Human rights committee fails to meet Museveni over election violence

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT |  The Human Rights Committee of parliament will not interface with President Museveni as it finalizes its probe on rights violations during elections.

The probe stems from  the Speaker’s directive that  the committee should take stock of the human rights violations that marred the electoral process.  

The probe team led by Vice-chairperson of the Committee Agnes Taaka Wejulu interacted with former Presidential candidates including, Democratic Party’s Norbert Mao , Alliance for National Transformation (ANT)’s Mugisha Muntu, and Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) Presidential candidate Patrick Amuriat Oboi. Others they met are Independent candidate Willy Mayambala, Joseph Kabuleta, Nancy Kalembe, John Katuma and Fred Mwesigye.

They also interfaced with victims of violence and security for the past month. The probe sought to interact with all Presidential candidates, but of the 11, only 8 turned up, while Independent candidate Gen Henry Tumukunde, National Unity Platfom (NUP)’s Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu and now President Museveni for the NRM will not be interacted with. 

Kyagulanyi had travelled on a trip abroad by the time he was scheduled to appear and was represented by NUP par leadership, while Gen Tumukunde said he had not been contacted. The committee had hoped to meet President Museveni.

Now according to the Vice-chairperson of the Committee, Agnes Taala Wejuli, they wrote to the President before the probe started but they have not got a communication to date.

“We have finalized with our report, but we will not interact with the President, as a candidate who also participated in the race”, she said.

Because he is the head of the state, the committee was planning on Interacting with President Museveni at State House unlike the usual meetings in the Parliament committee rooms.   

Wejuli however told Uganda Radio Network that since they interacted with the secretariat, it is still okay and their issues will still be reported on the probe.    But some members of Parliament who sit on the committee had reservations about finalising the report without meeting the President to ask him the same questions.   

Silvia Akello, the Otuke Woman MP and member of the the committee says that although they had questions for the President in his capacity as a former candidate, this will no longer happen as they cannot meet him.

“We have scored between 70 to 80% of our interactions, and this is fair enough as  you cannot score 100, but our hope was to interact with the President and ask the questions like we did with others”, she said. 

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