Classifying anyone as the “successful” at anything tends to reflect more on the source than the subject. So keep that in mind when I make the following statement: Yoga Adhola is a writer whose power to express himself in words mirrored his expressiveness with politics. He is someone who lives and breathes politics. His life is extraordinary not only for the years he has counted but for the people he has known and the scenes he has witnessed. He mentions a lot of people he has rubbed shoulders with in his book, ‘”UPC and national-democratic liberation in Uganda”. He touches on a variety of volatile ideas here including the 1971 coup sponsored by the British and Israelites.
In 1962, Yoga joined Kings College Budo School, where he deliberately refused to speak Luganda because he held some anti-Baganda feelings, something that attracted him to the UPC and probably explain why UPC was formed in the first place. In his book, he keeps referring to his ‘hatred’ of the Baganda as Buganda’s social domination over other tribes in Uganda. After his university education at the University of Nairobi, he moved to Tanzania in 1970s that brought him closer to Akena Adoko, Museveni and Obote. Yoga joined Museveni’s FRONASA before he switched back to his zone of comfort in UPC, a party he has publicly defended to the teeth up to now. Yoga doesn’t hide his admiration of Obote to the extent that he used Obote’s photo for his front book cover, such that its easy to mistake him to have been the author. I don’t know whether he did that for easy marketing purposes but I found it a bit weird. I also failed to understand how he could see a ‘gesture’ by Obote yet there were just talking on a phone to each other , a week before Obote’s death.
In Western culture, virtually everything is understood through the process of storytelling, often to the detriment of reality. When we recount history, we tend to use the life experience of one person– the “journey” of a particular “hero,” in the lingo of the mythologist Joseph Campbell–as a prism for understanding everything else. That inclination works perfectly well when you read Yoga’s book, especially on how Uganda National Congress (UNC) and UPC came to be formed. I also learnt something from the book on this very story which I didn’t know before, that Obote had been elected the president of UNC to replace Ignatius Musazi in 1958 before he eventually allied with the Uganda People’s Union (UPU) to form UPC. What I failed to understand why Obote found it necessary to change the name of the party instead of just recruiting the UPU guys into the party. After all, the original ideas of the ANC were for interegration of all Ugandans, and UPU were just a bunch of traders.
Densely written, crammed with extensive endnotes indicative of a PhD thesis, Yoga’s book offers no entertainment but there is a lot to learn there. Having seen some of his arguments on the Ugandans At Heart forum (UAH), It took me a long time to finish his book, and I stupidly didn’t give it a first priority. I bought the book in 2016 but I have been reading it in bits. However, I liked the way he describes the Buganda wars against Bunyoro, Busoga and Ankole, e.t.c, and their attempts to try to spread their nationalism, which he called ‘identity chauvinism’.
I had hoped that he would be moved to play a crucial role in the current politics of Uganda, especially considering that he was old enough when we got independence in 1962 and understands a lot of things, but I guess he was put off by the way Museveni does his politics: ‘you’re his friend or ally today, but you are an enemy tomorrow if you disagree with him over anything’. As a result, Yoga has joined the vanished worlds of so many wasted resourceful Ugandans abroad, and that is extremely sad.
I will try to share some of the ideas in his book with UAH members whenever I get a chance, God willing.
Friends,
The big part of me hates dictators but I also know that its easy to judge someone when you aren’t in their place……Just look at Brother Saddam Hussein: he believed in God, prayed five times a day, read the quran, but he also mercilessly executed his enemies. I have got a video of him performing Salah but, for some reason, Facebook has temporarily blocked me from posting videos…………….. That’s why part of me wishes to meet Mr.Museveni one day, and ask him why he does things the way he does them, and I’m no way comparing the late Saddam(24 yrs in power) to Mr.Museveni(31 yrs and still counting), because I believe the former did more for Iraq compared to the Uganda leader.
The big question is: how does a leader stop himself from becoming a dictator? Is it something that others have to stop before one becomes a president or its something a leader has to work on himself? Would Uganda have been better off with a 1962 constitution that gave the president less powers before everything was changed in 1997 by Obote?
”This is the first book length study of the Uganda Peoples’ Congress ever.The book does for UPC and Uganda as a whole what no other book has done for both so far. It employs three sets of theories: the theory of national-democratic liberation; the theory of modes of production; and, the theory of social identities to analyse the Ugandan situation.
Through the use of these theories it succeeds in unravelling issues which have remained unexplained so far. Such issues include why there have been a contradiction between Buganda, on the one side, and the rest of the identities/nationalities/tribes of Uganda on the other. The book explains that this contradiction arose from the fact that Buganda has been a dominant power/identity in the region since around 1600.
The book also reveals in great details how British intelligence masterminded the 1971 coup which brought Idd Amin to power.
It does a searing analysis of Obote’s nationalisation measures of the late 60s, denying to socialist claims about them and showing the measures to be nationalistic as well as progressive.
It treats the eruptions of the mid 60s which ended with the abolition of the monarchies as aspects of the national-democratic liberation.
It has a chapter which takes a swipe at the National Resistance Movement.
At the end of the book is an appendix which gives a critical analysis of the position of Marxists, particularly Professor Mahmood Mamdani on UPC.
How to buy the Adhola book: type in either Yoga Adhola or “UPC and national-democratic liberation in Uganda” at AMAZON.COM”
Friends,
Alcohol poisoning is not only about consuming a toxic amount of alcohol, usually over a short period or binge drinking, but it can also occur when someone puts something other than alcohol in one’s drink. So, yes, Kabaka Mutesa 11 might have died of Alcohol poisoning due to certain chemicals that were put in his drink. I’m not saying it is true because i wasn’t there, but it is possible considering the hatred then between Obote and Mutesa 11. DP’s Bwengye in his book about the 1908 elections and the rigging that occurred, he seems pretty convinced that Mutesa 11 was poisoned by Obote’s agents.
‘Fitina’ poisoning as allegedly some people say that it was what Kabaka Mutesa11 died of in London, is also a form of ‘food poisoning’. It is categorized as ‘chemical’ food poisoning as far as i know.
Chemical food poisoning is possible in production-line cooking as done at restaurants and facilities such as large-scale soup kitchens, as well as cooking as done in the home. There is no guarantee that cooking would be done properly. In fact, as the number of cases of infection that result from cooking food prepared at public facilities show, it is almost guaranteed that there WILL be numerous infections if the meat is used, and probably several deaths.
mutesa11’s death certicate
Yes, deaths is possible when it comes to food poisoning though most people in developing nations don’t take it seriously. Food poisoning kills over 9100 people a year in the USA which a higher number of deaths than the Vietnam War produced among U.S. soldiers.
In Uganda, people ‘poison’ each other intentionally through food as this is common knowledge. So, we should probably hire people to protect our cooked food in case of any weddings or any other function. Yes, there is ‘fitina’ in this world. One of my OGs at Namagabi UMEA lost her husband when he went to visit his relatives in Uganda because someone intentionally poisoned him through food. She is now struggling with two kids here in London, and this is really sad.
You see, Public health is not something that you can just leave to food producers and cooks. The govt has to set standards and also to enforce them. This is one reason we have governments in the first place. Why? If you eat at a public restaurant, government health inspectors guarantee your food safety. If you eat at a private function, the organiser/s should be responsible for ensuring food safety, and the government has to ensure that the food safety regulations are observed.
I will let the medics explain to you in details if you want but that is the truth according to the office of National Statistics (ONS) here in England. ONS is one of the most reliable official bodies when it comes to stuff like that. Try to split the two words: alcohol + poisoning. The Poisoning bit itself happens when you take into your body a substance that damages your cells and organs and injures your health. This substance may be the too much alcohol that overpowers your liver or poisonous chemicals put in your alcohol. The poisoning therefore results from drinking a toxic (poisonous) amount of alcohol, usually over a short amount of time.
When you walk into a pub, ask for a drink, go to the loo leaving your drink unattended, and someone puts some poisonous substance in your drink, if you happen to die, Alcohol poisoning would be recorded as the cause of death.Well, like is aid, When DP’s Francis Bwengye wrote a book about the rigging of the 1980 elections, he mentioned somewhere in the first two chapters that Obote poisoned some people including Kabaka Mutesa 11. I read the book ages ago but it is there is you want to look for it.
The human body is capable of processing 1 to 1.5 ounces of alcohol in an hour. This is the amount usually contained in a standard drink – a 12 ounce bottle of beer, a five ounce glass of wine, or one mixed drink (however, many mixed drinks and punches contain far greater quantities of alcohol).
The definition used by ONS in ICD-9 includes all deaths from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, even when alcohol is not specifically mentioned on the death certificate. There are various reasons that have been identified to account for known under reporting of alcoholism on death certificates. These include the certifier of the death not being aware of previous alcoholism, or being uncertain of its relationship with the cause of death.
ONS are good because you can find out anything you want about UK from them. Actually, i think they are the best. They can tell you any statistics about any area in the UK. All you need is A POSTCODE, and bingo. I love them
Friends,
It’s true that Obote wasn’t as corrupt as the current lot in government though his family still have to explain on how they acquired that house in Kololo. While in exile in Lusaka Zambia, he owned a Restaurant called ‘The Red Rooster’.Whether he ends up in paradise or hell after the Day of Judgment, we leave …that to God.
There is a story in the Bible. A rich man who was not a lover of God died, so too did a poor man who did know God. The rich man went to hell and he could see the poor man, Lazarus, in Abraham’s bosum. The rich man was not having a good time in hell and he was desperate for a drink. He called out to Lazarus to just give him a drop of water. Lazarus of course could not. The rich man cried out to God, “Just let me go back and tell my brothers that God exists etc. so that they can avoid this place”. God said “They have the Word of God and the prophets – if they do not believe that than they won’t believe you. I think this is in Luke 16:19-31
Reverends can help me here, but how does God judge a man who was a leader and presided over the deaths of several people he was supposed to protect? By the way, the question is not specifically about Obote[ because some people think he is a saint] and I don’t wish to see them putting my head on the platter b4 I have even confessed my sins.
Most of the NRM mobilizers will be relieved when Besigye retires from FDC leadership because he still remains the best ‘chocolate’ in a box. Love or hate him, he is the most courageous, toughest and principled politician in Uganda history. The guy is undoubtedly the best opposition politician in Uganda’s history. He’s the best at what he does. When he talks on politics, he usually has been worth listening to more than any other FDC politician. Historians and political analysts will write endless books about him. The only thing missing in his political life is becoming the president of Uganda which he almost did in 2006 if Dr.Badru Kiggunud’s EC were not cowards. They reportedly allowed themselves to be intimidated but most political observers ‘believe’ that Besigye won those elections.
Museveni only outsmarted him in elections and I think this is the reason why he wants to retire, not forgetting the famous Gilbert Arinaitwe who liked playing with Besigye’s head using tear gas. What makes Museveni to stand out is that he thinks 10 moves ahead when it comes to rigging elections, and he planned for the presidency for a long time. The rest of the opposition leaders think two moves, and are proud of it. Museveni is probably the best politician of his generation in Uganda- at least of his NRM party; even Besigye would have to agree.
As for UPC, the way there are treating Dr. Otunu now has made me feel the slightest for them. He does not deserve to be treated this way just because he is not a Langi or related to late Obote. The smears his political enemies are now flinging mark them, not him, as beneath contempt.
Olara Otunu is the current UPC president
It’s good that Otunu has fired some of the UPC ‘rebels’ especially David Pulkol and Rurangaranga. The former chairman made it clear that that he will use whatever means necessary to incriminate the UPC president which was unacceptable. So he had to go. As for Pulkol, I have never trusted him even one little bit. He is one character that can give you a poisonous injection on the bum while feeding you a samosa at the same time. He was previously working for the Museveni intelligence system; then he moved to FDC temporarily before joining some funny political party I have forgotten. When Otunu came back, Pulkol went UPC mad with the famous bandwagon song of ‘we are coming back home’. Oh God, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read in the paper that Otunu had given him an executive position in UPC.
Anyway, it’s good that Otunu has started learning Uganda’s complicated politics on a table very slowly. In Uganda, all surviving party leaders have been sleeping with one eye open. Otherwise, Otunu should copy some of Museveni’s ugly tactics to survive the current situation. If he doesn’t’ he is a goner not a ‘gunner’ (like Arsenal supporters). If he wants to know some of these tactics, he should freely consult me privately and I help him out, but I will charge him some fee because I need to buy presents for my daughters before the New Year. But overall, he seems to be catching up with the game.
Of course there is a limit to what Otunu can do since he is not as ‘executive’ as president Museveni. The later allegedly uses the intelligence organs and URA to obtain innuendo and political ammo against his enemies, and the police and army to harass his enemies, but otunu can do a little bit of Museveni’s tricks that are less than that to survive his enemies. USA’s Richard Nixon too used IRS to target his political enemies. Bill Clinton also reportedly used to keep files of his political enemies.
Nevertheless, I think Otunu should have kept Robert Kanusu in his team. I don’t know Kanusus personally but he seems to be a people’s person and a grass root politician. He should have won that election in Jinja if NRM had not resorted to Museveni’s ways of survival. If it is true that Kanusu too had also been comprised, Otunu should have deployed him somewhere else but kept him in his team, while at the same time keeping an eye on him. Otunu should know that not everybody in Museveni’s cabinet are his friends. In fact, he does not trust most of them. But he has got his boys that keep an eye on all of Museveni’s ministers. They are people in Museveni’s government whose job is to monitor the likes of Edward Ssekandi (VP), Saida Bumba(Gender ministry), even Mbabazi( PM), and others. The man allegedly keeps a file in his office on all his political enemies in and outside NRM. He uses them when very necessary.
Actually, if people had ears, they would not come out to publicly portray themselves as Museveni’s friends because the man has often said that his only friends are his wife and kids, and he is right. In Uganda politics, you don’t trust anyone if you want to survive for a long time. So, Otunu should forget about New York or UN politics and sort out the mess in UPC. He should not fire all his enemies as he is doing because some of them are better to be kept in the party while keeping an eye on them.
I would say it has more with keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer. For example, The Nazis and the Soviets were on opposite sides during the Spanish civil war. But why did Stalin and Hitler sign the Non-Aggression Pact on August 19, 1939? Why did they agree to the division of Poland and invaded it together? Meanwhile in the period just before that pact, Stalin had been warning all the British, the Americans, and the French that the Germans were getting to be dangerous. In addition there were elements of the German intelligence service that had been trying to work with British MI to assassinate Hitler. These German agents were ignored. The capitalists at that time thought that Nazi Germany would be a good bulwark against the Soviet Union.
Otherwise, let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy X-mas and new year. Besigye said recently while at Makerere University that 2012 is gonna be ‘bloody’. So, let’s keep our eyes on the ball.
The appointment of Chris Rwakasisi as one of Museveni’s presidential advisors should not come as a surprise to anyone but it has greater implications for UPC as a political party. Museveni has somehow succeeded in ‘finishing off’ UPC, a mission he started as soon as he got power in 1986. And if UPC make a terrible mistake and hand over the leadership of the party to Obote’s son, then they will be dead and buried because they are constant rumors in Kampala now that all Obote’s sons might have also been bought off before the elections. Jimmy Akena himself did not do himself any favours when he recently tried to punch Dr.Otunu at a press conference in Kampala.
UPC should leave the party in the hands of Dr.Otunu though he should also be watched 24/7. Otunu’s determination to seek a meeting with Museveni at some point last year made him look like a great loser. Generally speaking, UPC seems to be finished if one looks at how desperate some of their leaders have become.
But what has caused all this? UPC was a party built on tribalism and religion contrary to what some people are saying. It was a protestant led and dominated party. Its top leadership was dominated by tribes from the north. Before independence, Shaban Opolot and Iddil Amin were on top of things in the army with the later deputising. The army was dominated by northerners throughout Obote’s leadership, and he never made any attempts to change what the British had started when he became the prime minister in 1962.
After the attempts on his life in 1969 at Nakivubo, Obote replaced Iddil Amin with an Acholi in Brigadier Okoya. After the murder of Okoya, some of Amin’s responsibilities were given again to two northerners (both Kakwas though fellow Muslims).
The Oyite Ojoks, Tito Okello, Bazilio Okello, e.t.c formed the nucleus of the army during Obote 2. The Obote 2 government fell mainly because of the rivalry between Acholis and Langis. The current UPC is falling before us because of the same rivalry. Apart from the fact that Rwakasisi owes his life now to president Museveni who gave him a presidential pardon after being in prison with a death sentence hanging over his head, the Rwakasisis no longer feel like they could be part of this anymore and Museveni has taken advantage of this. Anyway, Rwakasisi is an old man and he wants to make a few bucks for his family before he meets his creator. I’m sure the book is reportedly writing is going to make Museveni look like a Uganda ‘messiah’. May be he would have gone back to UPC if the Langis and Acholis had put their houses in order.
Rwakasisi knows that Museveni is using him. Moses Ali was appointed to Museveni cabinet in 1986 as Minister of Tourism despite looking like ‘Iddil Amin’ in so many ways. Museveni kept him for some years, used him, dumped him for a while and now he has brought him back. Rwakasisisi will go through the same drain, if he is lucky, till when he meets his creator.
The domination of northerners in UPC is unfortunately very true and the British were partly to blame. The British formulated the new Uganda in 1962 along two bases of power- economic and military. Economic power was concentrated in the south while the military was left in the hands of northerners. The Baganda, particularly, were more involved in a lot of economic adventures with the help of the British before any other region in the country. For instance, they were the first to start growing coffee in the 1920s before any region in the country.
When Obote came to power, he continued with this divide between the north and south instead of changing it. When you look at UPC of 1960s, it was mainly dominated by northerners and Protestants. Don’t be deceived by the names of some people from other tribes who were recruited in the party (especially from DP between 1964 and 1970) but the real people with power were northerners. They were running the show and they were the one that brought it to an end in 1985 because of infighting amongst themselves.
Iddil Amin( a former UPC) tried to sort out this division or imbalance between the south and north but the world either never gave him a chance or he did not also help himself in the long run. For instance, when he expelled the Asians, most of the northerners benefited from it and somehow became so rich. But Amin also never recruited a lot of southerners in the army which I think helped people like Museveni to find a way of forming an army dominated by southerners too.
Amin did some things to bridge the gap between the north and south. I don’t know whether some of the things were intentional or not. He summoned an inter-religious conference to establish a dialogue between catholic, protestant and Muslim leaders. I think this conference was held in Kabale. He even claimed two of his own sons were to be trained as catholic priests though it never happened.
He released Ben Kiwanuka from the detention Obote had put him in earlieron, something which kind of brought both the Bganda and catholics closer to the northerners. He actually later appointed Ben as chief justice.
He brought the body of Sir Edward Mutesa who had died in exile in London, for a state funeral. This made an impression on southerners especially the Baganda.
He united Muslims and also initially tried to empower the Kakwas economically, something that created some form of balance economically between the north and south. The Kakwas, however, later tried to bring down their own tribes mate in March 1974 in the abortive coup attempt by Amins’ chief of staff, late Brigadier Charles Arube.
Political parties in Uganda tend to be directly linked to the army. That is why im not even mentioning the real organs of the UPC party. From 1966, Uganda politics have been shaped by the military and it has remained so up to now.
One of the factors that may help UPC to survive the current onslaught by its enemies will be the big recruitment of membership from other tribes, particularly from the south, into responsible positions in the party. To be fair to Otunu, I think he is exactly doing that. If he can find a way of sustaining this, then UPC’s image will change forever. Any party that wants to remain popular in Uganda must have a support base in the south of Uganda because the north has always been less populated and it is likely to remain so.
So UPC members should give Otunu a chance; help to guide him instead of fighting him, and then assess his performance at the end of his term. The Langis and Acholis should also stop looking at UPC as their party, and just let the party change itself for the better depending on the demands in the country.
Corruption in Africa is endemic because It is not only in Uganda . The leaders we have got today are not willing to fight it. At least, in Ghana, they have started moving a step forward ever since Jerry Rawlings had people who were found guilty of major acts of corruption executed by firing squad in 1983.
Combating corruption at presidential level is actually more difficult because the president has got immunity while he is still in power. By the way, up to now I don’t know how to interpret president Museveni’s shs.770m (about US $300,000) donation to a school in Kigali. Does a poor person supposed to donate food to a neighbor when he cannot feed his own family? I don’t know what religious scholars say about this. And that is why I don’t know how to interpret Museveni’ actions. That trip alone must have cost Ugandans an arm and a leg because I thought four days of state visit in Rwanda were not necessary, but hey, what do I know?
His donation on a ‘’suspect project’’ looks more like wasteful expenditure on his part as a leader of a starving country than anything else. However, the root cause of corruption stems from those who led us after independence. When we got independence in 1962, Uganda drifted from a bureaucratic administration that emphasized good governance to one that put more emphasis on the sovereignty of politics. We had a breather of some good governance when King Edward Mutesa 11 was president but things got worse between 1964 and 1966 when Obote took over.
When Obote took over, we ended up with a bureaucratic autocracy lacking in accountability, transparency and the rule of law. It was almost the same everywhere in Africa. For instance, the first country to get independence, Ghana, ended up with a corrupt Nkrumah at the end of his leadership. Nkrumah and his post independent leaders started out well but they got lost at some point.
As a result, corruption became one of the main reasons given by almost all coup plotters from 1970s onwards. Amin listed it as one of the reasons in 1971 why he had to kick Obote’s ass. In Sierra Leone, Captain Valentine Strasser also gave it as a reason for the coup. It was the same in Ghana and Mali in 1991.
Corruption itself comes from Latin word called ‘’ RUMPERE’ which means that something is broken. What has happened in Uganda since 1990s shows that ‘something is broken’ in NRM and needs fixing. The Besigyes( products of NRM) realized that they could not fix it from within and opted out but NRM has been using state institutions to make sure that they[Besgyes] fail to ‘fix’ it.
As a result, Africa has ended up with two classes of leaders since the coup era: BENEVOLENT AUTOCRATS and KLEPOCRATS. Both are not really absolute dictators or autocrats per say because they try to work or try to portray themselves as working within the existing state institutions. There are so many characteristics of these two types of leaders but I will a pick a few to make a point.
Museveni is specifically a kleptocrat: he is fearful of being overthrown and therefore favors policies that benefit him in the short run with costs spread in the future. He can manipulate any state institution for personal gain. For instance, he can spend a lot of money bribing people in an election, like he did in 2010-11 elections, because he believes that with the oil money coming in, this void can be fixed in future.
Kleptocrats will also seek a taxation system that efficiently generates revenue, but they are likely to introduce distortions. At the moment, Uganda collects more taxes than at any time since independence but there is very little to show for it because we are led by a wrong man. So we cannot change a system that has gone wrong with a ‘wrong man’ still at the helm of things, and this is where I disagree with my colleague and former presidential candidate, Beti Kamya.
Kleptocrats tend to support projects that generate large corrupt payoffs. Thus the leader will endorse projects with little economic justification, propose public projects that could be efficiently carried out in the private sector. If revelations of corruption are likely to destabilize the regime, the Kleptocrat will do everything to make sure that they go away on his own terms. For instance, just look at the people that were implicated in the Global funds, Temangalo, CHOGM, e.t.c, and how their court cases have been handled. It all doesn’t make sense. Some are even continuing to serve as MPs; and others were even appointed in Museveni’s cabinet.
Under Museveni, corruption has become worse in the country such that he and NRM will sadly be remembered for this. There is a climate of neopatrimonialism which basically means a perverse system that awards economic and political benefits to politicians and their followers. This type of corruption negatively affects the development of the country. For instance, by president Museveni favouring Hassan Basajabalaba for ‘’donations’ or ‘bail outs’ from the Bank of Uganda on a regular basis, the most deserving recipients of such help do not get access to public resources.
Basically, most of the corruption in Africa is linked to unethical leadership and bad governance. With museveni and his men still running the country, corruption is always going to be as massive as it is now because there is lack of political will to stop it.
Let me give you another example which is that of the fighter jets that were recently bought from a Russian company at a cost of more than $700m. We heard that the government ordered more than10 jets but only 2 jets are allegedly in the country as we speak. More so, the total cost of the jets also looks so astronomical basically because it looks like the ‘’buying of jets’’ was meant to be an official cover for another suspect expenditure (which in this case, it looks like the president used most of these money to bribe people during the elections but he needed a cover for it). Most governments in Africa tend to get these sort of ‘covers’ from mainly the ministry of defence or security because they are run by their cronies.
A similar sort of thing happened in Kenya in 1989 when the then Kenyan government bought fighter jets from a French firm, rather than a British firm, at twice the cost the later quoted because the British firm refused to pay a kickback to the Kenyan negotiating team. Nevertheless, Moi was later given a free presidential jet by the French firm as a compensation for allowing this deal through.
But in both cases: Uganda and Kenya, the people are made to bear the corruption opportunity cost. Both the behaviours of Museveni and Moi were not against the law but their actions are harmful to the citizens of the country. There are a lot of deals like this under NRM and it is greatly affecting the development of the country.
Uganda People Congress (UPC) and Uganda National Congress (UNC) are different. Just because UPC came out of the original UNC, it doesn’t make it the same. It is like saying that FDC is the same as NRM which is not true. Or it is like saying that SDP is the same as DP which is also not true, at least officially. Obote was a snake at night and a friendly cat during the day as far as politics is concerned. He was one’s friend during the day but he could ‘bite’ his friends at night whenever he saw an opportunity to promote himself. In other words, he was an animal in politics. He broke Ignatius Musaazi’s jaw as UNC later disappeared off the map of Uganda. He also later broke Kabaka Yeka(KY)’s jaws as KY also later disappeared off Uganda’s political map.
Obote at the last independence celebrations he ever attended in Uganda. Entebbe Airport 1984
In 1959, the UNC split into two factions. UPC was formed in March 1960 by merging Obote’s antibuganda wing of the Uganda National Congress (UNC) with the anti-Buganda party of Uganda People’s Union (UPU). UPU was led by Cuthbert Obwango at the time of the merger. Musazi’s ANC never had anything to do with UPC.
UPC was specifically an anti-Buganda party right from its inception and this was to remain throughout its history .It was also originally an anti-Catholic coalition, dominated by a Protestant leadership as well as based on Protestant associations .
All political parties have been created in Buganda including UPC but it does not make them friends of Buganda. NRM, for instance, was created in Buganda but they are not friends with Buganda anymore as it’s seeking to weaken it. DP was also formed in Buganda but they were not friends of Buganda in 1960s though things have changed a little bit recently. The rest of the current political parties have all been formed and launched in Buganda but it means nothing, brother.
Anyway, the politics of Uganda at independence, like now, was unabashedly sectarian: DP was mainly for Catholics, UPC mainly for Protestants outside Buganda, and KY for Protestants in Buganda. That’s why it was easy for UPC and KY to form that short lived alliance.
DP, on the other hand, under Ben Kiwanuka was looked at as enemies of KY as Uganda’s ARGUS reported a demonstration that was held on Sunday, 10 June 1961, against Kiwanuka’s DP. Kiwanuka was a catholic who had opposed the protestant establishment (Buganda kingdom).
NRM’s 10-point Program was supposed to address the religious and tribal imbalances in the country especially when they quoted the religious sectarianism and the ‘ unprincipled struggle for jobs’ in Ankole in their 10 point program, but things have been more or less remained the same since Museveni came to power. If they were different, we would not be mourning over westerners dominating everything in public service right now.
So, the same game continues: the Muslims in Uganda continue to be marginalized. So are other tribes at the expense of those tribes in power. The ‘cowards’ like us are working from abroad because we could not fit in Uganda’s ‘survival’ game. We feel more secure abroad than in our country of origin.
Byebyo banange
After this year’s presidential elections, I suggest that we probably create a ‘Transfer Window’ which is almost similar to that in football in January and June/July every year, due to increased bribery among politicians and crossing of voters. Fraudulent elections are the signature of governments run by bribery, partisan state institutions, and dominated by secrecy, zealots, party fanatics and corporate thugs. If fraud is the decider of a national election, it is far more serious, and chances are the one who does it most usually wins the elections in Africa.
Transfer of players in both football and politics is simply a money grab. Everything else its proponents say is just window-dressing. It mainly involves the transfer of wealth from the superrich to underclass. For instance, the Fernando Torres joined Chelsea at £50m in this year’s January Transfer window because he was given a better contract than he had at Liverpool. He also claimed that he wanted to win trophies, and he is probably right though this made him look like a ‘Judas Iscariot’ to Liverpool fans. Similarly, some Ugandans have recently moved from other parties without an official ‘transfer window’ to join mainly NRM and FDC. Historically,when UPC was formed in the 1960s, it took a big chunk of DP and Kabaka Yekka(KY) members. In 1980 UPC also lost a big chunk of its members to DP. Some of these included: Dr. Martin Aliker, Professor Yoweri Kyesimira, Dr.Kazungu, Dr.Muzira, Wilson Lutaya, Matia Ngobi, James Kahigiriza,Nekyon, Alex Waibale, and many others who had abandoned the sinking ship with driven by late Captain Dr.Obote.
Wayne Rooney wanted to leave Manchester United last year because of United’s lack of clout in attracting more top players to the club, but he later turned around and signed a new contract with them. Similarly, FDC’s Mubarak Kirunda, the chairman LC3 Jinja Central Division, FDC vice chairman for Busoga region, and head of the Inter-Party Cooperation campaign taskforce in Jinja, was also reportedly planning to cross to NRM after a shs.1b bribe from Salim Saleh, but he has assured the party that he cannot leave because of Shs1 billion. FDC’s Atugonza also reportedly resisted the bribe of shs.1.5 to join NRM. Atugonza behaved like Liverpool’s Stephen Gerald who resisted joining Chelsea FC for £30m some years back despite the astronomical wages he had been promised at Chelsea.
In this election, we have watched some of the veteran politicians in UPC crossing to NRM. For example, I would never have imagined that men like Henry Mayiga, Chris Rwakasisi and Badru Wegulo would be campaigning for Museveni in these elections, but it is happening. We are also noting large numbers of supporters crossing between FDC and NRM from other political parties because the duos are now looked at as the political giants in Uganda. They are more like Chelsea,Manchestry City and Manchester United in the Premiership. I think most of the crossover vote to NRM is people sick of a fragmented opposition where DP looks at IPC or FDC as enemies rather than people working towards the same goal.It can also be because voters look at FDC and NRM as more successful than other parties as in USA where the Indians have recently found that joining a tribe owning a successful casino is one of the pathways out of poverty.
I note that the voting among the crossovers has favored NRM and president Museveni more than anybody else. It seems to me that voters in the Uganda act very differently to voters here in the UK where I currently live.Over here someone may vote Labour in the local elections, Conservative in the general elections and Liberal Democrat in the European elections, for example. People swap and change all the time from one party to another depending on who has the best policies for the job at hand. In USA, Crossover voting has always been common in primary elections though a significant number of voters do crossover in the presidential elections. In Canada there are no bullshit elections. You mark an x in the circle you like it goes in a box and the totals are there and the box can be opened if there is any dispute. The cost is pencil and paper.
What a party like FDC needs now as the ‘transfer window’ remains open indefinitely or unofficially is more diversity so that it stops being perceived as a bunch of mostly westerners. They need to target brilliant young minds in all regions in the country as they have been slowly trying to do since 2004. Instead of having some old lame duck for the next 5 years, a rising star in the party should get a running start in any of the top party positions. For example, one of the reasons why Chelsea FC may not win the league this season is because they have got a lot of old players in their first team whose average age is in approximately 29. Young people should be recruited for the right reasons and not just to use them to fight unnecessary political battles as NRM is doing. NRM are predators, who lie to young people and manipulate their economic situation in order to drag them away from the things they have grown up knowing, such as their belief in Kabakaship or other traditions.
However, with the current wave of people power or empowerment that started in Tunisia and Egypt, the NRM belief that they were going to be in power till when Jesus comes back is thankfully coming to an end. Everybody all over the world has started to realize that oppressing the masses is not an indefinite sustainable formula to staying in power. These protests are from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, s/he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope among the population. It started with those men who fought for African independence and it is continuing with men who are now standing against the current African dictators.
Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
I recently had an online debate with Mrs. Nina Mbabazi Rukikaire, who also happens to be the NRM secretary General’s daughter, where she said that her political life has been influenced by both the NRM 10 point Program and the UPC’s Common Man’s Charter(CMC). I asked her to explain this and she came up with a lot of emotional explanations which had nothing to do practically with the two documents in question. So. I felt I should alert other Ugandans who may fall into the same trap and let them know that the two documents were just political propaganda than anything else. Propaganda simply means the systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause. It doesn’t have to be lies. Actually, the best propaganda is indeed true, but it is up to us to question its applicability in a situation such as Uganda.
Propagandists employ tactics that dehumanize those who support the opposing viewpoint through suggestion or false accusations. They influence public perception by disseminating negative and false information. For instance, Obote’s CMC wrongly portrayed most of the existing systems in the 1962 constitution as ‘inapplicable’ in Uganda. The document was more, for instance, against issues such as: kings, hereditary leadership, federalism or anything of that sort. For me, this kind of stereotyping by Obote and his CMS was not something that would have a lasting foundation in Uganda. Stereotyping is normally used by propagandists to arouse prejudices by labeling the object of the propaganda campaign as something the target audience fears, hates, or finds undesirable, and this is what late Obote and UPC were doing. This is what NRM is tactically doing now by starting a debate on cultural institutions in the country by presenting documents such as the traditional leaders Bill that are meant to humiliate cultural leaders and eventually lead to the abolishion of kingdoms. This means that even if that bill had not gone through, president Museveni’s propaganda against Kabakaship or traditional institutions had already been germinated, and it will not go away as long as he is in power.
I also noticed that Mrs.Nina Rukikairwe, herself, is feeding on old UPC propaganda through old guards such as Mathew Rukiikaire, as if UPC had all the out understanding of Uganda’s problems. The fact is that neither CMC nor the NRM documents were a ‘bible’ of truth on what direction the country is supposed to take. Uganda needs a new leaf from both these parties that seem to be identical twins in one way or ther other.For instance, Andrew Mwenda recently told us, while on capital fm, that Rwakasisi and Museveni used to work together and have been great friends for a long time.Rwakasisi, on other hand, was Obote’s right hand man throughout his leadership. Andrew Mwenda himself is a great admirer of Obote and UPC but also ‘loves’ Museveni in his own way.Nowonder UPC ‘old guards’ are now dominating Museveni’s cabinet than even the NRM historicals.
Propaganda can absolutely promulgate a democratic doctrine? The difference between political doctrine and propaganda is more like the one between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In most cases, doctrines have been tested elsewhere unlike propaganda. Doctrine is more like regular food on a menu but propaganda is more like a ‘food special’. For instance, ‘Cultural diversity’ is a political propaganda term stolen from theorists of anthropology in the 1970’s. It is effective only to the degree that cultures are not diverse but simply have different appearances and rituals for the same values. It is something that became popular in American during President Johnson’s administration as he made attempts to change parts of American values and encourage more integration.
Nonetheless;Let us also try to find distinctions between the Common Man’s Charter (CMC) and Museveni’s 10 point programme. I’m not a Museveni sympathiser but sometimes I’m forced to defend his paper policies when someone starts ‘sugar-coating’ Obote’s failures or when one starts confusing others by saying that they were influenced by the two documents. Ok, let us see what we know so far about these two political propaganda documents:
Obote’s first administration started off as market-oriented and pluralistic. Then in 1966 Obote changed for the worse as we all know by now. The Common Man Charter(CMC) was a step influenced by what was happening in Tanzania at the time. So basically Obote moved to the left in 1969 and the CMC was adopted by UPC at their delegates conference in the same year.Nyerere had a hand in most of Obote’s changes in Uganda from the 1960s till when his death.
On the other hand, Yoweri Museveni started on the left ideologically. In the 1970s he was virtually a Marxist-Leninist. People like Robert Mugabe were radicalised by armed struggle. Yoweri Museveni was de-radicalised by armed struggle. Robert Mugabe became more and more of a socialist in the heat of the liberation war. Yoweri Museveni became less and less of a socialist in the tensions of armed struggle against the Obote regime.
The CMC buried Obote 1 because it was a threat to both the British and USA interests in the region. The British had about 80 companies in Uganda that faced the threat of nationalisation. On May 1, 1970 President Obote announced that the state would take over foreign enterprises in the famous Nakivubo Pronouncements.So the British through the Isrealis hatched a plan from South Sudan to get rid of socialist Obote. The USA also looked at the relationship Obote had with Nyerere as a threat to their capitalist interests in the region.
On the other hand, the 10 point programme had the blessing of most of the international community. Austria is where the 10 point programme was galvanised from and the movement held a lot of meetings there in 1985. That’s why the International Institute for Peace (IIP) president, Erwin Lanc, Austria’s former internal and foreign affairs minister and his wife, Christianne, were invited to attend the 15th Heroes Day celebrations at Ssembwe-Nyimbwa, Luweero.
The CMC was bound to fail from the beginning because, according to prof Ali Mazrui, the state had entered the market place of enterprise and pushed away the real entrepreneurs. It felt the role of government was to actively control and own business. They felt an equitable and just environment can only be created by government owning and interfering with business. The Government then simply rewarded supporters and chased away political opponents. A bedrock of nepotism and corruption and mismanagement was born. The companies were run down.
In addition, the CMC was introduced to make everyone relatively with money into their pockets to curb down on ‘kondoism’ or thuggery which was going at the time. Instead it just increased ‘kondoism’ as the rich kept being scared of the people. So it was a total failure. Let us also remember that Obote’s CMC was not pure socialism as that of Nyerere. So it was a bit of a confusing document with intentions which only UPC can expain.
On the other hand, the 10 point programme had the support of the masses in Uganda mainly in the south of the country. Museveni’s point No.5 for an independent, integrated and self-sustaining economy, for which he is still fighting for, was and is a better attractive option for Ugandans than the so called CMC.Museveni has now supplemented this with the recently announced 5 year economic plan.
In addition, despite the fact that Museveni has not done much to get Ugandans out of poverty, his 10 point programme is even still popular among the opposition. For instance, DP former president, Sebana Kizito, was on record saying that DP will take up NRM’s 10-point programme and polish it in preparation for the 2011 general elections.Im actually wondering if Norbert Mao is running his campaigns and manifesto basing mostly on NRM’s 10 point program. May be that is why some people are suspecting him of being an NRM ‘mole’ in DP.
As far as I know, if president Museveni had genuinely implemented his 10 point program, then Uganda would have been on a totally different level. He just used the document as propaganda to make Obote unpopular in 1980s and subsequently help himself to an easy way to power. Museveni’s propaganda was sold to both Ugandans and the international community and it worked. There was nothing really serious in it. Time will come when somebody else will also come up with better propaganda than Museveni , and the population will be inspired to throw NRM out for good.
The recent revelations in Assange’s Wikileaks and Timothy Kalyegira’s Uganda Record about how president Museveni is worried that he may be assassinated by Libya’s Gaddafi, have brought me some sleepless nights. Political assassinations are not something we should encourage on our continent. Museveni may be a bad leader for us now but assassinating him can plunge our country into some form of endless violence and conflicts ,as happened in Rwanda after the assassination of Habyarimana. We don’t need that at the moment, and I certainly believe that Gadaffi does not want Uganda to end up in that state.
I have no connections with Uganda intelligence but I still believe that president Museveni just panicked to the extent of seeking US help; because he pushed his buttons too far as far as Gadaffi is concerned. To be fair to Gadaffi, I’m one of those who really dream about a United States of Africa (USA), an idea Gadaffi is championing now and trying to sell to other African leaders.
Gadaffi is not someone anyone would wish to mess with because he has shaken big nations such as USA before and they did not like it. So it’s not wise for Museveni to start pumping his testosterones publicly when engaging such a character. We need to find a common ground as far as Libya is concerned.
Nevertheless, something interesting is boiling up in all these assassination reports though we don’t know if there are true or not: President Museveni’s end looks to be nearer but how will it be? I think that is the question on most people’s minds because our president has been in power for so long.This has forced me to compare President Museveni and Habyarimana, and see if there have got any similarities or differences, though i pray that the ending is not the same.
Habyarimana just like Museveni came into power through violence. While Museveni’s violence was justified because he had to get rid of Obote Dictatorship and had a convincing democratic plan on paper, Habyariman’s was not because his coup did not have any democratic plan ahead. Habyarimana came into power when the order of the day in East Africa was getting rid of presidents through coups. Amin ousted Obote in 1971 and Habyarimana did the same on Kayibanda two years later.
Both Habyarimana and Museveni introduced something called ‘the Movement’ when they came into power. Everyone in their respective countries was required to be a member of this so called ‘Movement’.Museveni’s Movement is now a political party and enjoying most of the state benefits.
Habyarimana hated the ‘tutsis’ just as it is claimed by some people though I’m not sure, that president Museveni hates some tribes in the north. Habyarimana had only one Tutsi in his cabinet, one ambassador in the Foreign Service, and two deputies in the national assembly. He kept a picture of Tutsi huts in flames in his presidential house.
Habyarimana, just like Museveni, was also friends with the Bakiga communities. It is actually claimed in some circles that Habyariman was a mukiiga not a true munyarwanda.Bakiiga were Museveni’s allies in Luwero bush war though some have started falling out with him.
Habyarimana’s end came through assassination and this is what is worrying me as a Ugandan if such a scenario was to happen to Museveni. I think some sections of the Hutus in Rwanda and the Tutsis in both Uganda and Rwanda masterminded the assassination of Habyarimana. When RPF was launched in 1987 in Kampala, one of their main aims was to force the return of Tutsi back to Rwanda whether Habyarimana wanted it or not. There were to do this using all the necessary means. General Rwigyema joined RPF in 1988 and later about 4000 Tutsis also deserted UPDF for RPF with the sole purpose of fighting the Habyariman government.
On the other hand, some sections of the Hutu radicals in Rwanda were not happy with the Arusha agreement of August 1993 that provided for the establishment of a broad based transitional government that would include the Tustsi. But the truth was that even Habyarimana never believed in this agreement becuse he was a tutsi hater. He just signed it to buy himself time to organise his ‘house’ and probably the hutu radicals knew it as well. So why would they kill him? But then again most of the evidence points to the fact that the Hutu radicals may have killed him. For instance, on 03/04/1994, radio Mille Collines warned that ‘a little something’ was about to happen before Habyariman was killed two days later. This is all confusing because how can a radio make such an announcement and nobody in the intelligence took it seriously. May be the radio was warning Habyarimana. Who knows?
As a Ugandan, I just hope that president Museveni and brother Gadaffi find a way of sorting out their differences very soon because it is not certainly good for Africa if these two guys continue to be on a collision course. Gadaffi is now an old man and a bit wiser. He is not like the Gadaffi of 70s and 80s who used to kick ass all the time. So Museveni should take advantage of this to mend fences with Gadaffi as soon as possible. Personally, i don’t wish president Museveni to die that way and that is why I urge him to improve Uganda foreign relations with our neighbors very soon.Under this environment, anybody can do something to our president right now,very well knowing that fingers will be pointed at Libya.
I would also like to say that I don’t hate Obote as per some statements I have seen flying around by some writers. I’m indifferent as far as Obote is concerned despite the fact that I lost a father during the time when he was the man controlling the system.
As I assume some of you already know, UPM which later evolved into NRM was a combination of several political parties. Let it also be known that most of the founders of UPM were former UPCs. When UNLF stopped being in existence and Binaisa was out of the office, some members of UPC who did not want to join DP thought of forming a new party. At first, they called themselves the ‘Third force’. This group was led by Akena Pojok(then minister of Transport and a UPC), Opira (former deputy chief of intelligence in Obote 1),Erisa Kironde(chairman of UEB in Obote1),Ruhakana Rugunda(then deputy minister of health), Bidandi Ssali(then minister of local Administrations),Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and other UPCs. The ‘Third force’ also recruited from DP territory and they managed to get guys like: Matia Kasajja of Hoima, Bernard Buzaabo, Dr. Bwambale and so many other DP supporters. They also went for neutrals and the biggest fish they got was Professor Tarsis Kabwegyere.
This ‘third force’ came up with a better name: ’Uganda Labour Congress’ in May 1980 which they later changed into UPM. Museveni(FORMER UPC) was chosen the leader of UPM. Guys like Yona Kanyomoozi, Ephraim Kamuntu, Dr. Ezra Nkwasiibwe, Kabwegyere and Pojok did not want Museveni to become the leader of UPM but they failed to block it. Actually, Kabwegyere later decided to join DP. So basically when one analyses all these political parties, they have been almost formed by the same people from older parties.
UPM (started before 1980 elections by the Musevenis) later changed its name to Uganda Liberation Movement when some UNLA soldiers joined them. Uganda Liberation Movement then changed to MOSPOR(Movement for the Struggle for Political Rights) which later also changed to Peoples resistance Army(PRA)-more like a replica of the ghostly rebel organisation started by Besigye in 2004. It was this PRA that later united with Uganda Freedom Fighters (UFF) of professor Lule to form NRM.
Museveni also formed an alliance with the UFM(of Kayiira) and the UNRF when they met in London to form what is called Uganda Popular Front(UPF). FRONASA formed in the 1970s doubled as the military wing of UPM.
Yes, most Ugandans supported all these alliances, may be just as like we are asking the current opposition parties to unite for a common cause. The scale used to measure the unpopularity of a leader is when a leader attempts to rig an election, just as Obote did in 1980. When a leader does that, it means he has not got the majority of the population behind him.
Baganda did everything to support the war against Obote for obvious reasons. For instance, some families in Luwero lost their lives at the expense of hiding Museveni and the then NRA rebels. Obote was hated among various groups of people. The Banyarwanda hated him because of his isolationist policy against them headed by Rwakasisi. The west Nilers hated him because of the massacres committed there by UNLA soldiers in 1980s by Oyite Ojok and company.
I do not rule out the fact that some of the murders in Luwero might have been committed by NRA rebels . However, because of the nature of the war fought in Luwero, it’s fair to say that UNLA did more killing than NRA. Please click on the links below to see the names of some of the people killed in Uganda between 1981 and 1984.
Obote may have done some good things for Uganda under Obote 1 but it does not make him a messiah of any sort. These 1980 murders were committed at his watch as the leader of Uganda. He rigged the 1980 elections and that was enough to get him on his bike by force. We should not cover soil with faeces just because we want to eat mushrooms.
We all once loved president Museveni because we thought he was going to give Uganda a better foundation than Obote did. Actually, he tried in the first 10-12 years of his leadership to put things right. Both his political and economic policies were sound. I know people particularly some UPC members have always criticised president Museveni and late Dr. Kiggundu(Former Governor of Bank of Uganda) for devaluing the Uganda shilling in the 1980s but this was the right thing to do at the time. Actually, this was one of the measures IMF/World Bank came up with to enhance the scope of the private sector, contending that private enterprise was more effective. So nobody was going to get IMF/World Bank money before fulfilling these conditions. Therefore privatisation and devaluing currencies were IMF/World Bank policies and we would have benefitted from them if the whole process had not been messed up by greedy people in the NRM government. Donors overall aim was to shift the governments of Africa from consumption to investment.
Museveni’s economic policies from 1987-1997 were not bad. It was the implementation process that was abused. For instance, during privatisation, several ministers sold themselves state enterprises on the cheap.Salim Saleh and Sam Kutesa were among those that enriched themselves during this process. The state property prices did not reflect the actual market value. Privatisation itself was not bad
Those now close to president Museveni should advise him to go back to the Museveni of 1980s, at least for the remainder of his current term. There is no need to praise him even when he is clearly making mistakes. President Museveni himself criticises people who praise leaders all the time without pointing out their mistakes in his book sowing the Mustardseed on page 48. While in exile in Tanzania, he met Akena Odoko and Sam Odaka whom he described as among the many ministers and colleagues of Obote who were busily flattering Obote at the Uganda Club in Kampala while he was making mistakes. Ministers used to sing TUKUTENDEREZA( to quote Museveni) to Obote.
So NRM members, be aware that president Museveni himself may not be impressed by guys who praise his mistakes all the time. If he is making mistakes, please do us a favour and expose him like some of us are already doing.
Let me also tell some people in the opposition now in Uganda that being in opposition does not mean opposing even a good policy when you see it. For instance, I live in the UK and there are several times when the opposition here decide to support the prime minister on several issues in parliament. That is how it should be in Uganda. If the opposition thinks that they are going to oppose everything Museveni , then we are doomed as a nation.
A letter from the head of the Commonwealth Observer Group to Paulo Muwanga. Among other things, it raises concern about the UPC rigging in West Nile (top of page 2):
Dear friends,
In reference to an article written by Mr.Acemah in the Daily Monitor recently, I think we still need a national army in Uganda but it shouldn’t be in the current form the UPDF is in right now if what was written in the Observer newspaper by Ssemujju Nganda last week is true. What we need to work on is the unity and professionalising our army in Uganda. UPDF is so fragmented into special units and this is a classic exercise of divide and rule by the powers be.The end result in this is that one unit can easily be played by the leader in power against the other and this is not good for everybody in the long run.For example, Jordan and Yogoslavia have got a united army and they seem to be doing better than states like Saudi Arabia and Palestine, which have got several security factions. No wonder the Isrealis have always done well against the Arab armies.
President Museveni has learnt from the recurrent coups and elite infighting that characterized the previous regimes in Uganda and therefore, he has institutionalized the internal ‘divide and rule’ structures within the security forces to make sure that coups are history in Uganda.Obote and Amin had these same structures in place but they were not properly institutionalised and that is why they had to lose power sooner compared to president Museveni. It is a model that has been adopted by all ‘modern’ dictators of this 21st century from late Sadama Hussein(Iraq), Robert Mugabe(Zimbabwe), Hussain Mubaraka(Egypt) and Gadaffi(Libya), and it is very effective in keeping the anemies more disorganised and fearful of one another.
Most of the dictators rule on the basis of tribe or regional solidarity or a combination of both, and president Museveni is certainly no different from the others. As a former Dutch ambassador and scholar of Syrian politics put it, ‘it takes a village to rule Syria’. Yet a village or a tribe cannot possibly provide the manpower needed to control the population of the whole country but it can sometimes be effective if a leader plays it well to his advantage. In Syria, for example, the Alawites make up 12 per cent of the population. Even supposing that all Alawites are loyal to the regime, and that all in the relevant age groups would join the security forces, they could still provide less than 14 security personnel per thousand population – a ratio between security personnel and general population that is less than half the ratio that presently exists in Syria. The president of Syria, Bashar Asad, comes from the Allawite tribe and they are the one dominating the ‘juicy’ positions of leadership in the army and public service despite their small numbers. Under Sadam Hussein, the al-Bu Nasir tribe and the Suunis used to dominate the ‘juicy’ positions in the army and public service.
Similarly,the same dynamics have characterised all the long serving leaders Uganda has ever had, from Obote in 1960s to now Museveni. They have all created factions in the security forces being led by their cronies with a primary objective being to protect the regime in power by policing and monitoring society. This is not good because it prolongs the whole idea of having a proper national or professional army in Uganda, since the army tends to be mainly equipped to defend the regime in power rather than doing anything else. For instance, Iraq almost lost the war against Iran in 1980s because Saddam Hussein had fragmented the Republican army into different factions though he later corrected this in 1984 after he gave in to army commanders and strengthened and made the Republican Guard forces more professional,a factor that helped him to push Iran a little bit.
No wonder, then, that most of the ‘life presidents’ don’t allow combined army operations or training to become routine because this could easily lead to unity in the army. Incidentally, the fragmentation principle is even reflected in ensuring that the various security forces receive different weapon systems. I’m not privy to UPDF operations but I’m sure that you gonna find that some of these characteristics are there. Perhaps, the UPDF was more united and effective when they used to fight external wars and Kony in 1990s than right now where almost all eyes are telling them to protect the regime in power. For example, the Vietnamese army was effective against the US army because the communist government never interfered with the internal operations of the army. They gave their commanders some bits of independence.
Basically, the argument here is that an army is very important to matters of national security and we should all support its existance, but at the same time it needs to be professionalized on a regular basis. The French army was arguably professional enough but still former president, Jacques Chirac, had to announce more reforms in the French army in 1996 to make sure it is at per with the dynaics of the world. UPDF can also be similarly be turned around to become an army we are all proud of if those in power put their ‘executive’ minds to it.If Obote had not messed up the army in the 1960s and 1980s, we probably would be a better step forward right now. We should find a way of stopping this business of rendering the existing army absolete every time the regime in power changes in Uganda. Please It’s not too late to turn the UPDF around into something we are all proud of.
How does DP expect to decampaign IPC but at the same time expect them to cooperate with DP at parliamentary level during the 2011 election? I listened to Mr. Mathias Nsubuga who is the DP’s Secretary General, today on London based Ngoma radio, and he quoted a lot of history, how alliances have historically weakened DP due to loss of members,blah blah. But he clearly missed the gist of the point why opposition parties in developing nations form coalitions: the incumbent always uses the state apparatus to frustrate the opponents and therefore it becomes difficult for an opposition party to win an election on their own.
Mathias Nsubuga rightly quoted the alliance made in 1961 between KY and UPC and what later happened afterwards in 1966, but he forgot to tell people that the alliance had received its initial objective which was to stop Ben Kiwanuka from becoming the Prime minister. Whatever happened afterwards can be attributed to other factors but not the alliance itself. It should also be noted that between 1961 and 1971,DP lost members to UPC despite the fact that they were not part of any alliance at that time. For instance, UPC catched a big fish in 1964 when the then DP Secretary General, who was also the leader of the opposition, Mr. Basil Bataringaya, crossed to UPC.
The alliance made at Moshi in 1979 also achieved its initial objective of removing Iddil Amin Dada from power. The different groups that were fighting Amin on their own could not have achieved this objective. On the military front, FRONASA, Kikosi Malumu and others had to combine efforts to fight dictator Amin. Whatever happened afterwards, like the forced resignation of Professor Yusuf Lule, cannot be attributed to the disadvantages of an alliance. But if we had people that reason like DP-Mao at the time, probably Iddil Amin would have remained a president of Uganda for longer.
After the 1980 elections where UPC openly rigged and denied DP a chance to take over power for the first time since independence, again a mother of all alliances had to be formed to kick out dictator Milton Obote . Before the alliance was formed, DP again lost its members to other parties particularly the ‘third force’ which was formed by former UPC members who wanted to fight Obote but did not want to join DP. For instance, the ‘third force’ recruited DP members such as:Matia Kasajja of Hoima, Bernard Buzaabo, Dr. Bwambale and several others. So the argument that DP only loses members after alliances had been formed does not hold water at all. Secondly, if different parties had not worked together, probably Late Obote Militon woul have died the president of Uganda since he had the support of Julius Nyerere who was controlling Uganda through a remote control from Tanzania.
DP claims that they lost a lot of members after 1986 through an alliance formed with Museveni at the time to form a broad based government but I think this is a fallacy meant to hide the internal weaknesses of the party. Those DP members who decided to remain in NRM other than returning to DP would have done the same if those very privileges they enjoyed while in NRM had been offered to them outside this alliance. For instance, president Museveni has managed to get on board UPC guys like Agrey Awori, without necessarily forming an alliance with UPC itself. He also unsuccessfully tried to recruit UPC’s giant lady, Cecilia Ogwal, during the CA elections when the issues of federo had caught fire in parliament, and he therefore needed UPC to be on his side to block Buganda from getting federo.
Let’s assume that we take DP’s reason to lose their members to other parties because of alliances as a bit weighing, but how does DP explain their hypocritical claims that they would be ready to form an alliance with the IPC if president Museveni does not get the 51% required for some to win all election. Will this not make them lose their members to other parties OR the party will be strong then after just a period of 7 months to the elections?
Finally, I’m still so skeptical about Mr.Mao’s presidential candidature and intentions because this is not the first time he is talking about a Nile Republic. He at one time wanted the north to secede from the south. He is a secessionist like JEEMA’s Hussein Kaynjo and this is not material for a Uganda president. He does not really believe in One Uganda, One people project. Secondly, because Mao has been elected DP president by one faction of DP, he is gonna affect the fortunes of the IPC candidate in the north since some people in the north believe in him. With this, president Museveni does not need to win the north to remain the president of Uganda come 2011 since Mao would do the job for him. If DP-Mao also fields candidates in Buganda in 2011, then the Buganda opposition vote will be divided between the IPC and DP-Mao candidates .It will actually be the same everywhere if Mao goes ahead to think in terms of ‘ONLY DP’ and ‘ONLY MAO’.
With that I can only conclude that by DP-Mao staying away from IPC, they are looking at themselves as bigger than anybody else and I find this arrogant and sickly. The reasons they give for not joining the IPC are as fake as the current regime in power. Therefore, any sane Ugandan who is tired of the Museveni regime should shan them completely. Only IPC candidates should be supported in the 2011 elections by opposition supporters. I hope the donors do the same thing.
Becoming a politician is not inborn or prophetic as in like Jesus or Muhammad(saw) born with unique features of prophecy. Anybody can become a politician if the situation warrants one to become one.General Kazini was teacher by profession but he died a military officer. Late Dr.Kiggundu Sulaiman was a banker and researcher but he died a politician.The current chairman of the electoral commission,Dr.Badru Kiggundu was an academician in USA and later in Makerere university but now he is fully in politics. But Let me go back to the gist of my message which is Muslims and how we have been marginalised politically in Uganda.
The Muslims have got no viable Muslim in the current NRM government apart from the Electoral Commission Chairman,Dr.Badru Kiggundu, and Hajji Kirunda Kivenjinja, yet the both the catholics and protestants are well represented. This has been the case since 1996 where no Muslim occupies a constitutional office anywhere in Museveni’s government. Muslims were well represented in the first 10 years of Museveni’s reign but not anymore.
During Obote 2, there was no Muslim in his cabinet. There was one Muslim ntege Lubwama who had been named a minister but Oyite Ojok and Chris Rwakasisi plotted his death and he had to go into exile.UNLF under Godfrey Binaisa, there was only Ntege Lubwama and Bidandi Ssali.UNLF under Lule, there was none although Lule was once upon a time a Muslim. Obote 1 had only two Muslim ninisters:Adoko Nekyon and Shaban Nkutu (from Busoga).
During Iddil Amin,Uganda was admited as an islamic country at a conference in Lahore, pakistan in 1974 and Amin tried a lot to help Muslims during his reign. Nevertheless, Amin had only one Mulsim in first cabinet though this later changed as years progressed.
According to the 1958 consensus, i think muslims were not more than 5%. Because we are a minority, we have always needed catholics and protestants at our side when making political decisons.This means that a muslim president or Vice president can act as a bridge between different religions in Uganda and does not need to turn Uganda into an Islamic state which was somehow the dream of Iddil Amin. Non-Muslims can vote for a Muslim president looking at him as a bridge to unite everybody despite whatever happened under Iddil Amin.
Muslims in general do not discriminate people based on religions. In Senegal, there was a catholic president called Leopold Senghol but the majority of the population that voted for him were Muslims.In Tanzania, Julius Nyerere was a catholic but muslims loved him in big numbers. Museveni1(1986-1998) was also loved and supported by majority of Muslims before he came to power.
Religion, culture and politics are like three brothers competing with one another.The link between religion and politics in Uganda can be explained in the earlier relationship between Sudan and Uganda during the rise of the Mahdi, a force that overpowered the British and Egyptians and later led to what we call ‘NUBIANS’ in Uganda. When the Acholi, Lugabara, Kakwa, banyoro and others were converted to Islam, they became BANUBI. Amin was a kakwa muslim which makes him a Nubian is some way.
In the 1950s, religion played apart in party membership and formation. DP was mainly dominated by catholics and it had a catholic Lawyer in Kiwanuka as its first leader.DP was originally supposed to be called christian Democratic party before the word christain was omitted.It also used people like archbisjop of Lubaga, Joseph Kiwanuka, to tap into Baganda and catholic support during the elections. I think Kiwanuka died in 1966, the same year Obote abolished kingdoms.
Uganda National Congress(UNC) and later UPC were dominated by protestants. 75% of the UNC central committee came from King’s College Budo School, a protestant school.74% of their branch chairman were protestants.Islam was not an influence but it once acted as a unifying factor for protestants and catholics when the British and Arabs were fighthing for influence in Buganda. The British later sided with protestants as the formal ascendasy or official religion for Buganda.
For UPC, it benefited from the 1961 elections because of its protestant base. The greater the precentage of protestants in adistrict, the higher the vote for UPC though DP benifited from this more than UPC. Nevertherless,UPC tried to move away from religion in the 1962 elections.
Unlike Muslims, protestants have produced national and traditional leaders that have helped to unite them. Most of the Kabakas have been protestants including the current one. Obote was a protestant and presided over cabinets dominated by protestants in Obote and Obote 2. Catholics have also continued to be atleast well representated because they are the majority in Uganda.Muslims were also united when Amin was in power but it was short lived because since then we have not been having strong national characters to unite us. That’s why, atleast, we need a strong Muslim Vice president or prime minister as things stand and it could benefit all of us if we get a good candidate. The current NRM governnment should think about this as no Muslim is occupying any of the biggest posts in the government. Buganda’s Mengo administration should also think about appointing a Muslim Katikiro soon for the sake of creating balance in political appointees in the kingdom.
I’m going to create this as the background to show you how Obote’s evils nurtured Museveni of today. I want to show you where Museveni learnt all the tactics he using in running the UPDF today.
In his book African Upheavals since Independence (Westview, 1980), Grace Ibingira, ex-Minister of Justice, recalls a conversation he had with Obote at the Governor General’s Garden Party on the 12th of October: ‘as I accompanied Obote through state guests’, he writes, ‘he pointed out Karugaba to me at a distance and inquired whether I knew him. I replied I did not. He then confided that the senior British Officers were recommending him to command the Army and to retire Opolot and Amin, who had reached the highest ranks they could reasonably attain. Obote then told me Karugaba was a Roman Catholic and as such could not be trusted and he would not accept him to head the Army’ (p. 92).
Ibingira goes on to claim that the chief reason for Obote’s dismissal of Major Karugaba,which he proceeded to have carried out, was not primarily one of religion but of ethnicity, since he was a southerner and stood in the way of Amin whom Obote had chosen in his mind to be his hatchet man. This was in the face of strong advice to the contrary from the Governor General, Sir Walter Coutts, and the British Officers, Colonels Cheyne and Tillett, following charges brought against Amin of using great brutality against the Turkana tribe in the Kenya border area late in 1961.Have you ever wondered why people like Salim Saleh commit crimes but nobody punishes them but they keep being promoted in the army instead.Where did Museveni learn that from?
At Independence the Uganda Rifles consisted of one battalion and though it was very largely composed of northerners from the Acholi, Iteso, Lugbara, Kakwa tribes and other West Nile groups, it did not have within it many men from Lango in the north, Obote’s home area.However, Obote portrayed tribalism of the highest degree with the introduction of the para-military wing of the General Service Unit, almost wholly recruited from Lango.
Again Obote kept on promoting Iddil Amin Dada in the Army despite the ridiculous procedure which was being used by the British before in these promotions.Amin should not have reached where he was in the army if Obote had a good vision in the matters of military promotion.Like Lieutenants Opolot and Amin, they had risen from the ranks. To quote Major Grahame again, ‘On recruiting safaris we went for the chaps who were tough and strong and ran quicker than anyone else. It was a terrible mistake.’
When eventually the Kabaka’s Palace, the Lubiri, was attacked at 5.30 am on 24 May 1966, the army had established itself in an indispensable position in the politics of Obote’s UPC government in Uganda. Many university students and their families suffered, if not loss of life, certainly extreme humiliation by having their faces trodden on and their wallets stolen by the oft-times drunken soldiery. From May 1966 until the end of Obote’s Presidential rule on 25January 1971 Buganda was judged to be in ‘a state of emergency’ and was held so by the Ugandan army and the police.
Obote hated Baganda and the viceversa is true. This is clarified by an incident of his attempted assassination. One student of Makerere University in the names of Fred Serwada lived to tell this story. He was driving home from Entebbe airport on the night of the attempted assassination of President Obote at Lugogo Stadium on 19 December1969 when his car was stopped at the roundabout just below Mulago Hospital,Kampala. He was asked his name. An army officer in civilian clothes but carrying a revolver reacted strongly on hearing that it was a Baganda name and, on being told that the owner of this name worked in the Faculty of Agriculture at Makerere, replied that he would then have to shoot him. In fact, FredSerwanga received two bullets through the stomach and thanks to the skill and devotion of Professor McAdam, Senior Surgeon at Mulago hospital, lived totell his story. As Archbishop Luwum was to write so courageously in his letter to Amin some seven years later, the guns of the army were being used not to protect but to terrorize the people of Uganda.
Increasingly in Uganda, and in particular from the time of ‘The Government Proposals for a New Constitution’ of 9 June 1967, more and more powers were vested in the Head of State. Increasingly too, private or public criticism either of the Army or of the government became a dangerous matter for Uganda. Obote’s cousin, Akena Adoko, was the head of the state intelligence services and the ultimate recruiter of government agents.
As Professor Mazrui shown, ‘It was Milton Obote, not Idi Amin, who began the militarization of Uganda’s political system’ (Soldiers and Kinsmen, p. 139). When Obote made Amin the head of the army in 1966 he clinched the idea of an alliance between the brains of Uganda and the guns of Uganda, with the brains as the senior partner. Amin’s gun was to be manipulated by the calculating intellect ofMilton Obote’ . By the late 1960s the partnership which Amin,with his shared crisis with Obote, Onama and Nekyon of gold smuggling across the Congo border in 1965/66, and with the uprooting of the Kabaka of Buganda and his Kingdom behind him—the partnership, which Amin had engaged in so energetically—was beginning to fall apart. After being so actively Obote’s man, Amin began to go his own way.
As a way of removing Major-General Amin temporarily from having any opportunityto participate in military action against him, Obote sent Amin to attend Nasser’s funeral and strongly suggested he should follow this up with a pilgrimage to Mecca. In his absence, Obote made new appointments in the top command of the army and air force and largely separated the latter from army control. On returning from Mecca, Amin was reported to have been placed under house arrest, but to the cheers (and some jeers) of the Makerere university students, and to the evident anger of Obote, he appeared in the seats reserved for the academic staff at the inauguration ceremony.
Guess who was having the last laugh? Amin and later Museveni.
Those UPC supporters who say that nobody within the party is against Olara Otunu, i believe they are just in denial and anybody can see it. There is a section of UPC supporters that dont want Otunu in Uganda House and they could do anything to boot him out, but they are making a mistake, a big mistake. This group has come up with an excuse that Dr.Otunu’s election as UPC President was in violation of the party constitution, but of we flip the coins: assuming James Akena had won that election, would they still be crying over spoilt milk? Therefore, James Akena has got to come out and distance himself from the group working to bring Otunu down because this is gonna affect UPC in both the short and long term. There are no two ways about it.
The fact of the matter is that the two oldest political parties in Uganda are split into two factions. The Kampala DP faction is understandably and openly working against the Mao factions. There is also DP faction headed by Alhajji Nasser Sebagala which the EC refused to register. Then there is one headed by Mabike which he called the Social Democratic Party (SDC), and it was registered by the EC. Nevertheless, SDC has applied to join the IPC.
On the other hand, the UPC faction with no address is clandestinely working against Dr.Otunu. This is an open secret, bruv. The UPC faction with no address is the one that was against UPC joining the IPC and they are Oboteists. For them, without Obote’s ghost or his son or family member, there is no UPC, and probably that’s what was broken in the UPC constitution by Dr.Otunu. The legitimate faction headed by Dr.Otunu is pro-IPC but it has got some elements fighting Otunnu within, yet we are 10 months away to the 2011 elections.
Seriously, how can a party be divided internally and still think they can chip any votes off NRM in 2011? DP is in a mess as i write this and so is UPC. By the time, they sort out this mess; probably the 2011 elections would be over. That is why I request both DP and UPC members to rally behind FDC’s Dr.Kiiza Besigye for the meantime such that the opposition at least gains something in the upcoming elections. We may pretend as much as we want but Dr.Besigye is the best ticket for the opposition right now. I was impressed that Andrew Mwenda of the Independent has so far written two consecutive articles concluding with the same thing.
Let me leave you with a message posted on my blog from one of the most respected elders in UPC. Probably, you will understand what I’m talking about. It was posted on April 21, 2010 at 12:52 am:
”Semuwemba,The fact of the matter is UPC is split and no amount of trying to explain the split away in terms of Jimmy Akena misleading the people of Lango will help Otunnu. As WBK said earlier, in a large measure it is the people leading Akena and not the other way round. An example is what happened just before Otunnu went to Lira. Akena was told in no uncertain terms that he would open a major flood gate into NRM by merely standing near Otunnu. That is the reason you never saw Akena besides Otunnu in Lira, much as Lira Municipality is Akena’s constituency. Later when Otunnu met the elders in Lira they told him they would not accept Akena to hold sinecure offices in Otunnu’s cabinet.
Semuwemba, let me tell you: it is simply resources which is holding us up from opening a rival office to that Otunnu in Kampala. And let me assure you, were such an office to be opened, you would see a flood of UPCs flocking to that office and not 6th floor Uganda House.” Yoga Adhola.
James Akena is the son of former uganda president,Milton Obote.
Dear readers,
Leaders are capable of confusing people if, like it is believed, most people don’t have independent minds. When a group of Honourable Akena James’s supporters go to Lango and tell people there that the current UPC president,Dr.Olara Otuunu, is so bad to the extent that he participated in the 1985 coup that took the Langis out of power, it is a big statement that gets registered on people’s minds forever. Obote may be dead but his name is still a big influence in the Lango region because this is where he started his politics from before he eventually became the president of Uganda.So any word uttered by his son is taken at heart by the Langi.
Some people have said that the Langis have been confused since the death of Obote but i dont think this is true. The Langi are not confused but It’s the leaders they believe in now that have confused them so much. Mr.Akena and some anti-Otunnu MPs were in the area prior to the UPC delagates conference telling people all sorts of lies against Otunu. Now that Otunu is the UPC president, the population in the north does not know whether to accept him or not. This makes Lango and almost the entire northern Uganda very vulnerable in the presidential elections. Anybody can take this region at this moment in time.So i call upon the opposition to put their swords down and pay these guys a visit or send some opposition cadres in the region to undo the damage that was done by supporters of Obote’s son.
Akena while launching his UPC presidential bid in Lira
President Museveni was in the area during the 2011 elections and received a lukewarm reception from the wananchi but he did some damage too. The speech by Honourable Akena while the president was in Lira is also not good news for Otunnu and the rest of the opposition. Akena’s speech was not different from a beggar stationed at the entrance of the new taxi park in Kampala city -asking for shs.1000. He asked the president for the benefits given to the families of former presidents, and his body language was like that of a man ready to be welcomed to serve in the Museveni government any time.
Otunnu should watch Obote’s son like a hawk because he(Akena) is ready to bring him down using all tricks in the book. Mr.Joseph Ochieno, UPC representative in the UK, has been quite since the end of the delegates conference by watching things from the sidelines but he is a well known supporter of James Akena . Dr.Otunnu needs to keep an eye on both Akena and Joseph Ochieno because i don’t think they are ready to accept him as their boss. Ochieno was also against UPC joining the Inter Party Cooperation(IPC) way before he stood for UPC presidential candidacy.
If Honourable Akena wants to distance himself from the people linking Dr.Otunnu to the 1985 coup allegations, we request him to publicy come out and tell Ugandans that:
he does not believe that Otunnu was part of the engineers of the 1985 coup that led to the final straw of his father’s leadership;
he wishes Otunnu success despite turning down a position to serve under him, and that he will help UPC progress behind the backdoors;
He will never serve as ‘anything’ in any government led by president Museveni unless if there is a coalition government agreed after a disputed election.
If Mr.Akena can do this for Ugandans then we shall leave him in peace. Short of that, he will be held responsible for what is happening in Lango, conflicst at UPC headwuarters and other parts of the northern Uganda where the opposition is losing the ground. He will be held responsible for any gains NRM may make in the north.
Ugandans should know that leaders are also capable of creating a system that is intended to confuse people before and during the elections. They can, for instance, create ballot boxes or a voting system that is not familiar to a man in Lango or Kangulumira, and later play it to the their advantage of winning an election. For example, this happened in the 2000 USA elections, where some people argued that the format of the ballot in Palm Beach County led to confusion and caused people who intended to vote for Al Gore to mistakenly cast votes for Pat Buchanan or punch two holes resulting in a voided ballot.
Similarly, we were remaining with a few months to enter into the 2011 campaigns but why do you think that the Electoral Commission(EC) did not do enough to make sure that the 2011 are free and fair? Who do you think benefited from this confusion created by the leaders in power?
Let me leave you with a quote from Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II: “Why of course the people don’t want war … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship….. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
So, now you understand why it is easy to get a following to fight any war in Uganda or the rest of the world. If any leader (even the most stupid or unpopular) tells people today that he is recruiting to fight the Museveni government, he will get a following. Trust me on this, because it is in human nature not to ask a lot of questions when faced with a brave person. If any leader stands up today after being chairman of a certain district, and tell people that he wants to stand against Museveni, he will get a following, despite the obvious hurdles in front of him.
It is easy for people to believe in the lies and distortions their leaders tell them. With a straight face, political figures tell the people that black is white, war is peace, lies are truths, joblessness is economic recovery, ignorance is intelligence, FDC is the same as NRM and they get a following. Haven’t you seen how some people continue to say that FDC is the same as NRM and get a following? Even when they are faced with the truth, they will continue spreading the same message because they know that they can always tap the gullible ones. Haven’t you heard president Museveni promising certain things to Ugandans from 1986 and he never implements them but still some people vote for him after 23 years in power? The fact is that Leaders are capable of twisting words and confusing anyone, and therefore i ask all Ugandans to watch out .
While we appreciate Andrew Mwenda’s observations about Buganda, Obote and president Museveni in one of his articles in the independent newspaper, i would like to inform Ugandans that Museveni is a proper student of Obote. It’s just that the student has proved to be a wiser and formidable opponent to Buganda/Uganda than Obote such that it will take a proper political tactical genious,not just A4C ralllies, to win this battle. If Buganda was a football club, i would recommend football Coach, Jose Mourinho, to take over as the Katikiiro, because he is a tactical genius.
ARMY,BUGANDA AND POLITICS
The tactics both the Museveni and late Obote sometimes used differ but the end product is always the same.It’s more like selling toothpaste by calling it different names when the ingredients are similar. At the moment, Museveni has kept good tabs on the army but nobody should deceive you that the army and other security agents are not directly involved in politics, as was the case during Obote. Actually, Honourable Erias Lukwago proposal to get rid of army MPs from parliament was intended to pull a plug on this before it was deafeated in parliament.
When eventually the Kabaka’s Palace, the Lubiri, was attacked at 5.30 am on 24 May 1966, the Obote army had established itself in an indispensable position in the politics of UPC government in Uganda. Many university students and their families suffered, if not loss of life, certainly extreme humiliation by having their faces trodden on and their wallets stolen by the often-times drunken soldiery. From May 1966 until the end of Obote’s Presidential rule on 25 January 1971, Buganda was judged to be in ‘a state of emergency’ and was held so by none other than the Ugandan army and the police.
MEDIA FREEDOM
Sedition charges did not start with president museveni as he learnt that from one of his predecessors, Dr. Milton Obote. Pro-baganda newspapers like the Economy had a breather after the fall of Amin but things started getting tougher afterwards. Obote 2 also got tougher on foreign journalists who had had freedom under Lule and Binaisa. Many newspapers like the weekly topic were closed down by government officials under obote 2. Anthony Sekweyama, the editor of the main Luganda newspaper then, Munansi, and two other employees of the paper were arrested in March 1980s and held for three weeks on sedition charges. I think the online – Los Angels radio ,Radio Munansi, picked its name in rememberance of Ssekweyama’s ”Munansi”.
Under Museveni, journalists such as Andrew Mwenda ,Kalundi Serumaga and Timothy Kalyegira and others had sedition charges hanging over them till when Andrew Mwenda challenged the sedition law in the constiutional court and won. We don’t know how far the government is willing to extend their arm on punishing those that write anti-government articles since i hear they have even started picking on the facebookers.
Museveni’s idea of the media centre originally headed by Robert Kabushenga did not come from the moon. Obote was the man who first introduced Newspaper and Publications Act to lay down conditions for the starting of a newspaper or magazine in Uganda. Museveni’s media centre is an equivalent of Obote’s Press Accreditation Committee (PAC) which had representatives from the Ministries of Information, Internal Affairs and Foreign Affairs. Ugandan journalists wishing to send material to foreign sources had to be approved by the same body. Under Museveni, there was a bill that was tabled and raised a lot of eyebrows internationally and nationally because it intended to take away media freedom from Uganda completely. The Swedish were the first to openly oppose it though we didn’t expect the Americans to oppose it as Carson had been in Uganda and rubberstamped Museveni’s leadership.
BLACK MAMBAS AND THE JUDICIARY
‘Black mambas’ were in existence during Obote 2 and now under Museveni’s government. Whatever Obote did during his reign, Museveni can do better. An example is when Barak Kirya was acquitted of treason charges in Dec 1984; he was rearrested in the same way FDC’s Besigye was rearrested under Museveni and taken back to Luzira Prison. Kirya just like Besigye was co-accused with others on treason charges( who included captain Mark Kodili, major Hussain Ada, Captain Sajjad Soori, Frank Kivumbi and James Balamu), who were also acquitted by the judge but the Obote’s ‘black mambas’ surrounded the court such that the Kiryas could not leave the court room. They were eventually forced out and taken back to Luzira. So when Besigye was re-arrested in 2006 and the army had the court besieged, it was more like watching the same movie with different actors.
RIGGING ELECTIONS
UPC is a party that started rigging elections in Uganda. They rigged the 1980 elections because they wanted Obote to become the president of Uganda by all means. For instance, Museveni who was in Uganda People’s Movement (UPM) in 1980, is quoted to have said that “Kategaya was a very bad UPC. He even stole our votes. He stole eight. He told us. He voted eight times”. Probably Museveni learned all the tactics of rigging elections while still a member of UPC because he has also been taken to court for the same problems after the 2001 and 2006 elections. Like they say: ‘an apple does not fall far from the tree”.
Let’s also remember that there was a chance to hold General elections in 1967 before Obote introduced mafia legislations that pushed the whole idea of elections aside because he knew he could lose.
RDCs UNDER MUSEVENI
After 1967, Obote increased his power tremendously. The 1967 Constitution was designed to get rid of feudal rule at the sub-national levels of government by increasing the powers of the District Commissioner, who now became the effective instrument of the central government policies in the district, and the removal of outmoded offices at the local level. Chiefs and ministerial figureheads at the district headquarters were removed. Obote also increased his powers so much as a president under the 1967 consitution.
Under Museveni, we have got people like RDCs who yield more power than even the elected officials at the districts. They always interfere with the work of district officials in the name of protecting presidential interests. For instance, a RDC can stop a radio station from hosting a leader of the national party like FDC or UPC -just to please president Museveni. A RDC can fire a LCV chairman as was temporarily the case in Kayunga district with Mr. Besweli Mulondo.
ARMY APPOINTMENTS,SECTARIANISM AND TRIBALISM
In his book African Upheavals since Independence , Grace Ibingira, ex-Minister of Justice, recalls a conversation he had with Obote at the Governor General’s Garden Party on the 12th of October: ‘as I accompanied Obote through state guests’, he writes, ‘he pointed out Karugaba to me at a distance and inquired whether I knew him. I replied I did not. He then confided that the senior British Officers were recommending him to command the Army and to retire Opolot and Amin, who had reached the highest ranks they could reasonably attain. Obote then told me Karugaba was a Roman Catholic and as such could not be trusted and he would not accept him to head the Army’ (p. 92).
Ibingira goes on to claim that the chief reason for Obote’s dismissal of Major Karugaba,which he proceeded to have carried out, was not primarily one of religion but of ethnicity, since he was a southerner and stood in the way of Iddil Amin whom Obote had chosen in his mind to be his hatchet man. This was in the face of strong advice to the contrary from the Governor General, Sir Walter Coutts, and the British Officers, Colonels Cheyne and Tillett, following charges brought against Amin of using great brutality against the Turkana tribe in the Kenya border area late in 1961.
At Independence the Uganda Rifles consisted of one battalion and though it was very largely composed of northerners from the Acholi, Iteso, Lugbara, Kakwa tribes and other West Nile groups, it did not have within it many men from Lango in the north, Obote’s home area.However, Obote portrayed tribalism of the highest degree with the introduction of the para-military wing of the General Service Unit, almost wholly recruited from Lango.
Similalry, Under Museveni, a police officer can easily shoot one in broad day light just because one have refused to give way for the president who wants to pay his respects at Kasubi tombs. Under Museveni, you demonstrate or stage a riot at your own peril because a soldier can easily shoot you between the eyes and go away with it, as was the case with the Buganda riots in September 2009. Under Museveni, majority of the Generals come from western Ugandan, the president place of birth, as pointed out in details by the Observer’s Ibrahimu Ssemujju Nganda in one of his articles.Ssemujju was the IPC spokesperson then but he is now a member of Parliament for Kyadondo South.
BANNING PARTIES
UPC was the first party to ban political parties in Uganda under Obote 1 in 1968 under the famous Lugogo ceremony. Similary when YKM came to power in 1986, he did the same thing as a way of weakening the notorious UPC. I partly supported the banning of political parties in 1986 for reasons i will explain another time.
INTERFERING IN MUK POLITICS
Makerere students and most Ugandans generally hated Obote because he used the campus to spy on students, intimidate and kill students . The Obote army intimidated and killed a lot of students at Makerere university in the 1980s purely because they wanted to devise ways of either UPC dominating the Guild or closing it altogether if UPC couldn’t have it. At one time, one George Bwanika was shot and damped in Namanve forests. UPC used the offices of the then Dean of students, George Kihuguru and the Deputy Vice chancellor,Gingera-Pinycwa, to plung the whole university into chaos with the help of obviously the army.
Trust me when I say that NRM is also investing a lot of time in MUK politics. They want their own people to run things there other than anybody else. However, to be fair to NRM, they have allowed candidates from other parties to win elections in higher institutions of learning which was not the case under Obote.
There are several aspects where these Museveni and Obote are similar but I just thought I could point out a few of them. Nevertheless, the Luwero war was justified without any doubt in my mind. If all the above is just ‘anterograde amnesia’ to some people then I have got nothing else to say. Obote needed to go by all means. If Museveni had not spearheaded the Luwero Bush war, somebody else would have done so.I have no doubt about that.
Below is a clear transcript of the letter with AM Obote’s proposals for rigging the 1980 elections. Most of those proposals were implemented to the letter:
Submitted by Lance Corporal (Rtd) Patrick Otto(UAH forumist)
The above transcript does not have AM Obote’s signature. Why? Because it is a transcript!
So Let me give you below a letter by Paulo Muwanga which in fact was reaffirming AM Obote’s words: That one is not a transcript.
Submitted by Lance Corporal (Rtd) Patrick Otto (UAH forumist)
Obote and Sir Edward Mutesa before kingdoms were abolished
Dear friends,
I have always found articles in the media written by Mengo officials, such as Buganda’s Attorney General, Appolo Makubuya, about the relationship between Obote and Mutesa11, very interesting. And i think It is very wrong for some people to argue that Baganda generally hate Acholis or northerners in general. Baganda are very welcoming people and they have welcomed everybody starting with every name in the alphabets from A- Z including the Acholis. The person to blame for attempting to create divisions between the Baganda and the northerners was late Obote, but good enough he is dead and ,therefore, we can afford to move on or repair the damage he left behind if Museveni also goes sooner.
The truth is that Obote seemed to have had some banter to settle with Baganda. For instance, In a speech broadcast on radio Uganda, obote told a rally held in soroti in 1981 that if the baganda did not behave themselves, they (the Acholi-Langi alliance) would do to them what they did to the west Nilers in 1980. Secondly,Phares Mutibwa in his book ‘Uganda since independence’ also wrote that at Kololo(outskirts of Kampala city) , one Acholi soldier wrote on the wall:’killing a muganda or a munyankole is as easy as riding a bicycle’.
Nevertheless, the Acholis have never forgiven Obote for dividing the Acholi district into Simba and Moto Moto factions because he wanted to prolong his stay in power. Obote wanted to keep them fighting each other since a unified Acholi would worry his leadership and he was right when one looks at what happened at the later stages of his leadership. Obote depended on rival factions within the party to lead UPC for a long time. In Toro, he clandestinely supported a rival UPC group called ‘KAGOROGORO’ under Rwambarali against another one under Samson Rusoke. That is how he run his shows in UPC for a long time till the day called ”Mulindwa” happened in 1985.So why should Baganda continue to hate the Acholis who also later realised that they were just being used by Obote?
It is very unfair on the rest of Ugandans who hate Obote and UPC when someone just picks only on Baganda. Obote’s injustices did not limit themselves to Buganda borders alone such that when Dr.Otuunu or any other UPC leader is apologising, s/he may find himself doing it to the whole country apart from Lango. Obote was not only hated in Buganda but the rest of Uganda and the following may explain why:
Sedition charges started with Obote and Museveni just polished it. Sedition charges did not start with president museveni as he learnt that from one of his predecessors, Dr. Milton Obote. Journalists and the media were some of the biggest casualties of the government’s sensitivity to criticism during Obote and now Museveni.
Black Mambas started with Obote not Museveni. When president Museveni sent the ‘black mambas’ in the case of Dr.Kiiza Besigye and other PRA suspects Vs the state of Uganda, and black mambas surrounded the court, he was just polishing what he had been taught by his political master, Milton Obote. When Obote stole the 1980 elections just like most political thieves, he started manipulating the judiciary as a way of keeping himself in power. Lawyers who tried to represent people in courts were intimidated, detained or killed. For example, Cprian Kawoya was abducted from the high court while the court was in session and later murdered by Obote’s ‘black mambas’. Other lawyers killed or tortured under similar circumstances include: Hon. George Bamuturaki, Gideon Mutanga, Sewava Sempala,e.t.c.
UPC was the first party to ban political parties in Uganda under Obote 1 in 1968 under the famous Lugogo ceremony.So, when Museveni came into power in 1986, he did the same thing till 2004 when multi partysm got a breather after donor pressure and court cases fronted by DP and UPC.
Makerere students generally hated Obote because he used the campus to spy on students, intimidate and kill students. The Obote army intimidated and killed a lot of students at Makerere university in the 1980s purely because they wanted to devise ways of either UPC dominating the Guild or closing it altogether if UPC couldn’t have it. At one time, one George Bwanika was shot and damped in Namanve forests. UPC used the offices of the then Dean of students, George Kihuguru and the Deputy Vice chancellor, Gingera-Pinycwa, to plung the whole university into chaos with the help of obviously the army.
However much I admire the political acumen of Dr.Milton Obote, he made the gravest mistake of attempting to weaken Buganda by attacking the Lubili in Mengo in 1966.Obote himself is on record saying that was his lowest point in leadership.
A lot of Ugandans were killed under his watch between 1980 and 1984. For example, Hajji Abbasi Kibazo: Chairman Uganda Taxi OPERATORS Cooperative Union. He was arrested from his office in Kampala and taken to Makindye Barracks where they did what Kampalans call ‘OKUMUMIZA OMUSSU’ (murdered). Actually, he failed to protect the Ugandan population in Luwero when he was ‘legally’ made a president by a UPC chaired Electoral Commission after the 1980 elections. So many Ugandans lost their lives in Luwero and elsewhere because of the NRA rebels that cropped up after these elections
Obote was the man who started coups in Uganda by illegally ousting President Sir Edward Mutesa in 1966. This same year he illegally abolished kingdoms and is partly responsible for the death of Ugandans in the Lubili attack of 1966.
He is responsible for militarisation of politics in Uganda and this is exemplified by so many examples in his government (Obote 1 and 2). He also started the tribalisation of the army in Uganda when he recruited a lot of his tribes mate in the Uganda Army after taking over from DP’s Ben Kiwanuka.
He is responsible for producing a 1967 constitution that makes the offices of the Vice president and prime minister not independent of the presidency. The president can fire the VP and prime minister any time and this was started by the changes brought about in the 1967 constitution. The 1962 consitiution had separated the powers of the president, vice president and Prime minister but Obote changed that, and no president has rectified this up today.
It is also believed that president Obote did not want the Islamic University in Mbale to be built while he was in power. These allegations were made by president Museveni at one of the Mbale University’s graduation ceremony. Museveni also reportedly said that Obote did not want Uganda to be a member of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). Obote’s reason, according to Museveni, being that the two were linked to Idi Amin.
Obote was the politician who started the ‘TEMANGALO’(Corruption) environment in Uganda though it is arguably believed that NRM has been worse in this department. For instance, the GOLD ALLEGATION scandal of 1960s was the start of pure state corruption in Uganda and if it had been punished properly, probably it would have set a good precedent in Uganda politics. Another example is when Prime Minister Kintu Musoke attacked Obote for having bought a government house on Prince Charles Drive in Kololo at a giveaway price. The prime minister wanted to prove that Obote was the first politician to purchase a government house and to convince the public that it was therefore in order for President Museveni or his brother Maj. Gen. Salim Saleh to purchase the same house. Let us also remember that Uganda House was built using tax payers money though this could not be proved properly in the courts of law.
Apollo Milton Obote is the only party leader the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) had before he died. Remember UPC was established before even Uganda got independence. But you going to find a lot of UPC supporters asking a man who has been a leader of FDC party since 2005 to step aside because he has served one term.
Obote used men like Rwakasisi to terrorise Banyarwanda in the 1980S. Actually, some registration schemes were started in towns like Masaka headed by some guy I have forgotten. Surprisingly, Rwakasisis is now ‘reformed’ and a state buddy of president Museveni. He is one of the presidential advisors on security.
It’s an open secret that UPC under Obote rigged the 1980 elections and that marked the beginning of rigging in Uganda politics. It had never happened before. That’s why we are not surprised that even when Dr.Otuunu won the UPC presidency and beat his opponents fairly, some UPC still stuck with the 1980 mindset are telling people that he rigged.
As for why most Ugandans hate UPC more than the British, it is because these were colonialists who came in Uganda, did whatever they had to do and later packed their bags at the end of colonialism. They left a very good development program in 1960s (that included among many things the building of hospitals, for Obote 1 which he partly implemented. Uganda is now an independent country though we have failed to be economically independent. Donors are still pulling the strings as we have all seen with threats of cutting aid if Africa does not embrace homosexuality. Africa has got a lot of natural resources and it should be in a good shape now economically but our post independence leaders let us down.
Mr Kikira, the Chairman of the EC of the 1980s was a card-bearing member of the UPC. He had nothing to do with UPM. It was not accidental that the UPC-dominated Military Commission chose him to hold that post. He was a known veteran gerrymanderer and rigger, having aided the UPC in the 1963 Ankole District Coouncil election.
Recall that on 12th August 1980 AM Obote made some proposals on how to rig the elections and he specifically recommended that the EC should be chaired by a UPC sympathiser, “our old friend Kikira”.
See for yourself AM Obote’s letter. Look at Proposal one, (c) where Kikira is mentioned.
Documents Submitted by Lance Corporal (Rtd) Patrick Otto(UAH forumist)
The Current chairman of Uganda’s Electoral Commission,Dr.Badru Kiggundu is also a NRM card holder as reported by the Independent newspaper.He has been the Chairman of the Electoral Commission since November 18, 2002. He is in charge of the Northern Region districts. According to Conservative Party (CP) leader and former Rubaga South MP John Ken Lukyamuzi, Kiggundu contested for Member of Parliament for Rubaga South in 1996 on an NRM ticket and lost. According to other reports, Kiggundu was also an LC official while he was Dean Faculty of Technology at Makerere University.
We all feel bad about the people that died during and after the Luwero Triangle war. This war happened in Buganda and that means so many baganda died more than any other tribe. It is this very tribe that supported president Museveni and hated Obote and UPC. This very tribe still hates Obote and UPC and it is starting to hate Museveni.The Baganda killed in Luwero were not only UPC members as alleged by Obote or UPC supporters. Yes,both the NRA guerrillas and the UNLA killed a lot of people in the Luwero triangle and outside this triangle. However, there are several Ugandans that lost their lives from the time UPC rigged the 1980 elections , and among them include the following:
Joseph Nsubuga from Rubaga: He was killed along with his father and brother in law and their house was destroyed by a dynamite
Mr.Kinaalwa: He was chairman East Mengo growers Coop union. He was killed with 14 others following a visit by Paul muwanga and Hajji Musa Sebirumbi.
Alhajji Jabiiri: he was an elder from west Nile.When he returned to Uganda, he was arrested by police and later killed
Nelson Kirya Kalikwani: he was a veteran from Busoga who was picked up by security forces and taken to Luzira where he later died from.
Hajji SSali from Kabalagala: One of the founders of UFM. His house was bombed and all his family wiped out on the planet earth.
Katongole and his wife( mukyala we): both shot dead by UNLA soldiers at road block at Kabalagala
Anna Nantongo: she was a housewife but she was raped and strangled by UNLA soldiers
Lt.J.J Odong : Killed on orders from the army branch in Mbarara
Joseph Kyobe: he was an ex-magistrate of Lungujja.Both his sons were shot dead.Later the government apologized for this death with reasons of mistaken identity
Capt Darlington Ssengendo from Lubaga: he was shot dead at Bakuli by UNLA soldiers
Lt. Byarugaba: he was picked from officers mess in Moroto barracks and disappeared
Lt.George Kalenzi: he was killed by RSM Okello of Makindye barracks
Lt.Kutawanyika Mugisha: UNLA bastards killed him near Kampala on a road block
Captain Levi Mugarura: he was arrested at Nsambya Housing estate by Oyite-Ojok’s bodyguard and later killed in the nile mansions
Prof Joseph Ruremenkuba Muhangi: he was gunned down by soldiers at a road block near Kampala.Some body tramped up charges against him( as is the case today under Museveni) that he was gonna poison UPC’s Paul Muwanga
Cypriano Kalule Kawoya: This one was a lawyer. He was taken out of court in Kampala by soldiers and his body was later found on the outskirts of the city.
Moses Suubi Mugomba. He was based at Soroti flying school and was killed by soldiers in Jinja
Mrs Juliet Sebina: she was shot dead on her way to see the husband in prison soon after Vice president,Muwanga Paul, took over their petrol station on Entebbe road, near the clock tower
Stephen Mulira: he was the managing director of Lint MARKETING Board .He was arrested at road block and taken to the Nile mansions by the then army chief of staff, David Oyite Ojok.
Sam Karuhanga Rutehenda: he and his brother were killed because they were suspected of helping out on Museveni’s guerrillas.
The list is so long including my father and other relatives who were killed during that period. If any body wishes, they can add on it, because one day, some one has got to answer for these murders, atleast when s/he dies and meet God. My father was shot while hiding in the garage and left to bleed to death under his car.
I ask Ugandans to start compiling the list of any body politically killed from 1986 up to now. We need to know the dead because they should not be forgotten just like that.One day all the information considered as classified under Museveni will become public. If I had time I would have put out the whole list of ‘UPC murders’ . Please make records of everybody disappearing and dying under Museveni/NRM. If you don’t make these records, nobody will make them for you. Write a book of these murders, keep it safe, and publish it in future if necessary.
Nevertheless, I agree with the assertion that some people were unfairly punished in Buganda after the fall of Obote 1. The cases I know- involved their houses being destroyed and that was it, but not murders. One of the victims was Mr. Busulwa in Nakatundu, Kangulumira(BUGERERE), whose house was put on fire but nobody was killed. Mr.Muwonge in kyabazala was also a victim. My grandfather was also a victim of these crimes and I’m still confused as to why he used to support Obote, but then again he is a Ugandan and he has got a right to associate with any party.
One thing he has always told me though- is that Obote was the most intelligent president Uganda has ever had but he misused his intelligence and that’s why he landed in trouble, and I believe him. Why did he have to antagonize the Baganda by attacking the Kabaka’s Lubili in Mengo? Why wouldn’t he find another way of settling his ‘wars’ with Sir Edward Mutesa instead of attacking the Lubiri and killing a lot of people? It was a very stupid egoistic decision and I pray that Museveni is not advised by anybody to do the same some day because we seem to be moving towards the same direction.
The way forward is a truth and reconciliation committee which is similar to the one the South Africans had after the release of Nelson Mandela. My worry is that we cannot have such a committee under the NRM government that is taking us back where we came from.
Home and Away! 
