The junta has two plans: Kill opponentsand incite state of insecurity

There have been serious security problems. There has been an escalation of these problems for some time and our anticipation is that, that situation is still with us and may actually get worse.

Mr Museveni has attempted to talk about it in quite obviously very disappointing terms, treated it with a lot of casualness and we consider that it is now critical we address it in some depth.

First, it ought to be understood that the security challenge that our country faces is rooted in the political and socio-economic crisis that we face. Not just a security problem that has come without a foundation in our politics and socio-economic condition.

Regarding the politics, there is absolutely no doubt that the NRM junta has been coming under greater and greater pressure to vacate and this is very clearly seen from the greatly dismissed popular legitimacy that the junta has in this country.

The 2016 elections, I think, was a watershed of some sort where Mr Museveni realised that his hold on power was extremely shaky and indeed as we have said many times, what happened after the 2016 elections was simply a military coup where the winner was simply captured, taken to Karamoja, later to Luzira [prison] and not allowed to interact with the process to its logical conclusion.

And we have asserted very strongly that we have evidence to indeed show that Mr Museveni did not win that election at all and that to the contrary indeed, I won that election. I have said so in court where I was charged with treason for having declared myself a winner. I said ‘yes, I declared myself a winner and that is because I won’. And I can give evidence in court that I won.

There is a political crisis where Mr Museveni knows that he is governing without any form of popular legitimacy. He knows that. So, the plan of the junta has been since 2016 two fronts: The first front is a plan to eliminate opponents and the second plan is to foment a state of insecurity that would lead to a state of emergency in the country.

This is part of what advises the security situation that we have in the country. The second part of what advises the security situation that we have is the socio-economic crisis that gets deeper every day.

The greatest majority of our people, especially the young people, are below subsistence in this economy, they can’t be. Even those who are in informal business cannot thrive in business. Many businesses are closing, contrary to the picture that is always presented. Many businesses downtown are closing.

The only people thriving in the economy are, maybe, the so-called foreign investors whose thriving can also be separately analysed.

But Ugandans who are in business, who are in farming, who are in services have a huge, huge crisis and this is a crisis that has been coming for a long time. But it is a crisis I don’t have the intentions to address at this particular conference.

There is a huge economic crisis that we are dealing with, that creates massive unemployment, total unemployment, disguised unemployment that we have in the country. Once people cannot subsist, they will find ways of surviving. That is a natural phenomenon whether it involves killing and beating others, they will.

That is why in Kampala, you cannot walk with a telephone set in your hands; it will be grabbed. That’s why crime generally is escalating because basic survival is totally threatened.

There is a social crisis, you know. There is a complete crisis of healthcare. This is at the foundation of any thriving society, the question of health. And it continues to be addressed again, very casually. The other day we saw the Mulago [Specialised Women and Neonatal] Hospital being opened.

A government facility, in other words, owned and maintained by the public, but the public has no access to it. There are many other places that the public cannot access.

When all that is happening, you see that Parliament is expanding health insurance to include parents of the MPs and increasing their pay when there is a total crisis in the country.

People will not take it indefinitely, they can’t. So, there is a socio-economic crisis and there is a political crisis and this is where the security crisis is rooted.

Post-2016 politics
We got this plan of the post-2016 management of the politics from highly credible sources. These are the plans of eliminating political opponents and taking the country to a state of emergency.

But we do not respond to info we get in a hasty unevaluated way. We have had a lot of information coming in that we have been evaluating and checking over time, but we think it is time enough that we should share with our country.

The plan to eliminate political opponents, of course, has been there all along but has always got to be done through subtle means; poisoning, all kinds of undetected ways and indeed quite a number of our colleagues have retired in that kind of way.

But I think because of the mounting crisis, that has shifted to more covert and radical ways and the plan has been to foment and choreograph what appears to the public as serious disagreements within the forces that oppose the regime.

And part of that strategy of fomenting, of choreographing contradictions within the Opposition forces has been through the media. There are very highly managed media campaigns to show that there are a lot of differences in the Opposition. In fact, that we are on each other’s throats.

Indeed, efforts have been made to try and act actual conflict within the Opposition forces which then would be the launch pad for the assassinations, so that if an impression has been created in the public that I am at loggerheads with the Lord Mayor here, then either of us can be killed and the other arrested for the other’s death.

And this nearly happened in Arua because again for some time there has been a choreography campaign to suggest that actually there has been a conflict between my brother [Kyadondo East MP Robert] Kyagulanyi and myself, and because of the campaigns that were around, they were creating it as if there is war.

In fact, I think one of the headlines in one of the newspapers presented it as that. I think they said, “Bobi Wine goes to kill Besigye” or something like that.

This is it and so within our own supporters, they indeed infiltrate people to perpetuate that scheme, to start causing friction and possibly to lead to actual conflict which then once it happens, then they strike.

And what was supposed to happen in Arua was to kill Honourable Kyagulanyi and arrest Besigye immediately for his death. And a lot of other things had been put in place which we are aware of along that plan.

It was a fairly comprehensive plan, they had even organised a group that would attack my home from here and so on and so forth. As I have said, fortunately, there is a God above that is stronger than all these evil plans. But none the less, somebody is in his grave.

You may have similarly seen, I think just last week, an alarm from one of our colleagues, the Hon Bihande, husband to Winnie Kiiza, that there were military people who had gone to their house, nine of them according to their report.

Nine of them, two of whom were carrying rocket-propelled grenades and others SMGs [submachine guns] and I think it was NBS which went and interviewed him from his home. It was reported that he had just come from hiding.

And he, from a report that I saw myself, said that these people had actually come in a government vehicle and that he knew their intention was to kill him because he is the interim chairman of the New Formation party.

And that since on that very day Gen Muntu was supposed to be meeting FDC president Amuriat to tell him that they have left the party.

In fact, he said that as they were talking Gen Muntu must have been talking to Amuriat to tell him why they were leaving, and that, therefore, the FDC had organised those forces to go and kill his interim chairman of the New Formation and he even said that it is well known that FDC of Amuriat is part of NRM.

Now, I highly doubt whether the Hon Bihande knew the implications of what he was saying. Certainly, I doubt that he knows what role he would have been playing in this big plan that I am talking about.

But he put on public record that armed people, including those with RPGs, came in government vehicles brought by FDC to come and kill him because of our political contradictions.

So, God forbid if the Hon Bihande was killed today, the obvious suspect would be in FDC and maybe after killing somebody from the New Formation, they then would kill somebody from the Amuriat side to say, ‘oh this is also a reprisal from the other side’.

This is definitely going on and both we the political actors need to be aware. We need to be conscious that we are dealing with a highly evil and conspiratorial junta and that we need to be far more prudent in how we manage ourselves, our contradictions if there are any and certainly the main struggle we are engaged in because the other unfortunate element they are trying to gain in all this is to divert the country from the real evil that we have already defeated.

That instead of winding up that terrible part of our history and taking the country forward, we become diverted into all other kinds of secondary wars.

So, this is the first area of the plans for assassination and indeed you have heard a number of MPs raise concerns in Parliament and these are real. We have heard names of who the targets are but I won’t get into them now.

State of emergency
The other part of the plan is the orchestration of indeed a general state of insecurity that leads to a state of emergency.

And that indeed has already moved quite a bit of a distance with the killing of women, killing of ordinary people with pangas and all kinds of things; shooting people on the streets in broad daylight which has now led to the declaration by Mr Museveni of the creation of a new force, the recruitment of 24,000 men and women.

Now, these 24,000 people that are supposed to deal with security in Kampala are being called LDUs. Certainly, they are not (because) a Local Defence Unit is a specific entity that is well known: how LDUs are recruited and act.

And of course LDUs according to the UPDF Act of 2005 can be absorbed into the reserve when the need arises. But what is absorbed in the UPDF reserves are those who are already LDUs.

Now, LDUs are supposed to be indeed local in every sense; they are recruited by the village for purposes of enhancing security of the village.

They may be given training somewhere but they are part and partial of the village. They live within the village, act within the village, their welfare is managed by the village, (and) they report to the village leaders. They are supposed to work with the village security committee.

So, what is happening now is not a recruitment of LDUs, but it is a recruitment of a new force. I don’t know what type of force it is and I think if we had a serious Parliament or some elements there in, this is one of the critical areas that need to be focused on.

Because even where you are actually mobilising a reserve, there must be a clear process, there must be arrangements for that mobilisation.

None has been indicated here because it is the UPDF recruiting like they do to all the regular forces and the idea is that eventually these will be deployed in 1,000 villages of Kampala.

Of course, there was no money for this particular purpose and re-arrangement of the Budget is going on to raise Shs57 billion for this purpose.

Many other local militias have been recruited in very similar, casual ways. We had the SPCs who were camped in Namboole (stadium) for I don’t know how long. We had the crime preventers who we were told had been transferred to the UPDF. You just don’t do such things that you are transferring millions of crime preventers.

This is an extremely ridiculous casualness in the management of State security. State security institutions are very sensitive and serious matters.

Everybody was crying because of the crimes committed by crime preventers who were not paid. Now, [you are] mobilising for 24,000 LDUs when you are not even catering for the ones in service.

All these robberies you hear, they are traceable to either police barracks or the military barracks, and they are understandable because again they cannot just stay in their ‘mama ingia pole’ and starve when they have their guns. They will go and fend for themselves.

If you think Shs30m cannot maintain an MP, why do you think a family of a soldier can be maintained by half a million [shillings] or less when these soldiers go to the same markets where we all go. These policemen are in total destitution.

Instead of solving the destitution of the police, you are recruiting a new force of an unclear command and control that obviously you will not pay, but none the less going on [to recruit]. The intention of this is not controlling crime.

The intention of this is controlling politics because there is now fear around Kampala of all these people who are unemployed taking over the State.

That is why you saw Mr Museveni running all over the ghettos with cheques. That won’t solve the problem of the ghettos. That is why you see they are recruiting this new force.

This [LDU] is a force to subdue the powers of the people because it is not even organic to the area. In fact, it is a reinforcement of the SFC commando unit that has been causing havoc.

Those people you saw beating people, they are the Special Forces commando unit. Part of their force is now resident here opposite Sheraton (Hotel) in that area where there is a water tank.

Part of that force is the one which caused havoc in Arua and we know who they are and who is commanding what. We may not give it to the public, but it will at some stage come to the public arena.

So this is a matter of grave concern as I have said. The trajectory of that process is the declaration of a state of emergency. That’s where we are because they no longer manage the economy, the security and the social crisis, hence the intensification of regression, just like the 1960s.

Even those who think they are going for elections in 2021, I don’t think that election is part of their plan. That is why they had added the two years which are now in contention. But I think even if the two years were added, we wouldn’t have a different scenario here.

So, I am just saying this to put our country on notice about what is going on and to indicate that this is really the time that all of us as citizens should step forward and push all these evil plans down. If we just keep on roaming around aimlessly, we are going to be consumed by what is happening around us.

What this obviously in itself suggests is that the regime is finished. A regime which has no security systems, has no economy, has no popular legitimacy, has no international legitimacy is not a regime that survives.

I think we should not betray our country. We should all get together and sort this mess out as quickly as possible and indeed the challenge is on those of us who are in the struggle to liberate ourselves from the claws of this junta.

We need to urgently and effectively respond to it and internally, within the peoples’ government, we have been aware of these developments for some time and we have not been seated. We’ve been developing responses and I have obviously been seized with voices suggesting that we are now dormant.

Yes, we are not active in public view but we have been extremely active in laying the grounds to effectively respond to all this.

We have done quite a lot of work in that respect which we shall be sharing with our colleagues so that together we can get rid of this mess. Thank you very much.