This archive report was first published on 5 October 2019.
On October 5, 2019, the Ugandan government made a move that seemed to have been plucked straight from the country's repressive past. In a gazette notice, they designated the red beret as militia insignia and banned civilians from wearing it.
The red beret is the trademark of opposition MP Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, and his insurgent 'People Power' movement. Wine and his supporters have been clobbered and arrested, and the ban was likely a move to hamstring the movement as the country gears up for the 2021 election.
However, the repressive action had some sophistication. It didn't specifically mention Wine and his brigade, and was not issued by a general foaming at the mouth with rage on TV or a president banging tables. Instead, it was slipped in sideways through a gazette notice.
But the move was not new. In the past, the Ugandan government has used similar tactics to suppress opposition. During Idi Amin's rule, long shaggy beards were considered a rebel weapon of mass destruction, and could cost one a beating or death. Similarly, in Daniel arap Moi's Kenya, long beards were treated with hostility during the period of hysteria against Mwakenya dissidents.
Even more disturbing is the fact that the Ugandan government has a history of forcing people to eat their clothes as a form of punishment. During the guerrilla war that brought President Yoweri Museveni to power in 1986, militant youth in the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) would harass people wearing Museveni's Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) t-shirts and colours. The police and military would then force them to eat the clothes.
It's a disturbing trend that has been repeated in the past. In the 1980s, people wearing green shirts, skirts, and socks were often denied entry into government buildings and beaten by soldiers on the streets. The colour green was popular with schools, churches, and businesses, but because there were many illiterate soldiers around, they couldn't read and differentiate.
Today, the ban on red berets is petty repression at its best. And on this, Museveni's Uganda has gone 33 years ahead, in order to go 47 years back.
