Museveni’s speech came two days after NMG executives traveled to Gen. Muhoozi’s office at the Special Forces Command to negotiate the reopening of NMG Uganda. Andrew Mwenda, the spokesperson for Kainerubaga’s political movement, told the press that the general demanded sweeping editorial reforms of NMG Uganda as a condition to reopen the news outlet.
