The current president of Uganda, Yoweki Museveni, has held power since 1986. In 2016, he claimed to have won his fifth presidential election. This election was observed by international sources and to not have met international democratic standards. After his win, Museveni began to campaign to change Uganda's constitution, which stated that presidential candidates needed to be under 75 years old. Oppositional protests occurred due to Museveni's antidemocratic attempt to maintain power and resulted in Museveni deploying plaincloth special forces troops to Parliament. Many members of Parliament were injured, some requiring emergency medical aid abroad. Museveni's proposed alteration passed in 2017. This has allowed Museveni to run for president in the 2021 election at the age of 76. Bobi Wine, an avid critic of Museveni and a member of Parliament has been detained and targeted many times. In November of 2020, his detainment resulted in another violent protest. 54 people were killed by security forces during this demonstration.
Recently, Bobi Wine and his team submitted an official complaint to the International Criminal Court about the illegal detainment and abuse he and his colleagues have faced due to Museveni's regime in addition to the violence against their supporters and unarmed citizens. It can be argued that the international community and Western powers have contributed to the ongoing issues seen in Uganda. Museveni has been a military ally of many Western governments. Due to these relationships, these countries ignore the obvious obstruction of human rights and democracy. Museveni was an ally to the U.S. during the 1990s, and his regime gave weapons to Sudanese rebels on behalf of the Clinton administration. More recently, Ugandan forces have been fighting in Somalia under the African Union Mission, supported by the U.S. and many European countries. Additionally, Ugandan forces act as guards in Iraq under the command of the U.S. The Museveni regime continues to receive monetary foreign aid from the U.S., the World Bank, and other Western countries. A significant portion of this money is spent on the military budget and security forces, which aid in the violent attacks on politicians and Ugandan citizens. This past summer, the World Bank gave Uganda $300 million to aid in handling COVID-19; however, this money was used for the military budget.
The 2021 presidential election occurred on January 14, and Museveni won a sixth term in office, although election fraud has been widely suspected. While the Ugandan government has claimed to be a democracy since the country's independence from Britain in 1962, Uganda has been, and is continuing, under authoritarian rule. The U.S. has turned a blind eye to the violence in Uganda for years, but small steps toward accountability have been seen during this recent election. New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, spoke out prior to the election, condemning the arrest of Bobi Wine and calling for a fair election and a reassessment of U.S. support if the election were to be fraudulent. Additionally, in January, Facebook and Twitter took down a Ugandan network relating to the Ugandan ministry for information due to fake accounts created to target public discourse before the election.
References
Wine, Bobi (2021). The West Helped Cripple Uganda's Democracy- Now it Must Stand With Those Struggling Against Tyranny. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 11 February, 2021. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2021-01-13/west-helped-cripple-ugandas-democracy?utm_medium=email_notifications&utm_source=reg+confirmation&utm_campaign=reg_guestpass
Madung, Odanga (2021). Uganda's election is a key moment for the splinternet in Africa. Quartz Africa. Retrieved 11, February, 2021. http://qz.com/africa/1970547/ugandas-election-is-a-key-moment-for-africas-internet-fragmentation/
First Image by John Muchucha. Retrieved from http://www.worldpolitcsreview.com/articles/29376/after-uganda-elections-will-the-u-s-still-back-museveni-s-brutal-regime
Second Image by Abubaker Lubowa. Retrieved from http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2021-01-13/west-helped-cripple-ugandas-democracy?utm_medium=email_notifications&utm_source=reg+confirmation&utm_campaign=reg_guestpass
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