President Museveni has said the ongoing march to parliament by youths has been funded by foreigners.
“The demonstration had funding from foreign sources that are always meddling in the internal affairs of Africa for the last 600 years ─ slave trade, colonialism, neo-colonialism, genocide, economic exploitation, etc,” Museveni said.
The president was on Thursday afternoon commenting about the march by youths to parliament protesting against corruption.
The youths have demanded the resignation of Speaker Anita Among and the four backbench commissioners as well as trimming the salaries and allowances for Members of Parliament among other conditions before they stop the march.
A number of youths have been arrested by security agencies and have since been arraigned in courts of law and remanded.
In a missive on Thursday, President Museveni applauded security agencies and Ugandans for “foiling or not participating in the bad demonstration that was planned for Tuesday.”
” All those involved, should know that Uganda is not a neo-colony where those shallow schemes can be deployed.”
The president said intelligence has informed him the planners and participants had planned very bad things against Ugandans.
” Those very bad things, will come out in court when those arrested are being tried. It is possible, that some of the participants, did not know of the planned foreign funding and the planned bad things. That is why, they should have listened to the police advice, not to go on with the demonstration. But they rubbished the police advice.”
He insisted it was not a patriotic anti corruption march since it was not peaceful and not coordinated with police in the know.
He insisted that the protests disrupted business in the city.
“In particular, the heavily populated suburbs of our cities – Kawempe, Bwaise, etc. should never be used for demonstration, because they will damage the little wealth creation that our people are painstakingly building up. Kololo ceremonial grounds, is being repaired now. When the work is finished, Nakalema should organize us. I will be there.”
Museveni asked” those being funded by foreigners, to stop and report to the Minister of State for Ethics, those that have been funding them.”
” We shall not arrest them. In any case, we know a lot about the goings on in those groups. Our interest is to immunize Uganda against the schemes of the imperialists and their agents.”