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“It is long past due for the United States to revamp and overhaul its policy towards Uganda,” said Jeffrey Smith, founding director of Vanguard Africa, a US-based non-profit, which works on governance.
“General Museveni is a military dictator who has used every tool at his disposal, for nearly four decades now, to deny democracy to Ugandans,” added Smith, who has worked with Bobi Wine for several years.
Bobi Wine‘s man in Washington harbors no illusions that President Yoweri Museveni will quietly step down after three and a half decades in power.
Instead, Jeffrey Smith‘s mission is at once simpler and more ambitious: Keeping his pop star-turned-opposition leader client — and the dreams of countless people he has inspired across Africa — alive as he challenges the results of last month’s election that saw Museveni win a sixth term in office.
In Washington, Jeffrey Smith, founding director of the advocacy nonprofit Vanguard Africa, has doubled down on calls for the government to reevaluate its dealings with Uganda. “There needs to be a review of U.S. policy towards Uganda, including a comprehensive review of the millions of dollars we provide on an annual basis to their security forces and military,” said Smith, who has worked closely with Wine for the past three years, connecting him with journalists and politicians in the U.S.
Jeffrey Smith, head of Vanguard Africa, a U.S.-based democracy advocacy group that has worked closely with Mr. Kyagulanyi, said the statements by [Biden’s incoming national security adviser] “are a powerful indication that the new administration might elevate human rights and democracy promotion from their current place, in the basement, to their rightful places as a pillar of U.S. foreign policy.”
Mr. Biden has also nominated several other human-rights advocates to key posts in his administration, which “bodes well for the future,” Mr. Smith told The Globe.
Jeffrey Smith, founding director of the pro-democracy group Vanguard Africa, said he had been in contact with Bobi Wine.
“Ideally in this circumstance, you’d be speaking to Bobi Wine himself or one of his colleagues, but due to the ongoing internet shutdown in the country and the ongoing restriction of information, obviously you’re unable to do that,” Smith told Al Jazeera.
The news of the break-in was confirmed by Jeffrey Smith, founder of Vanguard Africa, a nonprofit based in Washington that has worked with Mr. Wine for three years. In an interview, Mr. Smith said he got a call from Mr. Wine after 4:30 p.m. Kampala time during which he heard “lots of shouting and banging.” During the call, which lasted five minutes, Mr. Wine told him that security officers had assaulted some of his staff members and arrested a gardener, Mr. Smith said.
During a live virtual press conference — hosted by Vanguard Africa, a nonprofit promoting democracy in African countries — a stunned global audience watched as singer-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, known as Bobi Wine, was forcibly removed from his vehicle by Ugandan police as gunshots were fired.
We proudly join this initiative alongside Nobel Peace Prize laureates Wole Soyinka, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson, artists like Femi Kuti, Peter Gabriel and Chris Martin, as well as academics like Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Together, we urgently call on world leaders and citizens of good conscience to demand that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni commit to holding a free and fair election on January 14, one that is free from further violence and adequately reflects the will of the voting public.
ICC Complaint Uganda by Vanguard Africa on Scribd
