By John Stephen Katende

30^th May 2011:

Is this the face of an 'enduring dictator'?

President Yoweri Museveni, who has just embarked on a fresh five year term of office that will take his total tenure to thirty years, has officially joined the unfashionable club of the world’s most ‘enduring dictators’, the American CBS news has said.

The news organisation’s World-Watch series called “The world’s enduring dictators” was inspired by the revolutionary events in Tunisia and Egypt.  Through this series, CBSNews.com takes a look at men like President Yoweri Museveni who continue to rule their countries unimpeded by the laws of the land.  Below is the brief and unedited profile that CBS news attached to President Yoweri Museveni.

Length of rule:

25 years. Having been involved in the overthrow of two homicidal despots – Idi Amin and Milton Obote – Museveni took control of Uganda in 1986. Museveni was sworn in for a fourth term as President in early May in an election the opposition has widely decried as rigged, and at the inauguration partially overshadowed by protests, he delivered “a mixed message of conciliation, threats, and unclear strategy”.

Most despotic acts:

In 2005, D.R. Congo brought a case to the International Criminal Court accusing Uganda of committing human rights violations and massacring Congolese civilians while invading it. There has been a steady chorus of increasing complaints that Museveni is a hard-line ruler, all as he declares himself the only man who can keep the peace in Uganda.

Human Rights Watch writes that, “…the Ugandan police Rapid Response Unit frequently operates outside the law, carrying out torture, extortion, and in some cases, extrajudicial killings”. More recently, The New York Times writes that, “…Mr. Museveni has…been bedeviled by accusations of corruption involving campaign financing, the purchase of Russian fighter jets and secretive oil contracts”.

Outlook for change:

While international observers did not say there was widespread state-sponsored violence, disenfranchisement and voter fraud this year like in previous presidential elections, there was still a good bit of it nonetheless. The country has managed to avoid large Egypt-style protests, despite predictions to the contrary.

The country’s main opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, has been arrested several times in the past few months, but he still has managed to find success in organising some smaller anti-government protests which police have attempted to aggressively break up.

Museveni was obviously shaken by the North African uprisings, as local television was banned from airing footage of them. Additionally, Ugandan stability has been shaken repeatedly by its years-long battle with Joseph Kony and his infamous rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, well-known for recruiting child soldiers in its regional terror campaign.

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