The Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) have assured pressure group People Power led by Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine, that they have started arresting all people defying the ban on civilians wearing red berets.
UPDF Spokesperson Brig.Richard Karemire resounded the warning that the Defence Council has permitted all UPDF soldiers alongside sister security agencies to start arresting all civilians who are selling, distributing and wearing red berets.
“People Power movement supporters don’t have the military capacity to determine which legal operations as military we should do or not. What they have to know is that they should stop wearing such berets and even others should freely hand them to our offices to avoid any inconveniences,” Karemire said.
He also informed People Power sympathizers to obey the laws because those who will be found in the wrong will be corrected in a hard way.
While responding to People Power spokesperson Joel Ssenyonyi’s utterances that UPDF will not get anything by monopolizing the red beret wear, Karemaire said that they gazetted the berets one; to avoid political influences and second, to weed out wrong elements who would have used military attires to harm Ugandans.
He went on to reveal that the minister of defence Adolf Mwesige and Chief of Defence Forces Gen. David Muhoozi are all lawyers and as an institution, the UPDF also have a legal team, which shows that the decision they took to remove red berets from politicians was lawful because it sides with the constitution of Uganda.
Through gazette notice volume CXII Number 46 published on September 18, the army banned the wearing, making and selling of red berets.
However, Ssenyonyi said they are ready to defy the ban and go to jail because none of them will abandon the dress code that has awakened the desire for change among Ugandans.