DR. OBOTE UNMASKS MUSEVENI - A MASTERPIECE FOR THE YOUNG GENERATION
(Extract from Concealment of Genocide by a former President of Uganda written almost three decades ago. Those who doubted the narrative then are engulfed in shame now).
"Museveni has a thirst for power in its most naked form. He believes intensely in violence as a means of governance and for holding power. He is an accomplished liar and a total stranger to truth. His method of conducting public affairs or his political Party, the UPM, and now his NRM/NRA is a combination of violence and lies. Museveni is an extremely poor, indeed inept, civil administrator. He seeks nor accepts advice from anybody on any matter and detests the conduct of public affairs through discussion, debate or competing ideas; his own ideas must be accepted as the only valid ones and all others are "bankrupt ideas". Yet he is not averse to steal ideas from others and claim to have been the originator, but often without clear understanding of how to implement the stolen ideas.
Museveni prefers militarist (violent) approach in the resolution of problems and issues but would also, at times, put forward a dissembling scheme,while preparing a military solution. Both on personal and public Affairs, there is no ethic, moral values or law which he would not either discard, flout or bend in order for him to achieve his designs.
Museveni's propensity for bloodshed did not start in Luwero. The UPC government contained this mass killer within the Luwero Triangle. The Okello and Okello Junta facilitated the killer and now he brutalizes the whole country. Ugandans, who, for whatever reason, have not seen Museveni as a killer or think that they would be safe because they are close to him are in for a rude shock. Museveni kills not only those he sees or regards as his enemies but also those closest to him.
We cite some examples:
In Tanzania in the early 1970s, a number of Ugandans who were very close to Museveni disappeared and have not been seen again. They included Mwesiga Black, Raiti Omongin, Miss V. Rwaheru (Museveni's housekeeper) and Martin Mwesiga (brother of Frank Mwine of the Uganda Commercial Bank). In the case of Martin Mwesiga, his sister Margaret, who was living and working in Arusha, personally told me in 1974 in Dar es Salaam the murky story about the disappearance of her brother.
"Museveni has a thirst for power in its most naked form. He believes intensely in violence as a means of governance and for holding power. He is an accomplished liar and a total stranger to truth. His method of conducting public affairs or his political Party, the UPM, and now his NRM/NRA is a combination of violence and lies. Museveni is an extremely poor, indeed inept, civil administrator. He seeks nor accepts advice from anybody on any matter and detests the conduct of public affairs through discussion, debate or competing ideas; his own ideas must be accepted as the only valid ones and all others are "bankrupt ideas". Yet he is not averse to steal ideas from others and claim to have been the originator, but often without clear understanding of how to implement the stolen ideas.
Museveni prefers militarist (violent) approach in the resolution of problems and issues but would also, at times, put forward a dissembling scheme,while preparing a military solution. Both on personal and public Affairs, there is no ethic, moral values or law which he would not either discard, flout or bend in order for him to achieve his designs.
Museveni's propensity for bloodshed did not start in Luwero. The UPC government contained this mass killer within the Luwero Triangle. The Okello and Okello Junta facilitated the killer and now he brutalizes the whole country. Ugandans, who, for whatever reason, have not seen Museveni as a killer or think that they would be safe because they are close to him are in for a rude shock. Museveni kills not only those he sees or regards as his enemies but also those closest to him.
We cite some examples:
In Tanzania in the early 1970s, a number of Ugandans who were very close to Museveni disappeared and have not been seen again. They included Mwesiga Black, Raiti Omongin, Miss V. Rwaheru (Museveni's housekeeper) and Martin Mwesiga (brother of Frank Mwine of the Uganda Commercial Bank). In the case of Martin Mwesiga, his sister Margaret, who was living and working in Arusha, personally told me in 1974 in Dar es Salaam the murky story about the disappearance of her brother.
The gist of Margaret's story is that on several occasions in 1973, she asked Museveni about the whereabouts of her brother, who until he disappeared, was always with Museveni. Margaret told me and others that on each such occasion, Museveni gave her a different version of where Mwesiga was, ranging from Mwesiga being alive and well but on a mission abroad to Mwesiga undergoing a secret course. Late in 1973, Margaret said, Museveni told her that her brother had died in a battle in Mbale in February 1973. One of those present when Margaret gave this account was Enoka Muntuyera, the father of the present Commander of the NRA, Major General Muntu. Enoka and another Ugandan told Margaret that they had stayed in the same hotel as Museveni and Mwesiga in Tabora, Tanzania, in April 1973. Margaret had travelled to Dar es Salaam with another brother, Magara, to enlist my help for Magara to get a place in the University of Dar es Salaam.
Magara who after his graduation joined the UNLA, defected and joined the NRA in 1981. In 1983, when he was on an NRA mission in a Kampala suburb, someone rang the Police to say that Museveni was in a house in the suburb. The house was surrounded and its occupants were asked to come out without their arms but instead the occupants opened fire. Magara died in the shoot-out. Two of Magara's NRA colleagues were taken alive; they were wounded. The two told the Police that as far as they knew, the mission was known only to Museveni, the house was safe and they got there at night as they had done previously. Margaret and Frank (Frank Mwine the former CEO of the defunct UCB), Sister and Brother of Mwesiga and Magara are now in very lucrative positions.
In early 1979 after the capture of Ankole by the Tanzanian troops, Museveni organized hooligans, mostly from the two Refugee Camps, Rukinga and Nakivale, and led them in attacks and massacres of Muslims. He led the hooligans to the Kakoba Coffee Factory and burnt it down. He also organized an assault to burn down his former school, Ntare, but this was frustrated when patriotic Ugandans appealed to the Tanzanian troops to restrain Museveni which they did. In Mbarara Town, Museveni, the son of an itinerant immigrant, lived in Omugabe's Palace. His reasoning for the massacres of the Muslims, the burning of the coffee Factory, etc. was that in so doing the "wrath" of the "wananchi" (citizens) was being expressed against the Amin regime. It was immaterial to Museveni that the hooligans he was leading were not citizens and that the victims were citizens. What was of greatest importance was to show in the most unmistaken form that he was the new ruler in Ankole and that terror including massacres were to be instruments of his rule.
Museveni entered Uganda in early January 1979 in the company of the Tanzanian troops. Contrary to propaganda, he had no army which he left behind either in Tanzania or Mozambique and had no such army anywhere in Uganda. When his hooligans were restrained from attacking Ntare School and after they had dynamited Public Buildings in Mbarara Town, he began to raise an army. In the second part of February 1979, he returned to Dar-es-salaam where, at a meeting with me, President Nyerere determined that Museveni would henceforth lead the Ugandan component of forces then fighting against Amin. From Dar es Salaam Museveni, now the Supreme Commissar, went to Rakai and Masaka Districts where, again, in order to show the "wrath" of the citizens, much destruction was wrought. Houses of the affluent were dynamited as were Public Buildings, including Tropic Inn (Hotel).
Magara who after his graduation joined the UNLA, defected and joined the NRA in 1981. In 1983, when he was on an NRA mission in a Kampala suburb, someone rang the Police to say that Museveni was in a house in the suburb. The house was surrounded and its occupants were asked to come out without their arms but instead the occupants opened fire. Magara died in the shoot-out. Two of Magara's NRA colleagues were taken alive; they were wounded. The two told the Police that as far as they knew, the mission was known only to Museveni, the house was safe and they got there at night as they had done previously. Margaret and Frank (Frank Mwine the former CEO of the defunct UCB), Sister and Brother of Mwesiga and Magara are now in very lucrative positions.
In early 1979 after the capture of Ankole by the Tanzanian troops, Museveni organized hooligans, mostly from the two Refugee Camps, Rukinga and Nakivale, and led them in attacks and massacres of Muslims. He led the hooligans to the Kakoba Coffee Factory and burnt it down. He also organized an assault to burn down his former school, Ntare, but this was frustrated when patriotic Ugandans appealed to the Tanzanian troops to restrain Museveni which they did. In Mbarara Town, Museveni, the son of an itinerant immigrant, lived in Omugabe's Palace. His reasoning for the massacres of the Muslims, the burning of the coffee Factory, etc. was that in so doing the "wrath" of the "wananchi" (citizens) was being expressed against the Amin regime. It was immaterial to Museveni that the hooligans he was leading were not citizens and that the victims were citizens. What was of greatest importance was to show in the most unmistaken form that he was the new ruler in Ankole and that terror including massacres were to be instruments of his rule.
Museveni entered Uganda in early January 1979 in the company of the Tanzanian troops. Contrary to propaganda, he had no army which he left behind either in Tanzania or Mozambique and had no such army anywhere in Uganda. When his hooligans were restrained from attacking Ntare School and after they had dynamited Public Buildings in Mbarara Town, he began to raise an army. In the second part of February 1979, he returned to Dar-es-salaam where, at a meeting with me, President Nyerere determined that Museveni would henceforth lead the Ugandan component of forces then fighting against Amin. From Dar es Salaam Museveni, now the Supreme Commissar, went to Rakai and Masaka Districts where, again, in order to show the "wrath" of the citizens, much destruction was wrought. Houses of the affluent were dynamited as were Public Buildings, including Tropic Inn (Hotel).
From there Museveni proceeded to Fort Portal which had fallen to the Tanzanian troops. In Fort Portal, like in Mbarara, Museveni stayed in the Omukama's Palace which was intact and furnished. In 1987 Elizabeth Bagaya, then Museveni's friend and Ambassador to the USA, in a tele-cin video, charged that "Obote's soldiers" destroyed in the 1960s her father's Palace; the same Palace in which Bagaya and Amin once stayed when she was Amin's Foreign Minister and in which Museveni stayed in 1979 when Obote was in Tanzania and had no soldiers in Fort Portal. It is known that Museveni ordered the destruction of the Palace when on April 11, 1979, David Oyite Ojok announced over Radio Uganda the fall of Kampala.
The Supreme Commissar (Museveni) was said to have been very furious that someone else and not him had announced the fall of Amin.
With the approval of Tanzania, I sent in January 1979, two Teams to Western and Buganda Regions. Each Team had a medical doctor. The role of the Teams was the mobilization of the people in liberated areas so as to ensure good order, public health, rural production and trade, cooperation with the Anti-Amin forces and collection of arms abandoned by Amin's soldiers and surrendering such arms to the anti-Amin forces. Central to the mobilization exercise, was the establishment of Committees from the village to District levels. The 1970 UPC Party election regulations, for lack of a better form, were to be used with amendments in the establishment of the Committees. This meant that the residents of a village would assemble irrespective of Party affiliations at one place on the appointed day and elect a Committee and officials such as Chairman, Secretary, etc. and also the village delegates to the next Committee above the village level. Elections were to be in the form of the electors filing behind candidates for the various offices.
The Supreme Commissar (Museveni) was said to have been very furious that someone else and not him had announced the fall of Amin.
With the approval of Tanzania, I sent in January 1979, two Teams to Western and Buganda Regions. Each Team had a medical doctor. The role of the Teams was the mobilization of the people in liberated areas so as to ensure good order, public health, rural production and trade, cooperation with the Anti-Amin forces and collection of arms abandoned by Amin's soldiers and surrendering such arms to the anti-Amin forces. Central to the mobilization exercise, was the establishment of Committees from the village to District levels. The 1970 UPC Party election regulations, for lack of a better form, were to be used with amendments in the establishment of the Committees. This meant that the residents of a village would assemble irrespective of Party affiliations at one place on the appointed day and elect a Committee and officials such as Chairman, Secretary, etc. and also the village delegates to the next Committee above the village level. Elections were to be in the form of the electors filing behind candidates for the various offices.
Delegates elected from the villages would form the next Committee in the tier but at that level to the District level delegates were free to decide on whether or not to elect officials by filing behind candidates or by show of hands. Museveni vehemently opposed the very idea of these Committees. His position was that Uganda was in a revolutionary situation in which the barrel of the gun alone should and must be allowed to give birth to the new order. Chris Rwakasisi and Edward Rurangaranga were the leaders of the Team which went to the West and Samwiri Mugwisa led the Team which went to Buganda. After he became the Supreme Commissar, the two Teams were forced out of Uganda. They returned to Dar es Salaam and the exercise was thereby killed.
Today, however, Museveni is credited with having been the originator of the so-called "grassroot democracy". The great difference between the original system and Museveni's, is that the latter is part and parcel of Museveni's instrument of control and oppression whereas the former was Peoples' non-partisan instructions. I do not believe that on account of the NRM Committees, Museveni can be said to have moved from being a Saul to being a Saint Paul on the matter of democracy.
There was also another Team which I sent to Uganda with the approval of Tanzania in February 1979.
Today, however, Museveni is credited with having been the originator of the so-called "grassroot democracy". The great difference between the original system and Museveni's, is that the latter is part and parcel of Museveni's instrument of control and oppression whereas the former was Peoples' non-partisan instructions. I do not believe that on account of the NRM Committees, Museveni can be said to have moved from being a Saul to being a Saint Paul on the matter of democracy.
There was also another Team which I sent to Uganda with the approval of Tanzania in February 1979.
This Team was composed of agriculturists, veterinarians and economists. I should mention, in passing, that at that time, it was not certain that Tanzania would fight Amin to the bitter end. It was, therefore, imperative to assess the economic situation in Rakai, Masaka and Ankole which had been liberated with a view of presenting to Tanzania proposals designed to sustain the economic well-being of those areas in the event of such areas and Kigezi being cut-off from the rest of Uganda. Museveni attacked this Team for allegedly interfering with the prosecution of the war. No wonder, therefore, that Museveni's pre-occupation with militarist approach to the exclusion of every other consideration destroyed the economies of Luwero, North and East. The Economic Team of 1979 like the Mobilization Teams were also forced out of Uganda.
The sting in the tail is that Milton Obote, whose ideas are described by Museveni as "bankrupt", was the originator of Museveni's so-called NRM grassroot democracy and the man who presided over a Cabinet which, after the 1980 elections, put together for the first time since the 1960s, bankable projects in a Rehabilitation and Recovery Program which Museveni now claims to be his work. That the implementations of the borrowed ideas have been difficult for Museveni can be ascribed to two reasons. First, his pre-occupation with militarist approach. Second, in the Uganda Saying (adage) that a woman who knows not what she is cooking will burn in vain her entire stock of firewood. Museveni does not believe in democracy and loathes the very heart of civil administration - discussion and competing ideas. He can not, therefore, implement the good ideas and programmes he has borrowed despite claiming them to be his own simply because his nature and temperament are diametrically opposed to those ideas and programs but which are useful to him only for propaganda purposes.
I return to 1979. There was a meeting in Mwanza, Tanzania, on June 8 and 9, 1979, between Presidents Nyerere and Lule and their advisors. I was at the meeting as an Observer and on the invitation of the host President. The meeting, as I gathered at the proceedings, was called to resolve a serious political and constitutional issue which had developed between President Yusuf Lule and his supporters on the one hand, and on the other Edward Rugumayo, the Chairman of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) and also the Chairman of the Interim-Parliament and his supporters.
The sting in the tail is that Milton Obote, whose ideas are described by Museveni as "bankrupt", was the originator of Museveni's so-called NRM grassroot democracy and the man who presided over a Cabinet which, after the 1980 elections, put together for the first time since the 1960s, bankable projects in a Rehabilitation and Recovery Program which Museveni now claims to be his work. That the implementations of the borrowed ideas have been difficult for Museveni can be ascribed to two reasons. First, his pre-occupation with militarist approach. Second, in the Uganda Saying (adage) that a woman who knows not what she is cooking will burn in vain her entire stock of firewood. Museveni does not believe in democracy and loathes the very heart of civil administration - discussion and competing ideas. He can not, therefore, implement the good ideas and programmes he has borrowed despite claiming them to be his own simply because his nature and temperament are diametrically opposed to those ideas and programs but which are useful to him only for propaganda purposes.
I return to 1979. There was a meeting in Mwanza, Tanzania, on June 8 and 9, 1979, between Presidents Nyerere and Lule and their advisors. I was at the meeting as an Observer and on the invitation of the host President. The meeting, as I gathered at the proceedings, was called to resolve a serious political and constitutional issue which had developed between President Yusuf Lule and his supporters on the one hand, and on the other Edward Rugumayo, the Chairman of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) and also the Chairman of the Interim-Parliament and his supporters.
Museveni at that time was Lule's Minister of State for Defence and was at the Mwanza meeting. I gathered from the speeches of the participants that the problem at issue was whether the Moshi Decision took precedent over the 1967 Constitution or vice-versa. Lule held that Chapter IV - (the Presidency) - in particular and indeed the Constitution as a whole, took precedence and that any Moshi Decisions which was at variance with the provisions of the Constitution was ultra vires the Constitution and therefore null and void. Rugumayo on the other hand, argued that the Moshi Conference was a constitutional making body, had on that basis spelt out its rules (Constitution) under which Uganda was to be governed on the fall of the Amin regime and that the 1967 Constitution was never specifically nor generally alluded to or referred to in the Moshi Conference.
The situation had been complicated and confused by several events which took place at and after the Moshi Conference. First, Semi Nyanzi, the Chairman of the Conference (before the election of Rugumayo to the office of the Chairman of the UNLF), had his sets of Minutes of the Conference decisions. Nyanzi was in the Lule camp. Another set of Minutes was from Omwony Ojwok (Rugumayo camp), the Secretary of UNLF and who published his Minutes (Moshi Decisions) in a pamphlet whereas Nyanzi's Minutes were cyclostyled and distributed or furnished only to whoever was in the Lule camp or whoever would advance the political fortune of the camp. The existence of the two sets of Minutes which disagreed with each other on vital issues on decisions taken at a Conference which each set purported to record, is a measure of how unstable and freak the foundation was for the new UNLF democratic beginning.
The second confusing event was that Lule was actually elected at Moshi, as the President of the UNLF and even the Omwony Ojwok's Minutes showed that the President of the UNLF would assume the office of the President of Uganda, on the fall of Amin. The late David Oyite-Ojok announced soon after midday, on April 11, 1979, on Radio Uganda the fall of Kampala. I must disclose, for the first time, that he rang me before the broadcast to ask for what to say. Telephones from Uganda and to Uganda had been cut. David went to a patriotic Ugandan Engineer and put him on the job, at dawn on that day, to open the lines.
The engineer and David assembled the technicians as the battle for Kampala raged and bullets and mortar bombs whizzed over them and their paths to the Radio Station. I was naturally elated to hear his voice and to know that he was alive and in Kampala. My first question to him was whether he had phoned President Nyerere. When he answered "NO", I told him to ring the President before making any pronouncement on the Radio and he did. David asked me what to say. I dictated a short message which he told me he was writing on the back of an envelope. The message, as no one can deny, was a nationalist and a uniting message and was delivered in the name of the UNLF.
That evening Lule made a broadcast from Radio Tanzania which was also connected to Radio Uganda. Lule announced his Cabinet and promoted and appointed Military Officers that included David Oyite as Chief of Staff of the (Moshi) Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). At Mwanza, Lule agreed that the appointments and promotions he made and announced on April 11 were not vetted and approved before he made them public. Rugumayo's response was that Lule had acted contrary to the Moshi decisions and that since the Minutes had not been produced when the appointments and promotions were made by Lule (alone), they had been accepted in good faith but were not to be repeated. According to the Moshi decisions, Rugumayo said, all Presidential appointments and promotions had to receive the approval of the National Consultative Council (NCC) of the UNLF.
The situation was an inappropriate and a short sighted scheme very much as it is today in Museveni's NRM, where an organ of a political entity was deliberately institutionalized as national and designed to direct and control two different and distinct aspects of the body politics of the country. The National Consultative Council (NCC), like Museveni's National Resistance Council (NRC), was not only the supreme body of the UNLF, which in the UPC's case would correlate to our National Council and in the case of Museveni's National Resistance Council, the National Consultative Council, like the NRC, was also the Interim Parliament. Making the supreme organ of a political entity, be it Party, Movement or Front, to be also a national, non-partisan institution, is always a dicey matter in a situation where all political entities had not willingly given their consent. Lule, whose political affiliation hovered and swung rapidly between his membership of Kabaka Yekka (KY) and the DP and whose adherence or commitment to democracy at the very least was highly questionable, was "elected" to lead Uganda at a very trying and testing time.
That evening Lule made a broadcast from Radio Tanzania which was also connected to Radio Uganda. Lule announced his Cabinet and promoted and appointed Military Officers that included David Oyite as Chief of Staff of the (Moshi) Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). At Mwanza, Lule agreed that the appointments and promotions he made and announced on April 11 were not vetted and approved before he made them public. Rugumayo's response was that Lule had acted contrary to the Moshi decisions and that since the Minutes had not been produced when the appointments and promotions were made by Lule (alone), they had been accepted in good faith but were not to be repeated. According to the Moshi decisions, Rugumayo said, all Presidential appointments and promotions had to receive the approval of the National Consultative Council (NCC) of the UNLF.
The situation was an inappropriate and a short sighted scheme very much as it is today in Museveni's NRM, where an organ of a political entity was deliberately institutionalized as national and designed to direct and control two different and distinct aspects of the body politics of the country. The National Consultative Council (NCC), like Museveni's National Resistance Council (NRC), was not only the supreme body of the UNLF, which in the UPC's case would correlate to our National Council and in the case of Museveni's National Resistance Council, the National Consultative Council, like the NRC, was also the Interim Parliament. Making the supreme organ of a political entity, be it Party, Movement or Front, to be also a national, non-partisan institution, is always a dicey matter in a situation where all political entities had not willingly given their consent. Lule, whose political affiliation hovered and swung rapidly between his membership of Kabaka Yekka (KY) and the DP and whose adherence or commitment to democracy at the very least was highly questionable, was "elected" to lead Uganda at a very trying and testing time.
He was, however, not a fool. He saw clearly what he later called the "Moshi fraud" but whose central plank he never was able to discern despite the existence of plenty of evidence being readily in sight. Thus, Lule rejected the role of the National Consultative Council (NCC), the supreme organ of the Uganda National Liberation front (UNLF), itself a loose political entity, to require him, the President of Uganda, to submit to it his decisions on appointments and could find no such provision in the 1967 Constitution.
The issue had been compounded in April 1979. On April 13, 1979, Lule, the new President of Uganda, was sworn by Justice Sam Wambuzi on the 1963 Oath - the "Sovereign State of Uganda" and not on the 1967 Oath, the "Republic of Uganda". Within days, George Kanyeihamba, Lule's Attorney General and Minister of Justice, produced Proclamation No. I of 1979 (New Constitution) and Lule signed it. The National Consultative Council (NCC) was not consulted. In the Kanyeihamba/Lule Proclamation, certain chapters of the 1967 Constitution were left intact, others were amended but Chapter IV - the Executive; i.e., the Presidency was completely deleted. The effect was that by the Proclamation, Lule ceased to be the President of Uganda. This ludicrous situation arose because way back in 1971, Kanyeihamba had been fascinated by the Amin coup and wrote a piece in the Transition Magazine about how Amin came with a "Bang". In 1979, Kanyeihamba simply copied Proclamation No. I of 1971 but failed to notice that, as a populist ploy, Amin had in that Proclamation pretended to abolish the Office of the President which he later reinstituted.
A new Proclamation was hurriedly issued to restore Lule's Presidency but Lule had taken the same Oath as Sir Edward Mutesa had taken and was therefore ipso facto a constitutional and not an Executive President. Edward Rugumayo and the Personnel of the UNLF Secretariat, particularly those who came to be known as the "Gang of Four" (Prof. Rugumayo, Prof. Nabudere, Omwony Ojok and Yash Tandon) were also no fools. They knew that Lule was in a corner and they pressed their advantage. That forced Lule to go to the Interim-Parliament and to announce that from thence onwards governance would be on the basis of the 1967 Constitution, the very Constitution which was anathema to him on April 13, only weeks back.
The Mwanza meeting of June 8 and 9, 1979 was held to resolve the crisis within the UNLF. I have given at length the essential elements of the crisis, a political and constitutional crisis which was of great import, to show what part Museveni played in it. At Mwanza, Museveni was indifferent when the crisis was under discussion. He became alive and highly animated in the afternoon of the second day when new arrangements were discussed for the deployment of Tanzanian troops following the collapse of the Amin forces on June 3. Museveni told the meeting that with the assistance of Tanzanian Commanders, he had raised from within Western Uganda and trained more than ten thousand troops, three thousand of whom were in the West Nile and more would be sent there if the situation warranted and Tanzanian troops could therefore be withdrawn from the West Nile zone.
The issue had been compounded in April 1979. On April 13, 1979, Lule, the new President of Uganda, was sworn by Justice Sam Wambuzi on the 1963 Oath - the "Sovereign State of Uganda" and not on the 1967 Oath, the "Republic of Uganda". Within days, George Kanyeihamba, Lule's Attorney General and Minister of Justice, produced Proclamation No. I of 1979 (New Constitution) and Lule signed it. The National Consultative Council (NCC) was not consulted. In the Kanyeihamba/Lule Proclamation, certain chapters of the 1967 Constitution were left intact, others were amended but Chapter IV - the Executive; i.e., the Presidency was completely deleted. The effect was that by the Proclamation, Lule ceased to be the President of Uganda. This ludicrous situation arose because way back in 1971, Kanyeihamba had been fascinated by the Amin coup and wrote a piece in the Transition Magazine about how Amin came with a "Bang". In 1979, Kanyeihamba simply copied Proclamation No. I of 1971 but failed to notice that, as a populist ploy, Amin had in that Proclamation pretended to abolish the Office of the President which he later reinstituted.
A new Proclamation was hurriedly issued to restore Lule's Presidency but Lule had taken the same Oath as Sir Edward Mutesa had taken and was therefore ipso facto a constitutional and not an Executive President. Edward Rugumayo and the Personnel of the UNLF Secretariat, particularly those who came to be known as the "Gang of Four" (Prof. Rugumayo, Prof. Nabudere, Omwony Ojok and Yash Tandon) were also no fools. They knew that Lule was in a corner and they pressed their advantage. That forced Lule to go to the Interim-Parliament and to announce that from thence onwards governance would be on the basis of the 1967 Constitution, the very Constitution which was anathema to him on April 13, only weeks back.
The Mwanza meeting of June 8 and 9, 1979 was held to resolve the crisis within the UNLF. I have given at length the essential elements of the crisis, a political and constitutional crisis which was of great import, to show what part Museveni played in it. At Mwanza, Museveni was indifferent when the crisis was under discussion. He became alive and highly animated in the afternoon of the second day when new arrangements were discussed for the deployment of Tanzanian troops following the collapse of the Amin forces on June 3. Museveni told the meeting that with the assistance of Tanzanian Commanders, he had raised from within Western Uganda and trained more than ten thousand troops, three thousand of whom were in the West Nile and more would be sent there if the situation warranted and Tanzanian troops could therefore be withdrawn from the West Nile zone.
As for the Kampala zone, Museveni said that he had seen a proposal that the UNLA, under the command of Tito Okello and Oyite Ojok, be deployed there but he did not approve that proposal.
He charged that the UNLA Officers were lax on discipline and had a fixation with legal niceties including Court-Martial. He then threw a bombshell when he told the meeting that in his army, he had ordered many executions without "colonial legal niceties". Today, friends of Museveni's cite cases of Courts-Martial as evidence of proper and legal conduct of the affairs of wayward soldiers. I will show that Museveni's Courts-Martial are a sham and illegal and that they are essentially summary executions.
Museveni was the Minister of State for Defense in the 1979 post-Amin Government. He was also the Vice-Chairman of the Military Commission of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) founded at Moshi, Tanzania, in March 1979, in a Conference of some then Ugandan exiles. In both capacities, Museveni wielded considerable powers. Although President Lule, and later President Binaisa assumed the office of the minister of Defense, it was Museveni who ran the Ministry and administered it as he wished. The Military Commission was moribund until it seized power in May 1980. Museveni remained Vice-President of the Commission until the General Elections held in December 1980.
Museveni's period as Minister of State for Defense was noted on three counts: -
He embarked on a large scale recruitment of a private army outside the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) which was founded at the Moshi Conference. This was without the approval of the Lule/Binaisa Cabinet or of the then Interim-Parliament.
He charged that the UNLA Officers were lax on discipline and had a fixation with legal niceties including Court-Martial. He then threw a bombshell when he told the meeting that in his army, he had ordered many executions without "colonial legal niceties". Today, friends of Museveni's cite cases of Courts-Martial as evidence of proper and legal conduct of the affairs of wayward soldiers. I will show that Museveni's Courts-Martial are a sham and illegal and that they are essentially summary executions.
Museveni was the Minister of State for Defense in the 1979 post-Amin Government. He was also the Vice-Chairman of the Military Commission of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) founded at Moshi, Tanzania, in March 1979, in a Conference of some then Ugandan exiles. In both capacities, Museveni wielded considerable powers. Although President Lule, and later President Binaisa assumed the office of the minister of Defense, it was Museveni who ran the Ministry and administered it as he wished. The Military Commission was moribund until it seized power in May 1980. Museveni remained Vice-President of the Commission until the General Elections held in December 1980.
Museveni's period as Minister of State for Defense was noted on three counts: -
He embarked on a large scale recruitment of a private army outside the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) which was founded at the Moshi Conference. This was without the approval of the Lule/Binaisa Cabinet or of the then Interim-Parliament.
At the fall of Lule, voted out by the National Consultative Council (NCC) of the UNLF, Lule supporters staged peaceful demonstrations in Kampala. Museveni personally led a contingent of troops in indiscriminate shooting of the demonstrators. This was in the third week of June 1979. In July and August of the same year, 15 (fifteen) highly qualified professionals were gunned down in their houses in Kampala. In three known cases, Museveni reached the scenes of crime within minutes of the shootings, allegedly to "console", mark the word "console", the widows!
The Ugandan contingent which together fought with the Tanzanian soldiers numbered around 1,300 men. I was their political leader. Museveni entered Western Uganda from Tanzania alone, of course in the company of Tanzanian troops. That was in January 1979. He immediately embarked on the recruitment of Banyarwanda (Tutsi) refugees who were in Refugee Settlements close to Tanzania border. The men were trained and armed by Tanzanian troops. It was, like the NRA, Museveni's personal army. It was this army which went with Tanzanian troops, to the West Nile Districts (Nebbi, Arua and Moyo) in May 1979. The Tanzanian troops withdrew from the West Nile in September. Museveni visited his army that month. Following the visit, a campaign of massacres, terror and destruction was launched.
President Binaisa was pressed by many in the UNLF to remove Museveni from the Ministry of Defense which he did.
During the rule of the Military Commission, there was no Minister of Defense. The Commission as a Collegiate, handled all military matters. Thus Paulo Muwanga, David Oyite-Ojok, Zed Maruru and William Omaria curbed with some difficulties, Museveni's senseless killings. At the beginning of its rule, the Military Commission, with one dissenting voice - Museveni's - pledged and committed itself to holding multi-Party General Elections within the period the Moshi Conference had appointed. The period appointed was "within eighteen months after the total liberation of Uganda".
Amin's forces were defeated and driven out of Uganda on June 3, 1979. It is a credit to the members of the Military Commission (minus Museveni) that they kept the pledge. In meetings of the Commission and of the Interim Parliament, Museveni was vehemently opposed to elections. His pet point was that Uganda was in a revolution and election was not necessary. Museveni even went to Tanzania and Mozambique where he appealed, in vain, to Presidents Nyerere and Samora Machel to stop the elections.
Museveni is very corrupt and presides over a regime which is equally very corrupt.
In fact the nature of Museveni's corruption is some kind of mania. As already stated, he is acutely uncomfortable with his lowly background, a matter which to a normal person would be of pride. But the mania which he exemplified in 1979 by living at the Palaces of former rulers, has now led him to build with public funds, his own Palace in Mbarara District. The Palace was built and completed within three years. Some of the materials for building it were imported as were the furniture, fittings, carpets, etc. The Palace stands on a huge farm with hundreds of exotic cattle imported from abroad. The cattle, farm implements and tractors and vehicles were all bought with public funds. Workers at the farm are paid by the Office of the President and Museveni is, of course, the President.
In Museveni's regime, public funds are Museveni's private incomes and he uses public funds and resources as his mania directs him. Whenever he travels abroad he takes with him, as if he fears to return, huge amounts of US dollars in cash. His parents live in a government house in Kampala and all their expenses and requirements are fully met by the State. In addition, the State also pays them monthly subvention. His friends and those he calls "allies" in the regime or those whose mouths must be sealed are free to loot Uganda as they please. Samwiri Karugire, the Commissioner of Customs, and his wife have ten vehicles in Kampala; six for Karugire and four for his wife; Karugire and Museveni have been allies for many years.
Museveni's friends and protectors will not accept this real, corrupt Museveni. Appendix Three contains Museveni's own words where he admits corruption but like when he admits massacring Ugandans, his friends and protectors simply ignore the admissions. They also do not find it inconceivable that Museveni has large sums in banks in Europe. One of the conduits through which the peasants' hard earned dollars is being salted abroad is a Company by the name of ANL TRADING LIMITED, PO Box 4762, Nicosia, Cyprus."
INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM
change of guards blog
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.