For more than a month of Dr Kizza Besigye’s house arrest in his farmhouse in Kasangati, Wakiso district 16km north of Kampala, his neighbours too have had to live with the endless and unnerving surveillance occasioned by the presence of heavily armed military and police personnel.

The security men have blocked roads with several anti-riot trucks denying the residents their right to freedom of movement.

Although Dr Besigye’s house arrest started on February 18, his neighbours have lived with the heavy presence of security for longer as they occasionally camped at his farmhouse in 2011 to enforce preventive measures stopping the opposition leader and his supporters from engaging in civil protests.

Every waking moment is a nightmare for Dr Besigye’s neighbour Mama Nampijja, who has to closely monitor her bubbly one-year-old daughter and hyperactive two-year-old son. She lives less than 100 metres from Dr Besigye’s farmhouse. Mama Nampijja says that often, when the police unexpectedly fire teargas to disperse the public, she has to run around looking for her children in the melee.

“I cannot be at peace once the children leave the house and move closer to the roadside to play. So, I restrict their movement to where I can monitor them. I am always afraid that teargas will be fired any moment, which could hurt them,” she said.

Ten years ago, Kasangati was a typical sleepy village on the outskirts of the city. Over time, it started attracting the moneyed working class who acquired land from real estate firms and built gated homes.

Today Kasangati is a developed suburb with petrol stations, supermarkets, pharmacies, recreation facilities and a model health centre for teaching community health.

But the neighbourhood also has its share of the not so well-off — smallholder farmers who supply fresh fruits and vegetables to markets in Kampala, boda bodas and small-scale traders in the mini-markets and retail shops. 

Most of these changes came around 2006 when Dr Besigye, who previously lived in the Luzira suburb of the city, relocated to Kasangati after returning from exile in South Africa, and run for the presidency that year, his second shot at the country’s highest office. The community was buzzing with excitement of being neighbours with a presidential candidate.

Dr Besigye first contested the presidency in 2001, made a second attempt in 2006 and had a third stab at the high office in 2011 whose loss prompted his walk-to-work protests.

This always resulted in his arrest, mostly violently as he resisted, and he would be detained at the Kasangati police station less than half a kilometre away from his house, get charged at the Kasangati Magistrates Court, and then detained at the Kasangati prison.

But it is clear that the country’s security machinery was not content that just because Dr Besigye’s home is close to a police station is a guarantee that he will not cause trouble, so they mounted a roadblock at the turn-off to his home.

The driveway to Dr Besigye’s home has been permanently blocked since February 18 with what has come to be known as “Besigye’s van,” parked across the road.

Sometimes, police use a pickup to block the entrance. A few metres away, the road is blocked with spikes. On either side of the road are squads of police officers doing nothing in particular; some just lying on the grass while others watch passers-by.

With every passing vehicle, a thick cloud of dust engulfs everything around and just like Dr Besigye’s neighbours, the police know that government could have done well to tarmac the road.

On March 22, Dr Besigye was due to appear in court for a ruling on an application he filed at Kasangati Magistrate’s Court against his continued detention in an ungazetted place, his home.

The magistrate informed a fully packed courtroom that the High Court had recalled the file for review. Disappointed, his supporters started walking towards his home but the police intersected and dispersed the crowd. Mama Nampijja and her children were nowhere in sight, and all the other neighbours had locked themselves in their homes.

READ: Besigye house arrest case file goes supersonic: Plot to delay release?

About 100 metres to the left of the entrance to Dr Besigye’s home is another roadblock, manned by traffic and ordinary police who keenly watch youths in a car washing bay in a nearby swamp. The youths occasionally pour water on the road to reduce the dust.

The men in uniform know they are not welcomed here. While road users feel inconvenienced by the slowdown of traffic since the road blocks have reduced the road to a one-way, the youths at the washing bay feel insecure with the presence of the gun-toting police.

“When drivers see the police and security trucks at Dr Besigyes’s gate and more officers near the washing bay, they do not stop here. They move on to the next washing bay. This has affected how much we earn yet we have to pay the owner of the bay daily,” said Stephen Mubiru, a car washer.

“We do not want them here, they have deprived us of our right to earn a living,” he added, saying that he earns $15 a day from which he pays $1.5 to the owner of the bay. Since the “siege” at Dr Besigye’s home started, his earnings have dropped by half. His colleagues concurred.

Because of the siege, Kasangati residents are suspicious of unfamiliar people as the police and military also deployed spies.

“Among you people are Kale Kayihura [Inspector General of Police] spies, and soon we shall know all of you,” a boda boda shouted at a group of journalist and bystanders in front of the El Paraiso pub, about 40m away.

El Paraiso has become a safe haven for journalists after police chased them away from camping at Dr Besigye’s driveway following a scuffle between them on February 27. The police are uncomfortable with the press coverage of the siege.

Kasangati is a considered a Besigye stronghold, with some people referring to his home as “State House Kasangati,” an irony in itself as neighbours have to bear the brunt of police’s brutality and teargas whenever the latter seek to check Dr Besigye’s actions.

The same kind of siege happened in 2011, when Dr Besigye was blocked from attending his walk-to-work protests over the 30.5 per cent inflation rate that caused fuel prices to shoot up.

The neighbours do not know how long they will have to put up with this inconvenience.

“The security at Besigye’s place is keeping Besigye safe not us, ordinary people; I do not like the situation because they are paying attention to Besigye alone and not the general security problem. The police presence here is useless and a waste of time and public resources,” said Asha Babirye, a business woman at Kasangati.

It has been reported elsewhere that the police spend Ush8 million ($2,400) daily on Dr Besigye’s surveillance, a claim the security agencies have not refuted.

But Dr Besigye is not sitting pretty in his home. “I met with officials from Uganda Human Rights Commission, I asked for end of illegal detention in an illegal place,” he tweeted on March 10.

Visitors to his home must secure police permission to go through the tight security, which involves giving full particulars on camera as the area is under surveillance.

At Wampewo grounds, about two kilometres from Kasangati trading centre, are two anti-riot police trucks. Close by are roadblocks which often cause traffic snarl ups.

At Kalerwe market roundabout, two anti-riot police trucks have been strategically parked, facing opposite directions, as a warning to the public to keep the peace. This area is manned by contingent of military police, regular police and the army.