Why Museveni hates NGOs

Throughout his campaign, Museveni has been telling his supporters that unidentified foreign governments and agents are funding opposition groups in the country to destabilize Uganda.

Museveni told his supporters in the eastern city of Soroti recently that Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, the National Unity Platform presidential candidate, one of his formidable challengers in the 2021 general election, has foreign backers and funders who want to destabilize the country.

Museveni has also mentioned foreign homosexual groups that he claims are funding youths in the country. He says they were at the centre of the recent riots that followed the arrest of Kyagulanyi on Nov.18.

Opiyo told The Independent that Museveni’s narrative is deliberate and serves two purposes. On one hand, Opiyo said, Museveni wants to ward off the international community from holding him accountable for the excesses of his government.

“So when he meets diplomats, the ambassadors are busy explaining themselves why and how they are not interfering in local affairs as opposed to holding him to international standards.”

“But he also delegitimizes the work of civil society in the face of Ugandan citizens by rallying local nationalism telling them that these are agents of foreign powers.”

“The allegations are intended to instill fear in the population; it is intended to make people think that these NGOs are really bad,” Opiyo said.

Dr. Frank Mugisha, the director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, an organisation that campaigns for LGBT rights in the country told The Independent on Dec.17 that when a leader like President Museveni consistently utters statements like those he has been making about homosexuals on his campaign trail, members of the LGBT community in the country get worried.

Mugisha told The Independent that it appears like President Museveni has decided to lump the entire LGBT community in Uganda into the opposition yet Mugisha is aware of so many members who support the NRM government.

Mugisha says he gets frustrated that each time government officials want to discredit the opposition they involve the LGBT community.

“They want to discredit the opposition to make them unpopular in the eyes of Ugandans but in so doing, you are harming an already marginalized community in the country,” Mugisha told The Independent.

“If other politicians see it working for the president, they will join the bashing. We are worried. Our fear is that any person who is perceived to be gay could fall into the hands of the police and other security agencies.”

“At the moment we are preaching caution to our members. We are telling them that they should be very careful about the things they talk about in public. They are Ugandans but their support for political parties should be an individual choice and not generalized,” he says, “We are also advising our members not to be involved in any kind of political dissent since they are already vulnerable.

“We are telling them to respect all the standard operating procedures (SOPs) instituted by the government to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. We are also monitoring the violations and reporting them to the authorities.

“To our international human rights partners, we are engaging and telling them that they should speak up against all human rights violations in the country and not wait to do so when LGBT issues arise.”

Civil society reacts

The civil society executives have been incensed ever since the terrorism allegations were publicized by the government.

In a joint press conference on Dec. 13, the NGOs called the development “a smear campaign engineered to undermine our credibility and deep commitment to improving the welfare of all Ugandans.”

“These allegations are not only grave, they are also faceless without basis,” they noted in a joint statement issued afterwards.

“This action does not only affect those organisations; it also affects many Ugandans who benefit from the work and services these and many others organisations do. We are fully conscious that these accusations are intended to delegitimize our mark, blackmail us and make us look bad in the eyes of the citizens we serve.”

“We are also mindful that this is not an isolated incident but a cascading of systematic and deliberate actions by the regime to clamp down on fundamental freedom and citizens organizing.  We want to state categorically that no amount of intimidation and false accusations can deter us from playing our civic responsibility as provided for in Article 38 (2) of the Constitution of Uganda.”

Peter Wandera, the executive director of the Uganda chapter of Transparency International told The Independent that much as everyone recognizes that the government has a role to regulate all sectors in the country; including the NGOs, all civil society is asking for is for the government to do it in the right manner.

“Financing terrorism is a serious allegation which needs to be handled expeditiously. Otherwise, the activities of the organisations are being affected. In any case, action should have been taken after thorough investigations and not the other way round,” Wandera says.

He said the timing is suspect considering that the targeted NGOs are the lead agencies in monitoring the forthcoming election.

Xavier Ejoyi, the executive director of ActionAid Uganda whose organisation was under similar scrutiny in 2017 told The Independent on Dec.17 that this is nothing but a “witch hunt and blackmail.”

“To say that an NGO that wants to observe elections or an NGO that is empowering women to take political positions is funding terrorism activities in the country is self-defeating for a government that has been working for years to promote women emancipation.”

ActionAid also had its bank accounts frozen in 2017 during an investigation into alleged money laundering.