President Yoweri Museveni has commended the Special Forces Command (SFC) forces for acting professionally when they were ‘provoked’ by Kyadondo East legislator, Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu alias Bobi Wine in Arua back in August 2018.
At least 33 people including lawmakers Bobi Wine, Kassiano Wadri, Francis Zaake and Paul Mwiru were arrested in August 2018 for allegedly throwing stones at the presidential convoy.
Later, it emerged that most of the detainees had been tortured by security agencies during their arrest.
Several opinion leaders, lawyers and human rights activists condemned the torture and asked government to arrest and prosecute individual security officers who were involved.
Two years later, while passing out 4809 Police trainees at Police Training School in Kabalye, Masindi on Friday, Museveni maintained that the SFC officers acted in self defence and beat Bobi Wine ‘in a good way.’
President Museveni said: “The other day there was a fracas in West Nile where our young friend Bobi Wine tried to fight with security people, I think they beat him a bit and then they came to me and said that an MP was beaten, I said okay, let me study how he was beaten."
President @KagutaMuseveni finally speaks out on the 2018 Arua fracas. Says @HEBobiwine was beaten in self defense. Listen in.
— Jonah Kirabo 🇺🇬🇩🇪 (@jonahkirabo) August 21, 2020
📽️: @ubctvuganda pic.twitter.com/NvMUWcyTg7
“When I studied, I found the man had been beaten properly, in the right way. This was because when the SFC people, who are not police, they are used to do our things actually managed to act properly. I was surprised.” The President said.
President Museveni added that when they went where Bobi Wine was, after causing some problems a day before, Bobi Wine tried to attack them.
“This honourable member boxed them, they also tried to box back until they subdued him and after, they did not beat him again. So I was surprised that these people acted properly, it was self defence and beyond self defence they didn’t beat. It was in order,” Museveni said.
While narrating what exactly happened in August 2018, Bobi Wine said that angry looking SFC soldiers came beating everyone they could see, and claimed that he didn’t try to fight back.
Bobi Wine said: “As soon as they saw me, they charged saying ‘there he is’ in Swahilli. So many bullets were being fired and everyone scampered for safety.”
Bobi Wine’s driver, Yasin Kawuma was shot at and lost his life on the same fateful day but President Museveni didn’t mention a thing about the circumstances surrounding his death.
The SFC are an elite force that guards the President and some of the country’s strategic installations and have increasingly leapt to the fore as a key enforcer of political order.
President Museveni again praised the soldiers for a job well done.