The Inspector General of Police, Lt. Gen. Kale Kayihura on Tuesday got angry during a press conference that had been called by Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, and lashed out at opposition leader Kizza Besigye while insisting that he is ready to go and defend himself against Human Rights abuse accusations at the International Criminal Court – ICC.
Kayihura was part of the national organizing committee for the recently held Inter-Parliamentary Union—IPU Assembly. The committee was addressing a post-IPU press conference at parliament when journalists asked Kayihura why he tried to block Besigye to meet some IPU delegates during the conference held between March 30th and April 5th.
During the IPU conference, Besigye and other opposition leaders including MPs, were denied an opportunity to meet some delegates at Fairway Hotel, on the sidelines of the conference, but were later allowed to meet for a short time at the Grand Imperial Hotel.
In the process of answering the question put to him, Kayihura got angry and said Besigye and the Coordinator of the Walk-to-Work campaigns, Masaka Municipality MP Mathias Mpuuga, are always bent on inciting the public while deceiving them that it is Police torturing them. He said that Mpuuga has always wrongly accused him of Human Rights violations.
Mpuuga as well as the entire opposition have since the Walk-to-Work campaigns last year made no secret of the fact that one day they would want to see Kayihura dragged to the ICC to answer to charges of torturing their innocent supporters.
Kayihura instead accused the opposition of always playing politics and looking at everything Police do in a negative way.
He said he was happy that the Public Order Management Bill was nearing debate to make a law that would regulate public assemblies and demonstrations. He said the law would define roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders including the police, the demonstrators, the public as well as owners of venues used for demonstrations.
Kayihura said that when the bill is enacted into law, the Police would not go against the spirit of freedom of association and assembly as envisaged by the Constitution.
He insisted that the new law should grant him the powers to direct as well as regulate the assemblies, arguing that regulation includes aspects of direction, to allow police carry out their work of keeping law and order in the country.
