Lukwago seeks international court action over EAC 'rights abuses'

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People's Front for Freedom (PFF) interim president Erias Lukwago has urged the International Criminal Court to act amid what he is calling a surge in rights violations across the East African Community (EAC).

“For the record, ICC is not like any other ordinary court where you have to file petitions. You can only help them to gather evidence, but it’s a court of international record, which is supposed to act on its own violation where there are crimes against humanity committed, like genocide, torture, abductions or kidnaps, enforced disappearances. Look at Article 5 of the Rome statute,” he says.

ICC investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

“All these are crimes against humanity, if we may ask; ICC, where are you when the entire region is being brutalised by this cartel. They tried at one time against Ruto and others, but now seem to have backed off,” Lukwago added. 

He made the clarion call on Monday, November 17, 2025, while addressing the press at the party’s Katonga Road offices. The briefing was held to mark one year since four-time presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye’s imprisonment.

Besigye and his aide, Hajj Obed Lutale, were arrested in Nairobi on November 16, 2024, over subversion-related charges and repatriated to Uganda, where they were briefly tried in the General Court Martial.

Following the landmark Supreme Court ruling on January 31, 2025, which barred the trial of civilians in military courts, their cases were transferred to civilian courts. Since then, attempts by their lawyers to secure bail have hit a brick wall.

However, in light of the recent arrests of Kenyan activists Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo, coupled with rising abductions of human rights defenders across the region, Lukwago argued that the Hague-based institution cannot afford to remain passive.

“We are making a call to the ICC. You know, when genocide happened in Rwanda, the international community came to pour out their hearts and emotions and regretted why they never intervened in time. Right now, it appears to be a conspiracy everywhere internationally,” he said.

Attempts in vain

This is not the first time the Opposition has attempted or called upon ICC to take action against the country’s leadership.

However, on all these occasions, their appeals have fizzled into thin air, prompting some analysts to state that they were for theatrics.

On November 8, 2019, Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, who at the time was vice-president in the shadowy People’s Government, while addressing journalists at Katonga, said they had collected evidence about the role of President Yoweri Museveni and his top lieutenants in the Barlonyo Masacre of 2004, the 2017 raid on Omusinga Charles Wesley Mumbere’s palace in Kasese, which left 200 civilians dead.

“We want to tell Bensouda, the prosecutor of the ICC, that here is a petition of Ugandans bearing authentic and genuine signatures, properly executed with cogent evidence. We are going to take a track full of evidence,” Lukwago stated then.

“We expect not less than two million Ugandans to sign. Not less than two million to sign. In Kampala alone, we have 1.1 million registered voters,” he added.

However, these allegations were brushed off by the late Col. Shaban Bantariza, who at the time was the deputy director of the media centre.

“They started on it a long time ago. They have been saying they want to take Museveni to ICC, Kayihura to the ICC and everybody. Let them go. Who is stopping them?” Bantariza posed.