Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
“Do not,” warned Ben, the security specialist at the U.S. embassy, “go toward a crowd of people. Move away as quickly as you can when a crowd starts to gather.” Uganda is among those countries distinguished by regular occurrences of mob justice within its borders.
A couple of U.S. college students in their study abroad semester at Uganda Christian University, perhaps motivated by curiosity mixed with the natural tendency to behave in ways opposite from what one has been told, went towards a crowd instead of away from it and witnessed the beating to death of a man by a mob.
The day after we arrived, the local paper had a story about a landlord who was first hacked and then burned to death by irate tenants who had heard he was thinking of selling his property. It happens here regularly enough, “mob justice,” a category of justice within this society. Litigation is rare among those Ugandans who have cheaper and more effective ways of retribution at their disposal.