IT was like a movie, only that the actors were the audience too. Smouldering phone booths, plumes of smoke, blockaded streets, armoured vehicles, shattered display windows. Water cannons. Fleeing people.

Chaos reigned for two days as a combined force of anti-riot and military police battled it out with rioters on the streets of Kampala.

It all started on Monday at 12:45pm at Busega. The Police, backed by other security agencies, arrested Forum for Democratic Change leader Col. (rtd.) Kizza Besigye on his way to Kampala from a weekend of politicking in western Uganda. Two hours later, he was produced in court before being carted away to Luzira, not his home, but to the maximum-security prison.

As soon as his arrest became public, chaos broke out in the city, triggered by his supporters. The rioting started right outside Kampala Central Police Station (CPS) at the Constitutional Square, where a group of Besigye supporters tore down two wooden kiosks and set them ablaze.

Like a bush fire, the riot quickly spread downtown. The concrete flowerpots lining Kampala Road and Luwum Street were overturned.

At Dastur Street, a pick-up truck registration number UG0103F, belonging to National Farmers' Association, was set ablaze. When the crowds saw the car, they started shouting, "Tujokye, tujokye (let's us burn it)."

Quickly, the crowds collected dry materials and hurled them under the car; someone from the crowd pulled out a matchbox and in a short while the car was engulfed in flames. A High Court judge running away from tear gas fumes tripped and fell right in the middle the William Street after his official Ministry of Justice vehicle was attacked at 4:10pm, by crowds who hurled stones at him, smashing the windscreens.

At the Giant Eagle mobile phone outlet, located on Johnson Street, shop attendants delayed in closing up and paid heavily when looters invaded the shop, sweeping away everything they could lay their hands on.

On Wilson Street, a red saloon car belonging to the Ministry of Justice was stripped of valuables, overturned and doused with petrol before being set ablaze. While most petrol stations in the city remained closed, looters would somehow get their five-litre jerrycans filled up, in readiness to set Kampala on fire.

Rowdy crowds ransacked several fast food outlets on Wilson Road and around Arua Park. Two women could be seen fighting over a sack of matooke, which had obviously been looted.

The rioters would lock themselves inside shops or hide in alleys, only coming out to taunt the policemen, before retreating. In retaliation, riot police started lobbing tear gas canisters into the shops and forcing out the occupants, most of them covering their faces with hankies.

Along William, Luwum and Ben Kiwanuka streets, hawkers carrying bottles filled with water from an underground spring in the Old Taxi Park conducted brisk business, selling the water to rioters and other people who needed to wash away the effects of the tear gas from their eyes.

Anti-riot policemen on a 999-patrol pick-up truck hurled a gas canister into a crowd of rioters along Johnson Street but an enterprising rioter picked up the canister before it exploded, and hurled it right back onto the police vehicle, where it promptly exploded, leaving the policemen coughing and sneezing.

Not even the CPS was spared by the tear gas. While fleeing from rioters who were pelting him with stones, a police officer accidentally dropped his cargo of tear gas canisters inside the CPS building. The canisters exploded, forcing the police officers inside the building to run outside; coughing and wiping tears from their eyes.

The MTN, Mango shops and the Simu For You shops along Kampala Road were set ablaze after being looted.

At Unique Collections shop on Platinum Building on Burton Street, a group of private guards examined a mosaic of bullet holes in the display window. "These were live, not rubber bullets," concluded one of them.

A pool of blood in front of a locked metal door confirmed their diagnosis. The source of blood was an old woman, a victim of a stray bullet.

Most shops remained closed; the traders spent the day squatting on the verandas, monitoring the situation and diving into the nearest alley, whenever anti-riot police showed up. However, the hawkers stayed in business. A hawker with a huge mineral water bottle straddled between his legs and a pile of hankies and face towels hanging from his hands, conducted brisk business at the Burton-Luwum street junction. The hankies were going for sh500 each, while the water was free. On buying a hankie, the customer would douse it with water, to make it more effective against the tear gas. Wooden stalls at the entrance to the Old Taxi Park and Nakasero Market were dismantled and dragged into Burton Street, where they were set ablaze by rioters.

Most of the action was around Nakasero Market, Luwum, William, Ben Kiwanuka and Burton streets, where the rioters had blocked streets using concrete manhole covers, rubbish bins and flower containers, and lit bonfires in the middle of streets.

The arrival of four mambas (battle vehicles) at about midday on Tuesday only worsened the situation, as their presence seemed to anger everyone, even those who had so far ignored the riot.

By Wednesday, however, calm had turned to the city, with the business community trying to figure out the loss caused by the two-day riot.

	Copyright © 2005 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).