Follow the Drone Plane saga

Of late, examine it and possibly determine the origin of this hostile act. All this is speculation until we get a very concrete expose of this otherwise serious incident.

But look at it this way. Drones have become a common usage, especially in the Western world. For instance, the huge publishing houses, Amazon and Ali Baba, are now using drones to deliver books and other reading material to customers. There are even restaurants that have put drones to their employ to deliver dishes to the customers, instead of having waiters and waitresses.

Many news media are now using them to get pictures, especially for aerial photography, where previously news photographers had no vantage point of shooting a news scene. So drones have become an important part of news coverage. Was this the case with this particular drone?

In that case it is easy for nearly anybody or organization that has the money to buy a drone and put it to whatever use it warns to, including delivering a missile. But all these have to be operated by remote control and the persons operating them should be nearby, especially for the type of drone that is seen in pictures for having had ill-intentions on Entebbe State House.

The person operation such would have had to be near enough for the security to have been able to know who it was that was operating this drone. In that case they would have had the opportunity to neutralize this threat. This is possibly what took place at Entebbe State House. We are not told what happened following this particular breach of State security.

From the pictures, we know that the type of drones that the US uses for its attacks on Al Qaeda and As Shabaab jihadists in Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, look like the conventional planes or jet fighters. For these drone planes, the place where they are controlled is so fat away that the jihadists do not even know what hit them, until it is too late. So this is not the drone the media house is intending to tell us was involved in Entebbe. It is the other type that can be used to serve food in restaurants.

In that case maybe there is an organization here that has bought a drone for its use, possibly, and regrettably, unknown to the security; and it was trying to play a hoax on the security of the State. It would mean that the country should tighten its laws on drones to make certain that the person or organization that is buying this gadget is known to the state security organs.  

Also the Uganda Revenue Authority should take into account that some of these gadgets should be proscribed and not be allowed into the country, except under very strict assurance of the use they have been imported for; or,  that they are imported under very strict terms so as to monitor their usage.

It is possible that some of the media houses in Uganda maybe considering having these type drones for their photographic news coverage. In that case the URA can allow the purchase of these under these conditions of strict regulations to have them brought in for that purpose only.

There is now talk in the West that drones should be specifically regulated, because it is now relatively easy to manufacture them for commercial purposes. The international considerations which are being considered is such that these drones are not used to violate people’s privacy, for instance photographing a naked couple for pornographic purposes.  

szumuz@yahoo.com

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