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29 April 2019

The Honourable Chrystia Freeland

Minister of Foreign Affairs
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Dear Minister:

We are writing to call your attention to the dire state of affairs in Uganda – a country sustained,
in large part, by Canadian financial aid. Many regard Uganda as a bastion of democracy and
stability in a troubled region. In reality, it is a military dictatorship in which the Ugandan Junta,
under the direct control of President Yuweri Museveni, uses violence to terrorize civilians and
suppress political dissent.

Uganda has elections, courts and newspapers, but these function at the mercy of a powerful
network of security organs that are instrumentalized to rig votes, override the decisions of judges
and elected officials, arrest journalists and close NGOs that criticize the regime. These illegal
actions fly in the face of Uganda’s constitution and its guarantees of freedom of assembly,
association, peaceful demonstrations, and the right to participate in the affairs of government.

Indeed, just this morning the Ugandan government arrested our client, the hugely popular
musician/Member of Parliament HE Robert Kyagulanyi AKA Bobi Wine, in a blatant attempt to
silence his opposition movement. At the time, Mr Kyagulanyi was en route to a briefing in which
he was scheduled to address issues of police brutality and the recent cancellation of his concerts.
Ugandan police intercepted his car at a roundabout and transported to court where he was
remanded to Luzira prison until 2 May. The initial charges against him relate to a protest held in
July 2018 against Uganda’s social media tax. According to police, “he faces additional charges
of holding an illegal assembly and procession, after he was accused of organizing his supporters
to escort him along the wayi”.

As news of Mr Kyagulanyi’s arrest broke in the international press, NGOs and politicians all
over the world took to social media to condemn the Museveni regime and the actions of
Uganda’s police forces. Amongst them was a statement posted on Twitter by the CEO of Human
Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, who remarked, “[i]n Pres Museveni's never-ending quest to silence
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a poplar [sic] independent politician, the Ugandan government dredges up old charges to
jail @HEBobiWine yet again. Given his last severe beating, it's worrying whenever Bob Wine is
taken into custody”ii.

Of particular note was a statement from the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and
Administrator of the United Nations Development Program, the Right Honourable Helen
Elizabeth Clark. Ms Clark noted on Twitter that it was “[v]ery distressing to
see #Uganda opposition MP & popular musician #BobiWine detained again. Last year in
detention he was beaten & tortured. International solidarity is vital to protect Bobi's health &
life”iii.

Today’s events are merely the latest injustice that Mr Kyagulanyi has suffered in April 2019
alone. Earlier this month, Ugandan police cancelled his concert in Busabala – Wakiso District,
blocking a peaceful procession of his supporters and using teargas cannisters to disperse the
crowd. In the chaos that ensued, Mr Kyagulanyi was arrested violently, yet again. Sometime
later, the musical festival’s organisers, Andrew Mukasa and Abbey Musinguzi, were also
arrested.

Upon his release, Mr Kyagulanyi and his family were held under house arrest, with access to his
supporters limited at the whim and discretion of military and police commanders operating
outside the rule of law. In total, the government has blocked 124 concerts organised by Mr
Kyagulanyi, who uses his music to criticise government excesses.

Minister, in nineteen short months, the Ugandans will face the prospect of another staged
election, rigged to defeat the expectations of the common man to achieve a voice in the affairs of
their country. Mr Kyagulanyi and other opposition leaders are fighting for the rights of those
people to be heard. Recently, I was privileged to attend, with Mr Kyagulanyi, a meeting in Berlin
wherein he outlined not only his program for Uganda’s future development, but his fears for the
continuation of any form of opposition activity at the present moment in time.

These events, and those detailed below, illustrate the lengths that President Museveni will go to
in order to retain his control over Uganda and importantly, highlight the urgent need for
Canada’s attention.

Museveni’s repressive rule in Uganda

Minister, elections in Uganda are routinely marred by state sponsored violence, beatings and
killings of opposition figures and their supporters, voter bribery and most likely electronic vote
manipulation.iv Numerous critics of Museveni’s government have died under mysterious
circumstances in car accidents, apparent poisonings, drive-by shootings and other incidents.

2
While investigations have been promised, they either have not been carried out, or the reports
have not been made public.v

Torture and other human rights abuses have been a mainstay of President Museveni’s regime
since he seized power in 1986.vi In September 2017, Museveni’s Special Forces troops, wearing
plain clothes, raided the floor of Parliament to prevent opposition MPs from filibustering a bill
that would enable him to extend his grip on power. In the course of the raid, Mukono
Municipality MP Betty Nambooze was crippled and had to be flown abroad for extensive
surgery. She was then rearrested and tortured again in June, necessitating another trip abroad for
surgery. vii

In 2016, over 150 unarmed subjects of the Rwenzururu kingdom in Western Uganda, including
at least fourteen children, were gunned down by security forces in broad daylight. The
commander of this operation, Peter Elwelu, then received a promotion.viii

On 13 August 2018, five Parliamentarians, including Mr Kyagulanyi, and twenty-nine others

were rounded up, tortured and held in illegal detention for several days at the conclusion of a by-
election campaign in the northern Ugandan town of Arua. During the melee, Mr Kyagulanyi’s
driver was shot dead, though it is widely believed that Mr Kyagulanyi himself was the intended
target. News of these events, and those which followed, were reported widely in the international
press and numerous NGOs, including Amnesty Internationalix, released public statements in
protest.

The Arua detainees were all charged with treason, a crime punishable by death, in connection
with the alleged stoning of a vehicle in President Museveni’s convoy. Most, if not all of the
accused detainees were nowhere near the scene of the alleged stoning. Several of the accused,
including two of the MPs were severely beaten; one, Francis Zaake, had to be flown to India for
surgery and the other, Shaban Atiku, may never walk again. Numerous journalists, peaceful
demonstrators and bystanders were also arrested and tortured in connection with the events in
Arua.x

The Arua detainees were granted bail on 27 August 2018, however, many other political
prisoners remain behind bars, some reportedly in Uganda’s notorious secret detention centresxi.
To this day, many of their families remain unaware of their whereabouts.

Museveni’s activities in the Great Lakes region

Ugandan citizens are not the only ones who have suffered at the hands of President Museveni’s
regime. Indeed, while Museveni has received praise for hosting nearly half of the more than two

3
million refugeesxii that have fled war torn South Sudan, less has been said about Uganda’s role as
a key instigator of the violence that has driven these people from their homes.xiii

A recent report by the non-profit group Conflict Armament Researchxiv describes how Uganda
serves as a conduit for small arms, military and surveillance aircraft to the South Sudan regime
and its allies, which have been accused of blocking aid deliveries to opposition areas,xv raping
aid workersxvi and committing genocidal acts.xvii Ugandan soldiers have also fought on the side
of the South Sudanese government, in violation of UN sanctions.xviii Meanwhile, Museveni’s
officials have looted millions of dollars donated by the international community for refugee
programs.xix

Despite a European Union arms embargo against South Sudan, in place since 2011,xx weapons
sold to Uganda by Bulgaria, Romania and the Slovak Republic have been illegally re-transferred
to South Sudan since at least 2014. While there is no evidence the governments of the three EU
countries knew about this, former Chief of Uganda’s Defense Forces, Katumba Wamala, appears
to have been involved, along with the Permanent Secretary of the Ugandan MOD. One of the
companies involved in these transactions was also named in a 2001 UN Experts report as having
facilitated the transfer of weapons manufactured in the Slovak Republic to the Liberian warlord
Charles Taylor, again via Uganda. An American jet with weapons capabilities also seems to
have been illegally exported to Uganda in 2009, and then illegally re-exported to South Sudan in
2017.

This is nothing new. During the 1990s, Uganda’s military massacred unarmed civilians in
northern and eastern Uganda, looted animals and food stores, engaged in the mass rape of men
and women and forced nearly two million Acholis into camps where, according to the World
Health Organization, the death toll from disease and hunger rose to above 1000 people per
week.xxi

While Uganda’s troop contribution to the African Union Peacekeeping Force in Somalia
(AMISOM) has helped contain the Al Shabaab insurgency, this force, often underpaid and riven
with ethnic division, has been implicated in grave human rights abuses, including the rape of
children,xxii and has even been caught selling weapons to Al Shabaab itself.xxiii Thus Western
taxpayers have been, at times, funding both sides of this brutal war.

More recently, Uganda has been stoking tensions with neighboring Rwanda, which has accused
President Museveni’s security forces of supporting anti-Rwanda rebels.xxiv Museveni has also
indicated his intention to invade neighboring Congo in the near future. The last time the
Ugandan army did so in 1996, it committed war crimes, engaged in looting and caused damage
for which the International Court of Justice ordered reparations of US$10 billion. To date, this
debt remains outstanding.xxv

4
Since January 2018, over eighteen people have been shot and killed and over 850 homes and
properties have been burnt down by security forces in Amuru district. This appears to be one of
many disguised land grab projects orchestrated by the Ugandan government throughout the
country in recent years.xxvi

Museveni’s misuse of Western foreign aid

Since 1986, billions of dollars have been stolen by President Museveni’s associates from the
Ugandan Treasury and foreign aid programs, including the Global Fund for AIDS TB and
Malaria and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.xxvii Despite this, the United
States gave Uganda nearly US$1 billion last year.

While some foreign aid to Uganda goes to reputable charities and supports care for people
suffering from diseases such as HIV, much of it also goes to multilateral organizations such as
the World Bank which aid Uganda’s Treasury directly. This aid is highly vulnerable to theft and
misuse.xxviii Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of hardware and training have also gone to
Uganda’s military, which deploys it for internal repression or diverts it to clandestine support for
foreign wars.xxix

Museveni’s corruption and dismissal of democratic values

While on the one hand President Museveni welcomes funding from Canada and other foreign
financial aid programs, on the other, he continuously flouts the values we believe in. In May
2017, Uganda claimed to have cut ties with North Korea, whose brutal military has been training
Uganda’s security forces for decades.xxx However, according to the Wall Street Journal, North
Korean operatives remain inside Uganda.xxxi In December, Chinese businessman Patrick Ho was
convicted in a US court of having sent bribes of US$500,000 each to Museveni and his Foreign
Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa, when the latter was Chairman of the UN General Assembly.xxxii

In addition to these unsavoury political relationships, Uganda is also a major smuggling route for
gold,xxxiii elephant tusks,xxxiv pangolin scalesxxxv and other contraband.

Why Museveni should matter to Canada

The sheer scale of the atrocities committed by President Museveni’s regime and the complete
absence of the rule of law in Uganda should be a high priority for Canada. Canada is one of
Uganda’s largest development donors and has provided over US$38 million in humanitarian aid
since 2015 alonexxxvi . This despite the “serious risk management and control deficiencies and
accountability lapses” reported in the 2017/2018 internal audit of the Ugandan operations for the

5
Office of the High Commissioner for Refugeesxxxvii . In November 2017, Canada pledged to
donate a C-130 Hercules military transport plane to Uganda as part of a larger pledge to the UN,
though it is our understanding that this is subject to certain conditions concerning its usexxxviii .

It is time for Canada to reconsider its relationship with Uganda. Canadian aid has helped
President Museveni to suppress the rule of law and has contributed to the persistence of the
Ugandan Junta and their illegal aggressions against citizens. A lasting peace in this troubled
region of Africa can only be achieved through the free politics of a true democracy – something
President Museveni will do anything to prevent. In light of this, it is clear that Canada must take
immediate action to denounce the crimes committed by President Museveni’s regime. Most
importantly, it is time for Canada and other Western donors to ensure that all aid, military and
non-military, is conditional on the holding of free and fair elections. Ending the harassment of
our client, Mr Kyagulanyi, would be an important first step.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM & PARTNERS LLP

i
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/29/africa/ugandan-bobi-wine-arrested-intl/index.html
ii
https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1122904877355630592
iii
https://twitter.com/HelenClarkNZ/status/1122945601220403200
iv
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01/25/uganda-election-when-democracy-doesnt-count/
v
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/04/03/murder-uganda/; Epstein. Another Fine Mess.
vi
Helen Epstein. Another Fine Mess: America, Uganda and the War on Terror. Columbia Global Reports. 2017.
vii
https://www.thenation.com/article/us-turns-blind-eye-ugandas-assault-democracy/
viii
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/08/29/troubling-times-for-the-rwenzururu-kingdom-in-western-uganda/
ix
https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/free-bobi-wine/
x
https://www.dw.com/en/uganda-museveni-critic-bobi-wine-charged-in-military-trial/a-45082938
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/23/uganda-bobi-wine-supporters-say-his-body-is-battered
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/08/21/uganda-attacks-opposition-figures-media
xi
https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/03/23/uganda-torture-extortion-killings-police-unit
xii
https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/south-sudan/
xiii
https://www.dw.com/en/ugandas-double-game-in-south-sudan-civil-war-revealed/a-46500925
xiv
http://www.conflictarm.com/reports/weapon-supplies-into-south-sudans-civil-war/
xv
https://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/south-sudan-denial-humanitarian-aid-war-tactic
xvi
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/06/645215324/south-sudan-soldiers-convicted-of-raping-aid-workers-and-killing-a-
journalist

6
xvii
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southsudan-war/uk-says-killings-in-south-sudan-conflict-amount-to-
genocide-idUSKBN17E2TF
xviii
https://www.apnews.com/923c4972e9174beda3adf60c51918531
xix
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uganda-refugees/un-audit-finds-graft-and-misconduct-in-its-uganda-refugee-
program-idUSKCN1NY230
xx
https://www.sipri.org/databases/embargoes/eu_arms_embargoes/south_sudan
xxi
Adam Branch. Displacing Human Rights: War and Intervention in Northern Uganda. Oxford University Press
2011; A Brilliant Genocide. A documentary film by Ebony Butler. Atlantic Star Productions 2016
xxii
https://www.loc.gov/item/2016479678/
xxiii
https://www.wired.com/2011/08/u-s-weapons-now-in-somali-terrorists-hands/
xxiv
https://www.apnews.com/666058a8df804946ae3e4a05f6429d5d
xxv
https://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/116/116-20051219-JUD-01-00-BI.pdf
xxvi
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Hundreds--homeless-Apaa-land-eviction-UPDF-Game-
Reserve/688334-4563720-vmiumuz/index.html
xxvii
https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/10/21/uganda-free-pass-high-level-corruption
xxviii
https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/10/21/uganda-free-pass-high-level-corruption
xxix
https://securityassistance.org/uganda
xxx
https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/uganda-expels-north-korea-military-experts-over-un-sanctions-20171020
xxxi
https://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-workforce-funds-north-koreaand-defies-sanctions-1544379764
xxxii
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/patrick-ho-former-head-organization-backed-chinese-energy-
conglomerate-convicted
xxxiii
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/gold-africa-smuggling/
xxxiv
https://academic.oup.com/ia/article-abstract/94/5/1077/5092101?redirectedFrom=fulltext
xxxv
https://www.traffic.org/publications/reports/uganda-wildlife-trafficking-assessment/
xxxvi
https://fts.unocha.org/countries/233/donors/2015
xxxvii
United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services, Internal Audit Division. Audit of the Operations in
Uganda for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Report 2018/097 (17 October 2018).
xxxviii
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2019/03/27/un-canada-at-odds-over-restrictions-on-promised-military-
transport-plane.html