Museveni’s hour of reckoning

Quotable Quotes

• They didn’t involve security and they never got permission from the proprietors of Christ the King Hall. As far as we know, by morning of yesterday, they had not booked and we had to move in to secure the place to ensure there is no problem.
  The director for Kampala Metropolitan Police, Mr Grace Turyagumanawe, explaining away heavy deployment of police around Christ the King Church hall where the opposition were to launch their walk-to-work civil disobedience campaign on April 8.
• It’s time to draw a line between those who want a dictatorship and those who want democracy. I am sure peaceful defiance of the dictatorship can be used to dismantle the dictatorship.
  FDC leader Kizza Besigye speaking during the launch of the W2W campaign at Fairway Hotel on April 8.
• If you use the military option, by the time you dislodge the dictatorship all state institutions will have been destroyed and chances are high that you will replace the dictatorship with another dictatorship.
  Dr Besigye giving reasons for the civil disobedience campaign as opposed to military revolt.
• The world can no longer hide behind the failed quiet diplomacy while Museveni and his cronies are killing our brothers and sisters. We must be tough when dealing with a ruthless dictator like Museveni.
  Prince Dickson Wasajja and Dr. Rashid Kasaato, the co-ordinator and spokesman for the Activists for Change – UK chapter commenting on Dr Besigye’s shooting on April 15.
• If any group of people sits somewhere and says, ‘we should demonstrate to bring down an elected government’, they are committing treason.
  President Museveni making his first comments about the W2W campaign when he addressed journalists at his Rwakitura country home on April 14.
• We made it clear to Besigye that you are not going to demonstrate; if you want to walk as an exercise, go and walk somewhere else. But to walk so that you attract attention and thieves follow you looting...We are going to deal with him.

President Museveni

• The prospect of further confrontation is looming as the government appears unwilling to engage the organisers of the walk-to-work campaign into face-to-face negotiations over the fuel and food crisis. There is general concern in the country that the security forces have handled the campaign in a high-handed manner.
  Metropolitan Jonah Lwanga, chairman of the Uganda Joint Christian Council commenting in a joint statement on April 20.
• I admit my commanders have used excessive power in some cases. In some places tear gas was not necessary. Police chief Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura responding to religious leaders’ concerns.

The walk-to-work campaign started out as one of those many failed efforts by the opposition that the NRM government would easily crush and scatter and life would return to normal, with President Museveni and his aides looking forward to his May 12 swearing-in ceremony and another five years in power. However, it has not been the case, writes Sunday Monitor’s Timothy Kalyegira

In late February, shortly after the general election, the former presidential candidate Jaberi Bidandi-Ssali in a letter to Museveni warned the President that the conditions of 2011 resembled those that followed the bitterly disputed 1980 election.

“You are convinced that the situation is very much under your control and that every Ugandan will be cowered because of the presence of the military hardware and threats you keep dishing around. They remind me of a similar scenario by the Obote regime as you went to the bush!” Bidandi-Ssali observed.

This is exactly that it currently feels like. Unusual things have been going on in Uganda since the opposition announced that they were to lead a campaign dubbed “walk-to-work”.

The campaign was called to protest the high fuel and commodity prices in the country and to use this walking protests as a lever to pressure the government to do something about the crisis.

It started out as one of those many failed efforts by the opposition that the NRM government would easily crush and scatter and life would return to normal, with President Museveni and his aides looking forward to his May 12 swearing-in ceremony and another five years in power.

New diplomatic row
As it stands now, the political situation brought on by the walk-to-work protests is starting to feel like a threatening crisis for Museveni. It has metamorphosed into a referendum on Museveni’s human rights record. The key words in the news this past week have been “coup”, “Besigye”, “overthrow”, “foreign countries”, “western diplomats”, and “Museveni”.

Details are still sketchy but it appears that the Western diplomatic corps in Kampala, either acting alone or at the behest of their governments, have decided to weigh in, this time in favour of the opposition. What is more, they are making little effort to hide their open siding with the opposition.

The Museveni government is now on a collision course with the West and its diplomatic missions in Kampala in much the same way that marked the latter years of President Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya.

The West appears to be moving from its usually ambivalent, non-committal position to either an activist position in favour of the opposition or at least a watchful, counter-balancing stance toward the government’s actions.

On the very first day of the “walk-to-work” campaign on April 11, European Union diplomats in Kampala met to discuss and weigh the situation. The Dutch and Irish ambassadors visited Nakasongola Prison and held four hours of discussions with Besigye. The Norwegian and French ambassadors travelled to Nakasongola on April 26.

The head of The Hague-based International Criminal Court, Louis Ocampo, was scheduled to fly into Uganda two days ago, clearly to monitor the human rights situation in the country.

Every time the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) leader, Dr. Kizza Besigye, has been arrested, it has triggered off international news coverage and a sharp western diplomatic reaction.

When Dr Besigye was arrested and detained in November 2005, the Commonwealth summit in the Mediterranean island nation of Malta two weeks later turned into a scolding session focused entirely on Museveni and condemning his actions.

During his press conference at his country home in Rwakitura on April 16, Museveni railed against the West and declared that he would defeat the West, just as Africa had defeated colonialism.