– ‘Rampage’ –
Seven opposition candidates are vying to deny veteran leader Museveni a fourth decade in power at the February 18 election and there are fears violence could mar the vote, with all sides accusing each other of arming militias to press their claims.
Police spokesman Fred Enanga said Besigye had been “in total disregard of his authorised programme” on Monday, and that one person had died in clashes with protestors as they went on the “rampage, yelling, threatening, looting and damaging property,” and hurling bricks at police.
“The police have a duty to protect the safety of the public, together with the right to protect themselves, and had to act accordingly, given the intensity of the attacks they faced,” Enanga said.
Police said 19 people were wounded, including a policewoman, and 22 people arrested.
Elections in 2006 and 2011 were marred by violent, and occasionally deadly, street protests and the liberal use of tear gas by heavy-handed police. However, apart from Monday’s violence, campaigning has been relatively peaceful.
The US State Department on Monday stressed the need for a “peaceful, transparent and credible electoral process” and called on all sides to “refrain from provocative actions or rhetoric that raise tensions.”
Museveni, who seized power in 1986, is one of Africa’s longest serving leaders, after Equatorial Guinea’s President Theodore Obiang Nguema, Angola’s Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and Cameroon’s Paul Biya.
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