Uganda’s police are investigating two top opposition leaders, including a former UN special envoy, over criticisms of President Yoweri Museveni, officials said Monday.
Olara Otunnu, a former UN special envoy for child soldiers who heads the Uganda People’s Congress, has been summoned to explain his claims that Museveni deliberately prolonged a two-decade war against Ugandan rebels for his own benefit.
Uganda’s police are investigating two top opposition leaders, including a former UN special envoy, over criticisms of President Yoweri Museveni, officials said Monday.
Olara Otunnu, a former UN special envoy for child soldiers who heads the Uganda People’s Congress, has been summoned to explain his claims that Museveni deliberately prolonged a two-decade war against Ugandan rebels for his own benefit.
“Police have served him with a summons, but so far he has not honoured it. He sent his lawyer to explain to police to give him a written statement listing those crimes that he committed,” Otunnu?s aide Robert Kanyuru told AFP Monday.
“He hasn?t received the letter, so he is waiting for that.”
Otunnu told reporters last week that the war aginst the Lord?s Resistance Army (LRA) was a “war of convenience.”
“It was sustained by someone with a big interest in the war continuing and that person with an interest in the war continuing was Mr Museveni.”
He said that by deliberately prolonging the war, Museveni, a former guerilla leader who seized power in Uganda in 1986, maintained an excuse to delay democratic reforms.
Otunnu also claimed Museveni?s private secretary provided the rebels with satellite equipment and cash, and that the president sabotaged several peace processes to ensure the war continued.
Kizza Besigye, the head of Uganda?s largest opposition party, is also being investigated for claiming the government secretly leased Lake Kyoga in central Uganda to a South African company.
Uganda?s general elections are scheduled for February 2011, and Museveni is again expected to seek re-election after presidential term limits were scrapped in 2005.
Otunnu and Besigye are currently campaigning independently but they are expected to formally join forces in September.