Kaihura to purge business for rejecting Museveni

The Inspector General of Police, Major-General Edward Kale Kaihura, is to start a nationwide crackdown on the Ugandan business community, after the majority of them did no give support to President Museveni during the election.

Information reaching Radio Katwe says that Kaihura is just waiting for the order from his boss, President Museveni and he begins the crackdown.

The plan to punish the business community for supporting FDC candidate Colonel Kizza Besigye leaked and has made the business community fearful.

Kaihura was at one time the head of the Special Revenue Protection Service (SRPS), the army unit which used to monitor and deter smuggling and tax evasion by businesses in the country.

It is believed that Kaihura now as the Inspector General of Police is going to use his office to assess the tax status of the business community and mercilessly clamp down or shut down those which are not tax healthy.

But the real reason is because they did not contribute to Museveni's campaign and yet the business community was once a staunch supporter of Museveni.

Museveni is angry and feels betrayed by the lack of support from business during his campaign.

In January, NRMO spokesman Ofwono Opondo held a secret meeting at the Kati Kati Indian restaurant at Lugogo by-pass with an Indian businessman and former member of the Buganda Lukiiko.

Radio Katwe has not yet established the exact identity of the Indian, but it was either Rajni Taylor or M. Kanani.

During the meeting, overheard by a Radio Katwe informer, Opondo told the Indian that the NRM and State House were not happy that contributions from the Indian community had been very low.

The low support for Museveni by the Asian community is the most surprising because they were once a major source of business and financial backing.

A mood of fear is taking a hold of Kampala as talk of crackdowns spreads. Already, the media is coming under attack.

The Daily Monitor website and KFM radio signal were sabotaged by the Internal Security Organisation the day after the presidential election and a Canadian journalist Blake Lambert is being hounded by the state.

Meanwhile, Radio Katwe is getting more details on why the foreign observers to the election declared it free and fair, despite the violence which they saw themselves.

All the observer groups agreed that the violence was a serious issue in the campaign and it showed that the election was going to be rigged.

But the EU weighed the evidence of rigging against the chances of total anarchy if the population which as a whole supported Besigye, were to rise up and riot.

They had already seen this in Haiti and other countries and felt Uganda should not go through the violence.

That is why, as Smart Musolin has already reported, the South African government and the British High Commissioner came out on February 25 to put pressure on Besigye to publicly accept the result and call on his supporters not to demonstrate.

The American embassy, on the other hand, also saw the rigging and pre-election violence and has decided to halt its statement on the election until Besigye and the FDC complete their petitions in court.

The Americans are choosing to take a hardline against Museveni. The U.S. government is not bothering much about making public diplomatic statements to improve relations with Kampala.

At his Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings in Washington several weeks ago, the incoming American ambassador to Uganda, Steven Browning, heavily criticised the political atmosphere in Uganda and told the committee that he was coming to Uganda to monitor developments.