KAMPALA: Ugandan police briefly arrested opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Tuesday and said they would charge 15 protesters with treason in an effort to quell demonstrations against rising prices.
Deadly protests in April and May over soaring food and fuel prices were crushed by President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power for more than two decades. Besigye was badly beaten and put under house arrest.
The protest movement, led by the Activists 4 Change (A4C)group, has struggled to rally large numbers since then, mainly because Besigye has largely stayed away from demonstrations.
On Tuesday, Besigyes party, the Forum for Democratic Change, said he was briefly arrested when he joined a walk-to-work protest on the outskirts of the capital, Kampala. Later, police said the former presidential contender had been released and taken to his home in the Kasangati suburb.
Opposition youths reacted angrily to his detention, hurling rocks at passing vehicles. Police used teargas and water-cannon trucks spraying pink-colored water to disperse the protesters.
Analysts said this opposition agitation was unlikely to grow into a serious threat to the government given the international communitys muted response to the previous crackdown.
Police brutality in April and May was not punished and neither did we see strong condemnation of Museveni from the Western powers, and this discourages would-be protesters, said political analyst Nicholas Ssengoba.
Ugandan troops form the backbone of a peacekeeping mission in Somalia, a task few countries are willing to undertake.
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