First, it was the towering former Police chief General Kale Kayihura who got flat-felled in 2019. And last week, Maj Gen Abel Kandiho, head of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) together with high-profile Iranian and Syrian officials for serious human rights abuse and repressive acts targeting innocent civilians, political opponents, and peaceful protestors.
“As part of a whole-of-government commitment to democracy, Treasury is taking a number of actions aimed at promoting accountability for those who undermine trust in democratic institutions. Treasury is equipped with powerful tools to target the financial systems and flows that allow bad actors to profit from corruption and abuse,” OFAC said in a statement released on December 7, 2021.
“…Treasury is targeting over a dozen government officials across three countries in connection with serious human rights abuse that undermines democracy,” said Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control Andrea M. Gacki.
“Treasury will continue to defend against authoritarianism, promoting accountability for violent repression of people seeking to exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
The sanctioning of Maj Gen Kandiho has been a protracted process. Kandiho comes off a list of seven names US congressmen fiercely lobbied the Donald Trump administration to sanction in 2020.
In December 2020, US congressmen wrote to the then US Secretary of State Mike R. Pompeo urging the Donald Trump administration to conjure up a more muscular response to human rights abuses in Uganda.
They said Uganda was sliding toward authoritarianism as the country headed for a general election on January 14 2021 in which incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled since 1986, was seeking a sixth straight term in office.
In the letter to Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the congressmen said Museveni’s government had a history of repression including attacks on independent media, arrests, and torture of opposition leaders and supporters, and a failure to prosecute those responsible for extrajudicial killings.
“Diplomatic rhetoric alone has had little impact on President Museveni’s behavior. Instead, he has further consolidated power while preventing the emergence of a viable democratic opposition,” the letter said.
In an apparent response to that plea, Mike R. Pompeo said in a tweet that Uganda was a long-standing partner and Washington expected its partners to hold free and fair elections.
“We are paying close attention to the actions of individuals who seek to impede the ongoing democratic process,” he said in 2020.
Pompeo said the US would not hesitate to consider serious consequences for those responsible for election-related violence and repression. And in April 2021, the US Secretary of State, Anthony J Blinken announced that the US government had imposed visa restrictions on Ugandans involved in undermining the democratic process in Uganda.
In a statement posted on the USA Department of State website, Blinken said, “The government of Uganda’s actions during the recent electoral process undermined democracy and respect for human rights. Today I am announcing visa restrictions on those believed to be responsible for or complicit in undermining the democratic process in Uganda including during the country’s January 14th elections and the campaign period that preceded it.”
The statement further said the Uganda government’s actions represented a continued downward trajectory for the country’s democracy and respect for human rights as recognized and protected by Uganda’s constitution.
“Opposition candidates were routinely harassed, arrested, and held illegally without charge. Ugandan security forces were responsible for the deaths and injuries of dozens of innocent bystanders and opposition supporters as well as violence against journalists that occurred before, during, and after elections.”
Though no names were mentioned then, at least we have an inkling of who must be on the travel blacklist. When US Congressmen began pushing the outgone Donald Trump administration last October for a more muscular response to what they described as “human rights abuses in Uganda and the country’s slide toward authoritarianism, the lead campaigners brandished a list of errant Ugandan officers that should be sanctioned.
The list featured mainly men in security and law enforcement jobs with all tools of coercion, who were at the frontlines of enforcing law and order in the run-up to the January 14, 2021 general elections.
The then-Democratic chairman of the USA House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, and the most senior Republican on the panel then, Michael McCaul, asked the USA government last October to punish seven top Ugandan security officials under the Global Magnitsky Act for their role in rights abuses.
They included Lt. Gen. Peter Elwelu (Commander of Land Forces, for his role in the 2016 killings in Kasese), Maj. Gen. James Birungi (former Commander of President Museveni’s elite force – the Special Forces Command [SFC]), Maj. Gen. Don William Nabasa (now SFC Commander), Maj. Gen. Abel Kandiho (Director, Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence [CMI]), Maj. Gen. Steven Sabiiti Muzeyi (former deputy Inspector of General of Police and now General Manager Luwero Industries), Commissioner of Police Frank Mwesigwa, and Col. Chris Serunjogi Ddamulira, the director of Crime Intelligence in the Uganda Police Force.
So far Kandiho is the only one on the list who has been sanctioned officially. The fate of the rest is unknown. In the April 2021 statement, Blinken said, “This electoral process was neither free nor fair. Nevertheless, we continue to urge all parties to renounce violence and respect freedoms of expression, assembly, and movement. The government of Uganda must significantly improve its record and hold accountable those responsible for flawed election conduct, violence, and intimidation.”
He said the US government will continue to evaluate additional action against individuals complicit in undermining democracy and human rights in Uganda, as well as their immediate family members.
“The United States also emphasizes that we strongly support the Ugandan people and we remain committed to working together to advance democracy and mutual prosperity for both our countries,” the statement said.
US CASE AGAINST KANDIHO
As commander of the Ugandan Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), Major General Abel Kandiho (Kandiho) and other CMI officers have arrested, detained, and physically abused persons in Uganda, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said in a statement last week.
“The CMI targeted individuals due to their nationality, political views, or critique of the Ugandan government. Individuals were taken into custody and held, often without legal proceedings, at CMI detention facilities where they were subjected to horrific beatings and other egregious acts by CMI officials, including sexual abuse and electrocutions, often resulting in significant long-term injury and even death. During these incarcerations, victims were kept in solitary confinement and unable to contact friends, family, or legal support. In some cases, Kandiho was personally involved, leading interrogations of detained individuals.”
“Kandiho is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being a foreign person who is or has been a leader or official of an entity that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, serious human rights abuse relating to his tenure.”
But Kandiho is defiant. Interviewed on December 11 about the charges and sanctions, Gen Kandiho told the New Vision:
“I have no business with the US. It is political. They should just be careful not to create unnecessary enemies and lose allies.”
GLOBAL MAGNITSKY
Building upon the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, E.O. 13818 was issued on December 20, 2017, in recognition that the prevalence of human rights abuse and corruption that have their source, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States, had reached such scope and gravity as to threaten the stability of international political and economic systems.
The framers argued that “Human rights abuse and corruption undermine the values that form an essential foundation of stable, secure, and functioning societies; have devastating impacts on individuals; weaken democratic institutions; degrade the rule of law; perpetuate violent conflicts; facilitate the activities of dangerous persons, and undermine economic markets.
The United States seeks to impose tangible and significant consequences on those who commit serious human rights abuse or engage in corruption, as well as to protect the financial system of the United States from abuse by these same persons.
WHAT USA SANCTIONS MEAN FOR KANDIHO
The official sanctions against named and unnamed high-profile government officials shine critical light on an increasingly important question: How damaging are the existential consequences for such banishment for the country and certainly the sanctioned individuals?
When the USA imposed sanctions under the Global Magnitsky programme against Gen Kale Kayihura in 2019, his larger-than-life persona diminished. He lost his freedom to roam the globe and his wealth stashed abroad was frozen.
Kayihura and his immediate family members were sanctioned and designated under the Magnitsky Act. That simply meant they couldn’t be issued with a United States visa and had their properties, which he fully owns, or partly owns with others in the USA frozen.
In the statement by the US Department of Treasury, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Kayihura was accused of having been a leader or official of a police force that engaged in or whose members have engaged in serious human rights abuse against Ugandan citizens, as well as for his involvement in corruption.
The statement also said that all property and interests in property of Kayihura, and of any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by him alone or with other designated persons, that are in the United States or in the possession or control of USA persons, are blocked and must be reported to OFAC.
OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all transactions by USA persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons.
Kayihura, who was Uganda’s police boss for 12 years, was sacked in March 2018 and replaced by his deputy Martins Okoth Ochola. Before the sanctions drop, investigations must be done.
This means the USA government investigates the individuals for alleged human rights abuses while at the same time monitors their movements and gathers any information regarding assets and dealings both in Uganda and abroad.
On the surface, a sanctioned individual under the Magnitsky Act is barred entry into the US, and any assets he or she owns there are frozen. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, was a bipartisan bill passed by the USA Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012, intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009 and also to grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia.
Since 2016, the Act, which applies globally, authorizes the USA government to sanction those who it sees as human rights offenders, freeze their assets and ban them from entering the USA but the law has in some form or shape been embraced by the European Union.
Effective December 21, 2017, US President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13818, which was the first implementation of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act under which the USA government imposed sanctions against 13 individuals described as “human rights abusers, kleptocrats, and corrupt actors.”
The individuals sanctioned included; Yahya Jammeh, former president of The Gambia, and Roberto Jose Rivas Reyes, president of Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council. An additional 39 affiliated companies and individuals were also sanctioned by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
According to The Economist, Dan Gertler, an “Israeli mining billionaire” and longtime close friend of Joseph Kabila, former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for decades, was also listed in President Trump’s EO Annex and placed on the OFAC financial sanctions list.
In March 2019, the European Parliament passed a resolution 447– 70 in favor of passing a Magnitsky Act for the European Union. On July 6, 2020, United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced the first sanctions under a law similar to the Global Magnitsky Act, where 47 individuals came under travel restrictions and asset freezes.
The regulations were meant to give the government power to impose sanctions on those involved in the worst human rights abuses around the world. The law has since gotten a very long arm stretching across Europe that could complicate the lives of people sanctioned by America.
“Gen Kayihura is now doomed if he needs to travel to Europe or owns any assets there,” a security official told The Observer on condition of anonymity.
“It has also become risky for the seven (army and police officers) on the US watch list to travel abroad and if they own anything there, now is the time to dispose of them as soon as possible.”
The administration and enforcement of these sanctions are delegated to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a financial intelligence agency that operates under the US Department of the Treasury.
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