By Spy Uganda
Several supporters of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party were arrested on Monday afternoon after police violently dispersed a party conference that had been organised outside Namboole stadium by Ibrahim Semujju Nganda, the FDC spokesperson and Member of Parliament for Kira municipality.
Trouble started after police blocked a planned FDC party conference at Mandela National Stadium. Heavily armed police and military officers condoned off the stadium and turned away whoever approached the facility, something that angered the FDC supporters.
After being chased away from Namboole, the angry FDC party members decided to match in a procession from Mandela national stadium to their party headquarters in Najanankumbi.
However, police moved in and tried to stop the FDC party members from proceeding with their procession on the busy Kampala-Jinja highway in vain.
The FDC party leaders some of them on foot and vehicles soldiered on attracting crowds, which prompted police to use tear gas and live bullets to stop them. This led to running battles between police and the FDC party members whose numbers kept growing. The police started firing teargas and rubber bullets in the air, something that charged the FDC supporters, which sparked off a scuffle between both sides.
Following the scuffle that lasted for hours in Kireka, in Kira Municipality, several FDC supporters were clobbered and others arrested. To ease the situation, police tried to arrest the leaders of the procession including Kira Municipality Member of Parliament; Ssemujju Nganda, but he disappeared in thin air.
Dr. Kizza Besigye, the former FDC party president continued waving to the crowd from his vehicle until police blocked it and with the help of over six police patrol vehicles they tried to tow the vehicle, until they called for a breakdown truck.
However, some of the chains used to tow Besigye’s vehicle broke, sparking off cheers from as Besigye waved at them from the open roof of his vehicle. However, later the police forced Besigye out of the vehicle, arrested and bundled him into a police van, which sped off to unknown location.
Police also arrested several other FDC party members and youths that had joined the procession and many of them weer whisked away to unknown detention centres. Phionah Abaiza, a supporter of FDC, blamed police for breaking up their conference, saying police was fully notified.
However, the police are yet to issue a statement about this impasse and reveal where Dr Besigye is being detained, plus the charges preferred against him, if any.
But through their twitter handle Kampala Metropolitan Police, they stated thus;
” Today we had an operation in the areas of Namboole, Kireka & Bweyogerere,where FDC Party had an anniversary event at Namboole Stadium. FDC informed us about the intended celebration & we wrote back to them advising that they should shift the venue but they ignored our directives.”
