Unreported cases of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) are on the rise in Uganda, a trend that Minister for General Duties in the Office of the Prime Minister Mary Karooro-Okurut says the country needs to halt. Making reference to statistics from The 2011 Uganda Police Force Report she said, …
Read More »Why did Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh concede defeat?
Banjul, Gambia | AFP | Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh has ruthlessly pursued opponents real and imaginary, and implied more than once that he would kill anyone who defied him. His magnanimous concession speech and promise of a swift handover to president-elect Adama Barrow after 22 years in power has therefore …
Read More »ICC prosecutor’s full statement at start of Ongwen trial
Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, at the opening of Trial in the case against Dominic Ongwen. Honourable Judges, This trial is about violence and misery that blighted the lives of millions of people living in Northern Uganda. Ordinary civilians, who simply wanted to be …
Read More »ANALYSIS: ‘You destroyed economy’
Experts tell Museveni, Mutebile, Muhakanizi President Yoweri Museveni’s unchecked spending and the Ministry of Finance and Bank of Uganda efforts to clean have created a lope-sided economy that is hurting everyone. That is the view of several economists interviewed by The Independent. Dr. Lawrence Bategeka, formerly a researcher at the …
Read More »ANALYSIS: King Wesley Mumbere
Victim or villain as 100 are killed in Kasese massacre? On Nov. 14, two police officers on guard at Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese district were attacked and killed by unknown assailants who grabbed their two guns and disappeared. This was just two days after Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga …
Read More »What is at stake in ICC trial of LRA’s Ongwen?
Trial to open of former child soldier turned LRA warlord The Hague, Netherlands | AFP | Dominic Ongwen, the former child soldier who became a Lord’s Resistance Army warlord, will go before war crimes judges on Tuesday in a trial which presents the International Criminal Court with its “most difficult …
Read More »Gambia’s new leaders push for political prisoners’ release
Banjul, Gambia | AFP | The Gambia’s President-elect Adama Barrow held talks with his team Saturday to plot his transition to power, with the release of political prisoners emerging as a top priority for the new administration. Barrow’s shock election victory ended the iron-fisted 22-year rule of Yahya Jammeh on …
Read More »Kasese comes to terms with assault on Rwenzururu palace
Kasese, Uganda | AFP | Outside the mortuary in Kasese, grief-stricken families wait to find out if their missing relatives were among scores killed by Ugandan security forces at the weekend. Huddling in groups, some pull clothes over their mouths and noses to mask the sickening stench of the …
Read More »Police foils Besigye plans to fundraise for Makerere University
Police officers in Kampala spent the better part of Friday morning and afternoon, arresting prominent opposition members who were planning to hold a fundraising campaign to raise money for the re-opening of Makerere University. The planned activities were scheduled to take place at the university’s freedom square. Former presidential candidate …
Read More »Angola’s President Dos Santos to stand down in 2017
Luanda, Angola | AFP | Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled for 37 years, will stand down before next year’s general election, state radio said Friday citing sources in the ruling MPLA party. The autocratic Dos Santos, 74, became president in 1979, making him Africa’s second-longest serving …
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