Museveni to miss UN General Assembly

This was revealed by Henry Oryem Okello, the State Minister for Foreign Affairs. Museveni has stayed away from this annual UN event since 2017.

In 2018, opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine, was tortured and this stoked the international community’s ire over the supposed high-handedness of security forces in Uganda.

Wine was allegedly tortured after a hotly contested by-election in Arua in August 2018, with Museveni being criticised fulsomely for the personal role in this torture. Wine was arrested with 33 other opposition politicians and their supporters and charged with treason.

Museveni, as a result, skipped the UN meet.

Museveni dispatched then Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda to represent the country at the 73^rd UN General Assembly.

As the UN meeting took place, US-based Canadian lawyer Robert Amsterdam, along with Wine, addressed a press conference in Washington D.C. that was aired on networks like Al Jazeera. The lawyer and Wine then called out foreign governments for being complicit in Museveni’s ‘tyranny’.

“The military equipment we (referring to the U.S.) are supplying to Uganda is being used in a war of terror against Uganda’s citizens,” Amsterdam said.

He warned those involved in torture of opposition politicians saying such torture would lead to travel bans imposed upon them and the seizure of their property outside Uganda under the provisions of the Global Magnitsky Act, an American law, aimed at leaders who violate human rights across the world.

The events of 2018 appeared to have made Museveni’s mind up that his attendance at UN General Assembly meets was a waste of his time.