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Alexander Luyima | The Hoima Post
The Ugandan state is preparing to commit crimes in the dark. Two days before the January 15 general election, the government has ordered the shutdown of the national internet. This is a premeditated blackout designed for premeditated violence.
We have seen this film before. It played in neighboring Tanzania. There, a state imposed curfew and digital silence served as the stage lights for atrocity. Citizens were shot, beaten, and disappeared. The regime assumed the curtain had fallen. But brave Tanzanians, phones in hand, became the world’s eyes. They recorded. They hid the evidence. And when the digital gates lifted, they sent the footage out. The world saw.
And the world did nothing.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan remains in power, presiding over a continued hunt for those who dared to expose the state’s brutality. This is the grim lesson for Uganda: documentation does not guarantee justice. But it does guarantee truth. And in the long, dark night of impunity, truth is the only flame that cannot be fully extinguished.
The Playbook of Tyranny
The internet shutdown is not a technical glitch. It is a weapon of war deployed against a nation’s own people. It is the first step in a well rehearsed playbook.
“A communications blackout is the hallmark of a regime that knows its actions cannot withstand the light of day,” explains Alexander Luyima, a geopolitical analyst specializing in East African authoritarianism. “It creates a space of plausible deniability where the only narrative is the regime’s. It is the digital equivalent of blindfolding the witnesses before the execution.”
In this manufactured darkness, ballots are stuffed, opposition agents are arrested, and, as history relentlessly shows, civilians are killed. The regime calculates that without real time proof, its version of events will stand unchallenged.
The Tanzanian Precedent: A Blueprint for Impunity
Look to Tanzania. The evidence was airtight, visceral, and damning. It was broadcast by major global networks and human rights organizations. The international community issued statements of deep concern.
And then, the silence of real consequence followed.
“The Tanzanian case is a chillingly successful model for the region,” says Luyima. “It demonstrated to other leaders that you can orchestrate severe electoral violence, have it documented by your own citizens, and still face no meaningful international reckoning. It proved that the cost of such brutality is, geopolitically speaking, negligible. For a calculating strongman like Museveni, this is not a warning. It is an invitation.”
The hunt for Tanzania’s citizen journalists continues to this day, a stark message to Ugandans: See what happens to those who tell?
Why You Must Record Anyway
So why record? If it did not stop Samia, why will it stop Museveni?
The answer is not about immediate salvation. It is about refusing to grant the killers a clean crime scene.
First, you must shatter the denial. Your video moves an atrocity from a rumor to a fact. It transforms a regime’s claim that “nothing happened” into an undeniable, prosecutable piece of evidence.
Second, you arm the future. This footage is not for today’s news cycle. It is for the eventual docket of the International Criminal Court. It is for the truth commission that will one day be established. It is for history’s verdict.
Third, you isolate the regime. While tanks are not dispatched, this evidence severs the regime’s ties to legitimacy. It fuels targeted sanctions, asset freezes, and global pariah status, corroding its foundations from within.
“In the archive of human rights, a single verifiable video is worth a thousand diplomatic demarches,” Luyima states. “It outlives the politician. It waits, patiently, for the moment when the political calculus shifts and accountability becomes possible. That moment may not be tomorrow. But without the evidence, it will never come.”
The Ugandan Pact: A Regional Web of Silence
Your suspicion is correct. This is a regional syndicate of power. Museveni did not merely observe Tanzania; he likely endorsed its strategy. There is a silent pact among these leaders: you will not condemn my domestic terror, and I will not condemn yours. They uphold each other’s thrones. This makes external pressure, built on irrefutable evidence, even more critical.
Instructions for the Blackout
Therefore, the directive stands, heavier now with the weight of Tanzania’s lesson.
Keep your phones charged.
Record everything.
Store the footage offline.
When the internet returns, send it. To BBC, to NTV, to Human Rights Watch, to the UN. Flood the servers with the truth.
Do this not because it is safe, but because it is necessary. Do it knowing that the path from evidence to justice is long, twisted, and strewn with the bodies of those who tried before. But do it knowing that the alternative, a darkness where the state can kill without a trace, is the end of the nation itself.
Record. Not for today’s hope, but for tomorrow’s judgment. Let them see you watching. Let the world watch with you.
The blackout is their curtain. Your phone is the stage light. Turn it on.
