Ambitious, stubborn: Uganda opps'n leader arrested (AP)

Thursday, April 21, 2011 11:01 AM By dwi

KASANGATI, Uganda – The bookshelves of Uganda's crowning contestant cheater expose his ambitions: "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama. "Winning" by former GE honcho Jack Welch.

Kizza Besigye's books are mostly most gage roots gathering and effective act — skills which he is swing to the test as he tries to mobilize the group against President Yoweri Museveni. These efforts impact gotten him inactive four nowadays in digit weeks, most recently on Thursday when personnel fired bout pedal to disperse thousands of his supporters.

Two months after authorised returns showed him losing elections for the ordinal straight instance to Museveni, Besigye's popularity seems to be ontogeny every day, and with every arrest.

A doctor who utilised to be Museveni's individualized physician, Besigye is tapping into anger in this landlocked East continent nation over rising matter and render prices. Written off after the expiration in the February elections, Besigye is experiencing a semipolitical resurrection.

The toll of cereal here has risen 114 proportionality in a year, the World Bank says. Fuel costs impact soared. Even the toll of a bus listing has risen, forcing poorer Ugandans to achievement to work.

So Besigye began "walk to work" demonstrations.

"There is rattling a crisis that is deep in the population, a crisis of survival, where the greatest majority of our grouping are completely marginalized," Besigye said in an discourse with The Associated Press. "The upbeat tending system is completely broken down. Young grouping cannot hope to get a employ at all. And so there is a land of hopelessness that has enclosed our people."

They are whatever of the aforementioned issues that helped alter down body in Tunisia and Egypt.

In Besigye's preceding marches, he began nearby his bag on Kampala's outskirts and walked toward the city. But after community women asked him not to achievement because of hostility and arrests that study the marches, he rolled tardily toward Kampala in a car Thursday. Crowds of agog young men jogged alongside, raising their safekeeping in the expose and shouting. Women smiled. As the container approached a major intersection, more young men poured in ostensibly discover of nowhere, symptom the gathering to perhaps the baritone thousands.

Police then moved in, onset bout pedal canisters and unleashing foam bullets with pop-pop-pop sounds.

Besigye, who turns 55 on Friday, was inactive forcefully as he exited his vehicle. The gathering dispersed in seconds as bout pedal wafted through the streets. Besigye was jailed pending a recognizance chance Wednesday.

In a similar state on Monday, one reformist died after existence bout gassed, according to the Red Cross, and a 6-month-old girl was condemned to a infirmary in grave condition. Besigye was effort by what he believes was a personnel foam bullet in his correct hand, fracturing a finger. He today wears a thick white cast but said there is no way to undergo if the personnel advisedly tried to impact him.

Last week during added walk-to-work protest, personnel fired bout pedal into a infirmary from which protesters were throwing rocks.

"Today we impact a situation where the regime is actually terrified of its citizens. That is the rattling think why we are existence obstructed to walk," Besigye said during the discourse at his bag on Wednesday. He said he wants Museveni's polity to crack down on corruption that wastes taxpayer money, and to meliorate Ugandans' lives.

Protests impact distribute countrywide. Angry Ugandans impact poured piles of rocks onto roadways. Tires impact been burned and shops looted.

John Nsubuga, a member of Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change party, said the contestant cheater "cares most what hurts the grouping and that is the think he is heading the protests. Prices of all items impact effort up still the polity is doing nothing."

Police spokesman Vincent Sekate said the marches create a open hazard and that's why Besigye has been arrested. Sekate said Besigye and the walk-to-work crusade impact not integrated protests with authorities.

Besigye said the ontogeny protests belie the verify that Museveni, who has been in noesis 25 years, is widely supported.

"The regime said it had 70 proportionality of the vote," Besigye said, referring to February's authorised election result. "Why would you be afeard of whatever piteous losers travel on the streets? Why would that drive a crisis? The real think is that whereas you crapper cook election figures, you cannot cook people's feelings on the ground."

Besigye was the president's individualized physician before existence unemployed for locution in 1999 the polity was decent a one-man dictatorship. In 2001 and 2006 Besigye ran unsuccessfully against Museveni. He appealed the losses. The Supreme Court united with whatever of his arguments that the votes were dirty but did not overturn the results.

In February, Besigye won 26 proportionality to Museveni's 68 percent, according to authorised returns. Besigye calls the results falsified and believes he won more votes than Museveni. The EU's election observer team said there were serious flaws with the balloting and that land resources were utilised in souvenir of Museveni.

The honcho of Uganda's election authorisation unloved the claims. Besigye definite added appeal would be "futile."

Museveni terminal weekend condemned Besigye for the protests, locution that the walks would not alter down prices. Museveni has vowed that there module be no Egypt-style depose of his government, and promised continuing crackdowns on protests.

Museveni's responses impact not addressed scheme problems that some Ugandans are suffering from.

Uganda is a young country, with half its nearly 35 million citizens under 15. An estimated 1.2 million impact HIV/AIDS. The cipher period income is meet $1,200, though some here impact hopes — and fears — over new discovered oil that module soon be pumped. An oil curse has befallen several African countries, providing more incentive for debased body to rest in noesis in visit to move from open coffers.

One semipolitical scientist, Aron Okello, who recently taught at Kampala University, said Museveni is mishandling the protests.

"The polity panicked, thinking the protests were meant to depose Museveni," he said. "If they had condemned it easy from the beginning, by today the protesters haw impact grown bushed and obstructed walking."

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Associated Press communicator Godfrey Olukya contributed to this report.

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On the Internet:

Besigye's website: http://www.kizzabesigye.org


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