Museveni agrees to meet Besigye

Nakasongola/Kampala

The crippling effects of the rising cost of living on the country are expected to form the highlight of talks between President Museveni and opposition leaders, including his main opponent, Dr Kizza Besigye, which officials say are scheduled for Tuesday next week.

Confirmation of the talks came hours after Dr Besigye and three co-accused were released on bail by Magistrate Justine Atukwasa after chaotic scenes at Nakasongola Court. Proceedings went ahead without counsel for the accused yesterday.

The accused face charges of allegedly inciting violence and unlawful assembly arising out of their participation in the walk-to-work campaign against high fuel prices. The opposition leader, however, told crowds of well-wishers who received him at his home in Kasangati last night that he will still walk to work today. “Tomorrow (today) is a working day and we shall walk to work,” he said.

Next week’s planned meeting would see the first known coming together between Dr Besigye and the President since they fell out in 1999 when Dr Besigye, a former colleague and personal physician during the bush war, authored a critique of the NRM accusing Mr Museveni’s government of abandoning the reformist agenda as the core of its ideology.

Last night, Presidential Spokesman Tamale Mirundi confirmed the President had called a meeting with his political opponents. “Yes, I have been told that the President has sent out the invitations. It is true that talks are planned between the President and the opposition under the auspices of the inter-party forum,” he said.

Mr Tamale said the proposed meeting would discuss national issues such as oil and security “but not power-sharing”. It also emerged last night that the Directorate of Public Prosecutions was on Tuesday this week involved in a high level meeting with top individuals in the government who advised that Dr Besigye and his Democratic Party counterpart Norbert Mao be freed in time for the planned discussions.
Mr Mao is expected in court on May 2, a day before the planned meeting.

Forum for Democratic Change party Secretary General Alice Alaso separately said that on Tuesday she had also received a telephone call from a “third party” at the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) secretariat, saying the forum’s current chair, Mr Museveni, wants talks with presidents of member political parties. “What is causing NRM to initiate these talks is the pressure of the walk-to-work campaign,” she said last night. “My own reading is that President Museveni wants to pull a publicity stunt to hoodwink Ugandans from pursuing legitimate demands about the rising cost of living so that he swears-in peacefully on May 12.” IPOD, which is a loose grouping of various political parties, was formed in 2006 as a forum for party secretaries-general.

The Activists 4 Change pressure group called the bi-weekly walk-to-work demonstrations beginning April 11 in which security forces are reported to have killed five civilians in the past fortnight. More than 200 suspected demonstrators remain incarcerated while more are nursing injuries country-wide. UPC president Olara Otunnu said on Sunday that he would agree to talks with Mr Museveni if the agenda reflects “serious issues” facing Uganda.

FDC demands
While Ms Alaso said they will table demands for a fresh presidential election organised by an independent Electoral Commission representative of participating political parties; restoration of presidential term limits and removal of the military from the electoral process.

Yesterday, Dr Besigye had a dramatic homecoming, with crowds pouring onto the Kampala-Gulu highway and paralysing business in major trading centres as his convoy snaked its way towards the city. The FDC leader and his co-accused had each applied for their own bail after their lawyers, insisting they were not informed of the shifting of the bail application hearing from Nabweru Court in Wakiso District to Nakasongola, declined to appear, saying moving the sitting was irregular.

Ms Atukwasa, the same magistrate who refused to hear the accused persons’ bail applications on Thursday last week in a Nabweru Court, nevertheless released Dr Besigye and the three co-accused on stiff bail terms, including ordering them to maintain peace for seven months failing which they would pay a Shs50 million fine.

Each of the sureties was also bonded at Shs50 million. Prosecution led by Mr Lino Anguzu did not object to the application for bail but asked court to set conditions which would restrain the accused persons from indulging in activities likely to cause a breach of the peace.