Opposition leader Kizza Besigye mobbed by supporters en route to Kampala as president of 25 years takes oath for fourth term
Police in Uganda have fired teargas at stone-throwing protesters as two contrasting political dramas played out in the capital, Kampala.
A 21-gun salute rang out as Yoweri Museveni was sworn in for a fourth term as president, watched by fellow African leaders including Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe. Outside the city, his rival Kizza Besigye waved to crowds of supporters who formed a raucous procession following the opposition leader's return from Kenya.
Besigye was Museveni's personal doctor during the bush war that saw the rebel leader seize power 25 years ago, but the two are now political foes.
He landed in Uganda a day after being prevented from flying home on a Kenya Airways flight. He had been receiving treatment in Nairobi after a brutal arrest left him temporarily blinded.
Standing through the sunroof of a car, Besigye and his wife, Winnie, waved to several thousand cheering and ululating supporters amid a heavy security presence along the road from Entebbe airport to Kampala. People fled as police used water cannon to scatter them and military police used heavy sticks to beat them, but they later regrouped and continued their march to the capital where Museveni was being inaugurated.
Anne Mugisha, the deputy foreign secretary of Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change, told Reuters: "They have teargassed them and they are beating them up, people are being whipped. If this can be done in front of visiting heads of state and dignitaries, it is obvious that they don't care even about international opinion any more."
Besigye's drive along the 25-mile route took several hours. Police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba said the authorities had wanted him to use a different route, but he refused. "They have inconvenienced many people, including those supposed to catch their flights," she told the Associated Press.
Besigye, who Museveni defeated in an election in February, has staged a series of "walk to work" protests against rising food and fuel prices in recent weeks.
There was a more sombre mood at the inauguration, where a crowd watched Uganda's chief justice minister swear an oath to Museveni. Leaders from Kenya, Tanzania, Southern Sudan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe attended.
Museveni appeared to make reference to Besigye in a speech, saying opponents wanted to cause chaos but their "disruptive schemes" would be defeated. He added: "I thank the Ugandans for overwhelmingly voting for me with 68.3%."
Attention will switch to parliament, where MPs are due to debate the proposed anti-homosexuality legislation that has earned opprobrium around the world on Friday. . But it is not the only item on the agenda. Campaigners have warned that another bill, obliging those who test positive for HIV to tell their partner or face jail, would lead to an increase in violence against women. Women are at risk because they usually learn they have HIV before their male partner, activists say. Testing is part of antenatal checks in pregnancy.
According to the International Community of Women Living With HIV in east Africa, women would be scapegoated and the consequences could be dire.
Lillian Mworeko, the regional co-ordinator for the group, who is based in Uganda, said: "The first culprit for criminalisation may be women. It is women who know their status first. It becomes an entry point for men to take women to court."
Mworeko said there is also a danger that women could be subjected to violent assault if they tell their partners, and be sued by them if they do not.
ICW Eastern Africa says women are already being blamed for HIV transmission. "We have discovered last year that in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, women living with HIV are coerced into sterilisation because they are HIV positive," Corinne Miele, of the organisation, said.
The bill is being debated alongside the bill on homosexuality. But, Mworeko said, "this one is going to impact negatively on more Ugandans than the other one is".