2 dead in Kampala riots

KAMPALA, Uganda — Soldiers and police used live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas to put down angry riots that exploded across Kampala on Friday morning the day after opposition leader Kizza Besigye was brutally arrested by plain-clothes security officers.

At least two people were killed and more than 120 injured in the rioting that began in a downtown market before spreading to the capital’s central business district, suburbs and slums.

A series of protest marches this month, led by Besigye, against the spiralling cost of fuel and food have been quickly shut down by President Yoweri Museveni’s government but the violent nature of the opposition leader’s most recent arrest sparked fresh anger on Friday.

Pictures of Besigye being dragged from his car drenched in tear gas were splashed across the front pages of Ugandan newspapers and the footage was aired on television and the internet.

“We are angry and we are hungry,” said Tony Mayanja, a trader who sells second hand shoes in the city’s main taxi park where piles of tires and scrapwood smoldered and police patrolled the streets on foot.

“They treated him like an animal. We need a change of leadership,” said Mayanja.

Gunfire crackled through downtown Kampala and thick plumes of black smoke rose from the roadblocks hastily erected by groups of angry young men. Tear gas hung in the air in a number of city neighborhoods as police fought running battles with groups of protesters.

Military police and soldiers also took to the fast-emptying streets patrolling in armored personnel carriers with machine guns mounted on turrets and pointing assault rifles out of Humvees.

Local press reported that Museveni’s son, Kainerugaba Muhoozi, was commanding the elite Presidential Guard Brigade which helped to suppress the riots.

Police arrested 360 people and “restored law and order” to the city, said internal affairs minister Kirunda Kivejinja on Friday afternoon. He insisted that security forces had not behaved in a heavy-handed manner.

Witnesses told GlobalPost they had seen one man shot dead in a market and a Red Cross official confirmed that at least one more person had also died. Perhaps a dozen of the injured people taken to Mulago hospital had been hit by bullets.

Of the 120 injured at least 15 suffered bullet wounds and the numbers of wounded are expected to rise, according to a Red Cross official.

The United States repeated a call for security forces not to use “excessive force” against protestors.

A crowd gathered at the hospital watching as ambulances arrived with more casualties every few minutes. Police guarding the morgue refused to allow workers there to say how many bodies had been brought in.

Friday’s protests in Kampala are the largest to hit a sub-Saharan African country since North Africa experienced a series of government-toppling revolutions earlier this year. Museveni, a former rebel leader in charge since 1986, is cracking down hard on dissent in a bid to stamp out any revolutionary spirit in his country.

The underlying cause of the current unrest — the increasing cost of living and dissatisfaction with the long-standing government — seems only set to worsen with inflation rising from 11percent to 14 percent in April, according to the Uganda’s official statistics bureau, and Museveni preparing for another five years in power after winning elections in February.