By M. Suleman

5^th Sept 2011: Last week was politically occupied by the appearance of the fiery, fire spitting leader of the ANC Youth League Mr Julius Malema.  Malema was summoned to appear before the ANC Disciplinary Committee to defend himself against a number of charges.  Using his position, he mobilised supporters from all provinces to turn up and show solidarity with him.

By Monday afternoon, buses begun to descend on Johannesburg. The Police complained that they had not given permission for any rally or gathering.  But the buses continued to arrive the whole night and by dawn, tens of thousands of youths were within the vicinity of the ANC headquarters.

As expected, the police acted swiftly.  They deployed personnel, brought in a barbed wire to fence off the ANC headquarters, and begun to take control of the situation.  But they had underestimated the numbers.  By 11am, the numbers of ANC youth continued to swell and soon they were demanding to descend on the building. Police resisted.

Within a short space of time, a battle erupted between the police and the youth.  Bottles, rocks, stones etc were hauled at the police.  Soon, pandemonium broke in downtown Johannesburg.  Shops were smashed, private cars and property damaged and police helicopters had to ferry in reinforcement.  It took quite an effort to bring the situation under control.

In the end, everything that had President Zuma’s face had been burnt.  The ANC flag was also burnt.  A couple of policemen and Journalists were rushed to hospital with injuries.  At the end of it all, the youth calmed down, no one was arrested, although police promised to make arrests if those who were injured and those who had their property damaged open up cases.

The youth gathering was unauthorized.  It disrupted business and destroyed people’s property.  The well armed police were put under immense provocation and pressure.  At one point, they were over run, and some seriously injured.  But they had no orders to shoot.

Instead, they tried everything to protect both the non demonstrators and demonstrators; even ensuring that the demonstrators do not injure each other with their own stones.  At almost every demonstration in Uganda, security forces have to kill unarmed citizens.

Every demonstration has to be approved by highly placed people!  Why should a small rally to show solidarity with Egypt, Tunisia, and the Libyan revolutionaries be such a very big issue for Museveni’s police?  In South Africa, only a handful of traffic policemen would handle such a rally.

Here in South Africa, we have also had a couple of local and National multi-party elections since 1994.  They are always hot debates and competitions but whatever the heat, we have never had military deployments, politically motivated arrests, intimidation, and coercion from the security forces. We do not have political prisoners in our prisons.

In the 1990s, a lot of people died as a result of clashes between ANC supporters and Ikhatha Freedom Party supporters.  In Kwazulu Natal, entire villages were almost killed.  The military was eventually deployed.  But they never arrested or shot people.  They only stood between the warring [ANC & Ikhatha] supporters as the government and politicians tried to get political solution.

When the solution was found, the guns fell silent. Nobody died from a security forces bullet. South African security forces are there to protect people, not to kill them.  The other factor is the Africaness of the force.  In South Africa, the Zulu regard themselves as people who come from the same mother.  Same with the Sotho, Xhosa etc!  As a result, a Zulu cannot shoot a Zulu.

They round it all by being proud South Africans in their diversity.  Their motto being we cannot shoot our own blood, every South African is a brother.  In South Africa, very few commanders or men in uniform will obey an order to shoot at a fellow South African.  In Uganda, it appears the men who issue orders to shoot are not Ugandans, and those who obey those orders are clearly not proud to be Ugandans.

Museveni has to accept that Uganda belongs to Ugandans and that the right to life is sacrosanct.  Killing innocent demonstrators is not only inhuman, it is criminal too.  END.  Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.