Friday, April 29, 2011

Unrest in Uganda: I hope the violence ends right away.


Riots over Kizza Besigye's arrest

Security forces try to quell the riots that broke out on the streets of Kampala

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At least two people have died in riots in Uganda's capital over the treatment of opposition leader Kizza Besigye.
Security forces fired live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters burning tyres.
Mr Besigye sought medical treatment after being tear-gassed in his car and bundled roughly into a truck when he was arrested on Thursday.
It was his fourth detention this month for his participation in a "walk-to-work" protest over high prices.
President Yoweri Museveni has said the walking campaign over the rise in the cost of living is illegal.

Start Quote

They arrested him like a chicken thief - we cannot allow such things to continue”
Brown NdeseProtester
After his arrest Dr Besigye was charged with inciting violence but was released on medical grounds until 2 May.
The BBC's Joshua Mmali in the capital, Kampala, says Dr Besigye was taken to hospital from the court because he had been temporarily blinded.
On Friday evening, he was allowed by the authorities to fly to neighbouring Kenya to seek medical treatment.
Our reporter says footage of the arrest was broadcast on Ugandan television and the video-sharing website YouTube.
It showed plain-clothed policemen beating up Dr Besigye's supporters, smashing the window of his car and dousing the inside with pepper spray and tear gas before manhandling him into a vehicle and driving off.
Rumours spread
According to Uganda's Red Cross, two people have died in the trouble and 120 others were taken to hospital with injuries.
Internal Affairs Minister Kirunda Kivejinja said 360 people had been arrested and those injured had mainly been hurt by "stones, sticks and bottles".
Police fought with Kizza Besigye and his supporters during his arrest on Thursday
The police force was "within its constitutional mandate to restore law and order" by removing road blocks and "disengaging crowds", he told journalists in the capital.
Our correspondent says transport was paralysed and shops closed because of the widespread rioting and chaotic scenes.
Earlier on Friday morning, gunshots could be heard from different parts of the city and live ammunition was shot into the air in some areas.
The trouble started in Kisseka market, sparked by the anger over the manner of Dr Besigye's arrest and rumours that the FDC leader might have died.
The speculation about his death spread via Twitter and in Ugandan chatrooms.
"They arrested him like a chicken thief. We cannot allow such things to continue. Museveni must go," Brown Ndese, one of the protesters, told the Associated Press news agency.
The security forces were out in strength as the trouble spread across the city, our reporter says.
In some areas, the military beat up people who had resorted to walking to work because there was no transport, and forced them to clear the roads of debris from the burnt barricades, he says.
Rioters fuel a burning barricade during riots in Kampala, Uganda, on 29 April 2011Dr Besigye has considerable support in the capital where many people were enraged by his treatment
The BBC's Ignatius Bahizi in the suburb of Kasubi said earlier on Friday morning that people were fleeing the area and vehicles were heading out of town to save them from damage.
He said when he tried to take a photo of the protesters burning tyres they turned on him and tried to attack him.
April's walk-to-work campaign, organised by several opposition parties over rising fuel and food prices, has been marked by clashes between protesters and the police and the arrest of opposition politicians.
Dr Besigye, who was shot in the hand during a similar recent protest, lost to President Museveni in a February election he says was rigged.
Before the polls, Dr Besigye had called for Egypt-style uprisings in the event of fraud.
Police responded by banning public demonstrations.

NGUGI WAS RIGHT!

 
Although I did not watch the much-publicized British Royal Wedding (Prince William and Kate Middleton) today I caught a quick glimpse of the vows and the balcony kiss.


I could not help but remember the last time I was in front of Buckingham Palace happily posing for a picture; I looked at the TV screen animated, naming members of the British Royal Family as their faces appeared. I felt English.


I believe it was the great Ngugi wa Thiong'o who said something to the effect that the trouble with trying to decolonize yourself or your mind is that you see just how impossible it is to do that. I thought of Ngugi at that moment because I know I would not be able to identify members of our Royal Families in Botswana (we have several such families).


I knew I did not have a picture of myself in Serowe at the Khama memorials or in Nhabe in front of Kgosi Tawana 1's old residence. I convinced myself that I was only watching a news report about Will and Kate just because I like weddings. Yes, I like weddings in the same emotional voyeuristic way I like award shows. Whatever. I knew deep down there was a connection I felt with this wedding because all my education and socialization in a former British protectorate has been preparing me to culturally identify more closely with such events than King Mswati's yearly marriages. Even in my energized Afrocentrism there are cracks that sometimes show when an event like today's Royal Wedding come up. And our hopelessly colonized curriculum on the continent is to blame for much of this.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

TODAY IT'S ME - the one man show.


Please look out for upcoming posts on one of my heroes, Mr Philly Bongoley Lutaaya. I will speak about the process of writing and performing a one-man show about him off-Broadway and what that has been like.

NOTIN DO U


your mind is philosophy.
your loyalty epically stays in love
and you love me in a way that
safely feels something like ‘prophetic’;
you see things in my soul
that elude my ordinary eyes
and i can feel it deeply when we talk.
it is in the way you casually lean your body
towards mine and then talk half-asleep,
it is in that unutterable way you look at me when no one is around,
it is in the sweetly serious way you say we should
talk a lot so that we don’t float past each other like space men
but rather grow together entwined.
i like it when we talk and your delightful mind
sparkles in conversation and your short white teeth
reveal a sweet, rare smile behind full, dark lips because simply put,
when we are together, notin’ do u.
…you are now pressing hard against me.
and in your face i see
a fineness raw, exciting yet gentle.
all in one deliciously dark, square-jawed face…
…for there’s a fluid storm rising and billowing like harmattan
behind your pair of marble eyes.


By Donald Molosi

REVOLUTION OF THE MIND: PIGMENT

speak to her in yoruba, twi, swahili, sesarwa, setswana or shona.
she may not comprehend some,
but in all she will delight in a rhythm natural to her ear,
a movement instinctive to her tongue
and hopefully a reassurance that she has a home on the other side of the sea:
my sister is the soul in Africa’s golden daughters.
she has glistening brown eyes
like one who has stared at the earth for too long,
her nose is fantastically flat,
her lips are fabulously full
and every hair strand in her dreadlocks is twisted and locked just the way it ought,
her smile flashes bright and wide because home lives in her.
sister’s skin shines dark black,
her hands heal everything they touch
and her song echoes a revolution in the valley of my soul.
today, i won’t let her cast her head down just because of skin.
Heaven fell in love with her dark black before she knew dark black.
brown skin or dark skin, it is of God not shame.
in time, these foreign soils she trots will speak her name.
and today, sister’s going to shine that black and lift her chin, like a tarnished angel that just flicked the dust off her wing.

By Leungo Donald Molosi