Colourful protests are usually borne out via creative
placards or cheeky chants – not by demonstrators covered in pink
liquid sprayed on them by police.
That is how hardline Ugandan authorities deal with
protesters however. Yesterday hundreds of anti-government marchers
were splashed with the gaudy hue by special water
cannons.
The scenes of men and women being showered with water
mixed with pink dye in capital Kampala came as month-long protests
over soaring prices and a disputed election turned ugly.
Splash of anger: Police spray Ugandan protesters with
coloured water during demonstrations in the capital
Kampala
On Monday, at least nine unarmed people are believed to
have been killed – including three shot in the back as they
fled.
The tactic of spraying paint at protesters fairly common
in Uganda and elsewhere in the continent.
It was used during the Apartheid era in South Africa, most
famously in the 1989 Purple Rain Protest in Cape Town.
Spraying protesters a distinctive colour is carried out by
such regimes because difficult for people to escape the police’s
clutches while out of the demonstration zone.
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni’s crackdown on
protesters has become increasingly desperate in recent
days.
Yesterday he said would change the law to deny bail to
people accused of riots and economic sabotage.
Overcome with emulsion: Spraying tactics are the latest
desperate tactic of disputed President Yoweri Museveni
The east African country’s capital five other towns have
been rocked by violent clashes between demonstrators and security
forces during protests against soaring prices of food and
fuel.
Mr Museveni, in power for 25 years, accused the opposition
of trying to spread chaos to avenge their defeat in February’s
disputed presidential elections which he won with a 68 per cent
majority.
‘People think it’s a game playing with the economy of
Uganda, scaring away people who come to do business and invest,’ he
said.
The violence has threatened to overshadow his $1.3million
inauguration ceremony to launch Mr Museveni’s fourth term on
Thursday.