Forty Years Later, Uganda Is Learning That Fear Can Become a Government

After nearly four decades in power, President Yoweri Museveni's government is no longer judged by the promises it made in 1986. It is judged by the fear many Ugandans now live with. Reports of disappearances, torture, prolonged detention without trial, and growing repression have become part of everyday conversation.

Families wait for phone calls that never come. Lawyers search for clients who seem to have vanished into thin air. Courts issue orders that are ignored. Citizens whisper because speaking at a normal volume has become dangerous.

Human rights organizations have repeatedly documented allegations that security agencies seize people, keep them in undisclosed locations, deny holding them, and block access to lawyers and family members. The pattern is painfully familiar. A person disappears. Officials deny knowing anything. Weeks later the victim reappears looking thinner, weaker, and often carrying visible signs of abuse.

The stories are becoming impossible to ignore.

Sam Mugumya disappeared after announcing his parliamentary ambitions. Authorities denied holding him even as supporters searched desperately for answers.

Images later circulated showing a man who appeared physically broken. His supporters alleged he had suffered starvation, torture, and medical neglect.

Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi was granted bail only to disappear again the following day after armed soldiers reportedly intercepted him. For weeks nobody admitted knowing where he was. When he eventually appeared in court he described repeated abuse during his detention.

Kenyan activists Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo were detained after attending an opposition related event before eventually being handed over to Kenya after President Museveni acknowledged the involvement of Ugandan security agencies.

Then came Eddie Mutwe.

His case shocked even people who thought they had become immune to being shocked. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba publicly posted on social media that he was holding Mutwe in his basement. He joked about capturing him like a grasshopper. He joked about beating him. When Mutwe later appeared in court, observers reported that he looked weak and injured.

In most countries those statements alone would trigger independent investigations.

In Uganda they became another chapter in the national story.

Then there was Erias Lukwago. Reports said he too was seized while pursuing legal work connected to political cases. Once again the language of basements and secret detention returned.

When the same nightmare keeps changing victims, it stops looking like coincidence.

Even Uganda's closest international partners have become increasingly uneasy. The United States, which has backed Uganda for decades as a regional security partner, now warns its own citizens about crime, terrorism, and instability in the country. Senior American lawmakers from both political parties have publicly criticized Uganda's human rights record. Yet security cooperation continues because Uganda remains important to American interests in the region.

That contradiction is not new. Governments often say human rights matter until they collide with military strategy.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned about shrinking civic space, growing military influence in civilian life, and a climate of fear. Those words may sound polite in diplomatic language. Ordinary Ugandans understand them in simpler terms. They mean watching your phone before speaking. They mean wondering whether the car parked outside belongs to a neighbor or to security officers. They mean telling your children not to discuss politics even inside your own house.

The question is no longer whether Uganda has a human rights problem.

The question is how much worse it can become.

Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba has become one of the most controversial figures in this story. His social media posts have often celebrated behavior that would horrify any society governed by law. Human rights organizations have also raised concerns about abuses committed by units associated with his command.

Whether every boast reflects reality or political theater is almost beside the point.

What matters is that a country's top military officer can publicly joke about torture while many citizens believe the jokes might actually be true.

That should frighten everyone.

The image itself is almost surreal. Here is a man widely viewed as the likely heir to one of Africa's longest serving presidents. On social media he projects the confidence of a movie villain. In public speeches he often appears far less comfortable, carefully reading prepared remarks and sometimes struggling to make sense. It creates two very different versions of the same person. One inspires fear online. The other appears shaky and uncertain behind the podium.

Around him stands Journalist Andrew Mwenda and remains one of his closest public defenders. Critics speculate that Mwenda helps write the General's public messaging, though there is no public evidence proving that claim. What is beyond dispute is that the relationship has fueled endless political debate.

Then there is Odrek Rwabwogo, President Museveni's son in law. Unlike Muhoozi, he presents himself as calm, polished, and diplomatic. He frequently engages Western audiences and has reportedly visited political detainees during some of Uganda's most controversial moments. Former detainees such as Timothy Kalyegira and Kakwenza Rukirabashaija have publicly spoken about those visits.

To many observers the contrast is striking. One family member projects force. Another projects compassion.

Whether this difference reflects genuine disagreement or simply different political styles is impossible to know from the outside. But the effect is unmistakable. Public discussion increasingly revolves around members of one family instead of the future of an entire nation.

It is as though Ugandans are being asked to choose between two branches of the same tree while being told to forget there is an entire forest.

Even public debate has started shrinking.

Independent journalists face pressure. Media organizations operate under constant uncertainty. Yet criticism from voices like Mwenda seen as close to the establishment often receives far greater space. Whether intentional or not, it creates the impression that acceptable criticism is becoming something managed from within the same political circle instead of emerging freely from society.

Forty years is a long time to prepare a political succession. Yet despite all that time, uncertainty appears greater than ever for Uganda’s first family. Power has become deeply tied to wealth, influence, and survival. Losing office could mean losing far more than a title.

On the surface President Museveni still appears firmly in control. He commands a powerful military trained and armed by the United States. Uganda remains an important regional security partner. The state possesses enormous coercive power.

Yet governments that feel completely secure rarely need to frighten everyone into silence.

Fear is expensive. It takes soldiers, prisons, surveillance, secret detention, and constant displays of force. Governments invest in fear only when they worry that respect alone is no longer enough.

That may explain why every opposition voice now seems treated as a national emergency. The message is simple. If this can happen to them, imagine what can happen to you.

History shows that fear can keep a government alive for years. It can silence crowds. It can empty streets. It can make neighbors stop trusting one another.

What fear has never managed to do is convince people they are free.

That is the problem facing Uganda today. The greatest threat to the country is not simply the disappearance of political opponents. It is the slow disappearance of hope itself.

A nation can survive poverty. It can recover from conflict. It can rebuild broken roads and broken economies.

It struggles much harder to rebuild trust after generations have learned to fear the knock on the door.

— Yasin Kakande

Author of The Missing Corpse