Panic as Besigye enters 2001 polls
Dr Kizza Besigye sustained his challenge against the NRM party and eventually quit.
What you need to know:
President Museveni’s Bush war physician had an arrest warrant hanging over his head.
Kampala- Opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye had just hours to consult two colleagues and only informed his wife, Ms Winnie Byanyima, by telephone before declaring his intention to challenge President Museveni in the 2001 elections, a new book about the former opposition leader reveals.
The book, Kizza Besigye and Uganda’s Unfinished Revolution, written by Daniel Kalinaki and recently published by Dominant Seven, says acting on a tip off from a female friend in intelligence that he would be arrested that evening, Dr Besigye rushed to the house of a colleague with whom they had a shared view of the working of the government, businessman Garuga Musinguzi, where they thrashed out a crash plan to counter the impending arrest.
In the meeting, which was also attended by Mr Patrick Mwondha, a member of the Uganda People’s Congress, it was agreed that Dr Besigye announces his intention to take on Mr Museveni.
A press release was drafted there and then and issued to the press the day President Museveni was joined by Rwandan President Paul Kagame for a football match at Ntare School.
In the last of a four-part series this newspaper has been running since last Friday, Dr Besigye explains further how his relationship with President Museveni continued to deteriorate during the Constituent Assembly (CA) as he and a few other military officers were accused of voicing dissenting views.
Dr Besigye points out Maj Gen David Tinyefuza, who has since changed his name to David Sejusa, and the late Col Sserwanga Lwanga as the army officers who stood up to the establishment during the Constituent Assembly. “Lwanga, who was the Chief Political Commissar of the NRA, argued that the Odoki Commission Report, which had asked Ugandans about their views on multiparty politics five years earlier, was probably out-of-date,” the book says.
Maj Gen Tinyefuza, authored an even “more critical” paper, against the plan to extend the Movement system of government for another five years. “NRM has been in power for 10 years,” he is quoted as having written. “It did influence events even between 1981 and 1985. That makes it 15 years. It is almost immoral to want another free extension of five years to make it 20.”
Gen Tinyefuza would shortly fall out with the establishment and later “rehabilitated.” He again fell out with the establishment last year, fleeing into exile in England, from where he returned a week ago.
Based on the resistance of military officers to some proposals which Mr Museveni had sanctioned, a directive was given that military officers would not debate on controversial issues in the CA but only act as “listening posts.” However, Dr Besigye points out that Lt Noble Mayombo went ahead to table a controversial issue before the Assembly.
Dr Besigye further details his early frustration as a contender against President Museveni, especially when the bigwigs he expected to back him only reacted in a lukewarm way, at best, to his candidature, especially since Mr Museveni had personally called up each one of them to reaffirm their support for him.
