Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine to seek presidency, chides West over rights
"Some leaders in the West are complicit in our suffering. They are here to crack their [business] deals and they don't care about human rights," he said. "If they were standing for the values that they profess, then they would be castigating all these gross human rights violations."
Uganda is considered by the West as an ally in the fight against jihadists and has deployed troops in Somalia.
Uganda's justice minister said this week that Eddie Mutwe, an activist in Wine's National Unity Platform (NUP) party, who also doubles as his personal body guard, appeared to have been tortured while in captivity.
Museveni's son and head of the military, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, said he had kept him in his basement and that he was using him as a punching bag. After being missing for a week Mutwe was on Monday produced in court, charged with robbery and remanded.
Wine said Mutwe told him he had been electrocuted, waterboarded and beaten.
Police spokesperson Rusoke Kituma did not respond to a Reuters call for comment on the allegations. Reuters contacted a spokesperson for Uganda's defence forces seeking comment from Kainerugaba. He did not respond.
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The group was convened by the Progressive International and launched on 31 January 2025. It is chaired by Colombia and South Africa, with current members also including Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, and Senegal. The coalition—spanning Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean—pledged to support ICJ and International Criminal Court (ICC) rulings, prevent arms transfers to Israel, bar military fuel shipments, and pursue legal accountability for violations in Gaza. Western governments have long invoked the language of a 'rules-based international order'—sometimes in strident moral terms—to justify their global domination. But this order has often served to shield the West and its allies from legal scrutiny while imposing strictures on others. The 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States was a clear violation of international law. The NATO-led regime change intervention in Libya in 2011 was also unlawful. In Afghanistan, elements of the two-decade occupation—including targeted killings and drone strikes—breached international humanitarian law. Israel's bombing campaigns in Syria and Yemen, sometimes backed or tacitly accepted by the West, included strikes on civilian infrastructure and violations of territorial sovereignty and have been deemed unlawful by UN experts and legal assessments. In each case, a supposedly rules-based order yielded to the impunity of powerful Western states. Until now, the idea of international law as a universal normative system has been more aspiration than reality. The United States has not ratified the Rome Statute and has actively resisted ICC investigations, including imposing sanctions during the probe into alleged U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. Israel remains outside the court's jurisdiction. The ICJ—though central to the UN system—continues to be undermined: the U.S. withdrew from its compulsory jurisdiction in 1986 after being found to have violated international law in Nicaragua. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. 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In the US the Biden administration expressed concern, but pressure escalated dramatically when Donald Trump returned to the is one reason among many why the Hague Group matters. By aligning with other states in defence of international law, South Africa has built a collective bloc. This bloc's cohesion offers protection as well as enhancing the aim of defending international law. Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, argues that the Hague Group provides 'a global push for collective action through international law—no arms for genocide, no aid for occupation, and no tolerance for apartheid.' In her view, the initiative not only exemplifies states meeting their legal obligations but also challenges the exceptionalism that shields powerful states from accountability. She has argued that the Group's efforts 'must become a global initiative' if the integrity of international law is to be affirmed. 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