Gen Muntu explains why he’s quit FDC

Former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) president, Gen Mugisha Muntu on Tuesday announced his departure from the biggest opposition party in Uganda.
In his four-page statement which he described as a letter to the nation, Gen Muntu said he, and a group of other members had resolved to leave the party partly because of irreconcilable differences with the current party leadership under his successor, Mr Patrick Amuriat.

“….we do not do so in anger or animosity towards the current leadership, but in careful consideration of the national cause of liberating our country. The current party leadership needs to be given the opportunity to pursue their agenda untethered by the constant worry of sabotage or suspicion,” Gen Muntu said in the statement he issued on Tuesday evening, hours after a meeting with other party members at Fairway Hotel in Kampala.

According to him, there is a nationwide recognition that FDC is fractured.

He said that during all his consultation meetings, “everyone that spoke admitted to or spoke of an internal rift in ideology. Many of our people are frustrated, either with the way things are being run by the current leadership or with the way things were being ran under mine. The purpose of pointing this out is not to apportion blame, but to simply articulate what most, if not all of us know for a fact.”

Read:

ALSO READ:

Below is Gen Muntu’s full statement;

Why We Have Left and Why We Should Hope

Fellow Ugandans and former FDC colleagues,
Greetings.
I write to you today, in order to give you a detailed report of what a number of us have been doing since the beginning of the year. It is my hope that this report shall enable you to understand fully, our actions, intentions and hope for the future.
Background:

During the party presidential elections held last year, it was clear that there were two emerging views about the future of the party: the first was that of defiance. Those that held this view felt that the best way forward was to engage in sustained civil disobedience and other such activities with the end goal of ‘reclaiming our victory’ from Gen. Museveni, consolidating the ‘People’s government’ as constituted by some party leaders and like-minded opposition members and ousting the regime by popular protests. The focus here, was perhaps best captured by our now party president Patrick Oboi Amuriat when he declared, ‘Under my leadership, there will only be one party strategy: defiance’.

The second view, which I championed, was that without properly constituted party structures, we could not achieve much. We believed that our focus should be on building grassroot structures such that whether we chose to engage in civil disobedience or participated in electoral processes, we would have the capacity to not only mobilise people to vote nationwide, but also field strong candidates right from LC1 level and be able to protect our votes. In the event that we were to engage in civil disobedience, our view was that we should have party structures in place to not only hold these activities across the entire country, but also sustain them over a long period of time. A few protests in Kampala and other strongholds might make it to the evening news, but they will not deliver the change we need.

When the party delegates gathered to vote, the majority chose the defiance agenda. I have said before and will restate today that the elections were legitimate and my brother Amuriat was the rightful winner of this contest. I have never and will never attempt to discredit his victory or contest it in any way, shape or form.

However, the implication of this victory, was that those of us who feel very strongly that the party should be focused on a different path were faced with two choices: we could either engage in disruptive politicking within the party, with the view of compromising the new leadership’s agenda or we could engage in constructive consultations with them with the view of finding out if there is space for us to not just exist within the party, but also continue to do the things we believe should be done (without appearing to counter the leadership). Those of you who have interacted with me know that I am uncompromising when it comes to ethical practice; I do not believe in doing things behind people’s backs and if the choice before me is to do so for political gain or avoid it and risk political loss, I will always choose the latter.

Related stories

• I am not planning to leave FDC- Mugisha Muntu

  

  I will not fear to walk away even if I am alone

• Which way for FDC party?

  

  Is the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) in a crisis? Put that elephant of a question in a room of politicians and each will give you an answer depending on what part of the mammalian giant they choose to touch.
  Whereas human beings may tell a lie, it is said in criminal law in defence of the reliance on circumstantial evidence, that circumstances do not lie.
  So, what is the reading on the wall from Najjanankumbi, the seat of Uganda’s most influential Opposition party, from the flow of events?
  What we know so far is that party president Patrick Amuriat Oboi, fondly referred to as POA, has made a raft of changes in the leadership at Parliament, recalling Ms Winnie Kiiza as Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP) and notably Mr Abdul Katuntu as chairman of the Committee on Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase), while returning party secretary general Nandala Mafabi to lead the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
  Ms Betty Aol Ochan has taken over as LoP.
  What we also know so far is that considerable dust has been raised in respect of this development, with murmurs about a possible political separation in the least and divorce in the worst case scenario between key FDC legislators and their political umbilical cord. What we need to interrogate further is whether this is a culmination of protracted rope pulling among the rank and file of the party and more importantly, what this episode, which seems to be the latest exposition of a party with a fractured soul, may give way to a possible fissure that would fundamentally reconfigure the architecture of opposition party politics in the country, especially going forward to the 2021 general election.

  Why the changes?
  It should be noted that POA as the party president, working with and through the party national executive committee (NEC), enjoys the prerogative of making changes under the FDC and parliamentary legal framework. It is the same power that has been exercised by the party’s two previous presidents – Dr Kizza Besigye and Gen Mugisha Muntu.
  Ideally, at least going by practice, those changes would be made after the current leaders have served at least two and a half years of their term. But that is not in the law, it is at the discretion of the party leadership.
  Former FDC secretary general and Serere Woman MP Alice Alaso asserts that what we have witnessed is not an ordinary review of the leadership of the Opposition in Parliament but sacking of leaders before they run the course of their two and a half years as has been the norm and practice. Ms Kiiza is the first LoP to suffer this predicament. We shall return to the granular detail of this later.

  How did we get here?
  According to Ms Salaamu Musumba, the FDC vice president – eastern region, the party president strategically planned to make the changes after the elections in the seven municipalities and Local Councils were conducted to avoid upstaging the campaigns. That in essence, means, the plot to throw out the outgoing team was in the works as early as a few months ago but it was kept under wraps out of political arithmetic.
  The working committee, which is a sub-set of the NEC, and comprises the party president, secretary general, his deputies, and other senior leaders, meets every Monday at 9am to assess the week and set the political tone for the next week. This committee held a series of meetings, which came to the conclusion that time was ripe to change the leadership in the August House. On presentation of its proposals to NEC, a number of concerns were tabled, chiefly, among them, the politics of Kasese District where FDC swept the parliamentary seats in 2016.
  How would removal from office of their own daughter be received by the party faithful in Kasese? That question was mulled over and Mr Amuriat persuaded his colleagues considerable calculations had been done and these concerns were thought through meticulously. Some members held their reservations but there was consensus that the gender aspect of the LoP be maintained, opening a window for Ms Aol.
  It wouldn’t be surprising that FDC’s leadership would think through these issues, especially comparing how President Museveni co-opted into Cabinet politicians from Kigezi sub-region after he sacked then Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, replacing him with son of the soil, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, all the while playing safe ahead of the 2016 election to avoid squandering his electoral fortunes in that area, which would, in a country where ethnic groups attach sentimental value to their sons and daughters occupying key positions, cause anxiety among the Bakiga community. Gen Muntu had to deal with the same dilemma when he removed Nandala Mafabi from the position of LoP considering that FDC had taken all seats in Sironko District in 2011 elections. He appointed his key supporter Wafula Oguttu in his place.
  Mr Amuriat and team accordingly kept some legislators from Kasese in the line-up and equally kept the women at peace by adopting the resolution of NEC that Ms Kiiza’s replacement be a fellow woman.

  Undercurrents
  Now, a narration of what happened in the lead up to the changes as captured above paints a rather rosy, almost romantic picture of the state of affairs in FDC. On speaking to critics of the current leadership, and independent minded observers, the underbelly of the monster of divisive and toxic politics comes to bear.
  For instance, Ms Alaso is persuaded that the reason Ms Kiiza was sacked was precisely because she refused to play ball to the Amuriat leadership which, in her words, pays allegiance to Dr Kiiza Besigye, whose word carries weight.
  “Dr Besigye wants to remain at the helm of the Opposition politics so a strong leader of the Opposition, who can champion her own agenda, over shadows him. Look at the age limit debate. We can’t recall what Dr Besigye did but we can recount how Ms Kiiza played a key role. In fact, Dr Besigye approached her and asked that she merges the anti-age limit efforts she was leading at Parliament with his defiance team but she didn’t budge so her biggest crime is refusing to take the dictates of Dr Besigye. So my dear brother Amuriat, who is a hostage of Dr Besigye, had to fire her,” Ms Alaso said.
  Mr Mafabi was fired by Gen Mugisha Muntu in part because he refused to warm up to the latter’s leadership after a bruising election in which they competed against each other. Ms Alaso, then secretary general, was accused of having played a role in Gen Muntu’s eventual win.
  When contacted for a comment on Thursday, Dr Besigye said: “I don’t think I want to comment on those matters. The party is better placed to respond.”
  Ms Alaso adds that in the grand scheme of the current FDC politics, Dr Besigye seeks to have a weak Opposition in Parliament, all the while taking the shine from what would be a vibrant LoP.
  Dr Besigye has been at the frontline of the Opposition politics in Uganda since 2001.

  “I know my brother Patrick well. If he had his way, there was no way he would appoint Aol as LoP. Dr Besigye is using him to have a LoP who won’t have peer respect and will not command a following even from the media,” she said.
  Other sources in FDC, however, disagree sharply and think POA exercised incredible patience considering that Ms Kiiza had for all intents and purposes divorced from FDC and was outrightly loyal to Gen Mugisha Muntu while undermining the current president.
  In effect, whereas Gen Muntu’s supporters are quick and generous to portray Mr Amuriat as a stooge of Dr Besigye, the same charge has been labeled against them with Ms Kiiza particularly projected as a “listening post and stooge of Gen Muntu”, with one senior leader we spoke to describing her as, “a girl who was a district councillor in Kasese, who all of a sudden fell into big things and thought she had arrived politically to the extent of considering herself a first among equals the moment Gen Muntu exited the stage.”
  He added: “In Kiiza’s world, there is only one leader and that leader is Gen Muntu, a reality which punches holes in why they took part in the election seeing as there was bound to be one leader out of that process.”
  “That woman was so disrespectful to POA. Can you imagine on two occasions she set him up by calling him to Parliament to meet FDC MPs only for him to go there and find her out of office. He found only three MPs, all in a calculated bid to embarrass him and show he has no respect among the MPs?” a senior FDC leader, who asked not to be named, told this writer on Wednesday.

  Was Ms Kiiza undermining POA?
  Additionally, the particulars of the ‘offence’ of undermining the POA leadership on Ms Kiiza’s charge sheet reveal that her disregard for the new team led her to abandon her role as chairperson of the Women’s League, which was rendered dormant, nonattendance of meetings and, like Mr Katuntu and Elijah Okupa, staying away from the party headquarters and its activities altogether.
  Ms Alaso disputes this too, saying: “If she wasn’t performing as chairperson of the Women’s League, did they warn or summon her to explain? Why would they remove her as LoP when she was performing far better than Wafula Oguttu, for example? Her role at FDC isn’t connected to the office of LoP!”
  Ms Alaso offers the same defence in respect of Mr Katuntu, who has been accused of playing to the gallery and not doing much in substance.
  “I heard Amuriat say that Katuntu wasn’t submitting reports from Cosase but when he (Amuriat) was in the same committee as its chairperson, it is on record that he only submitted one report to Parliament and the backlog Katuntu is dealing with comes from as far back as POA’s time as chairman of that committee. In fact, we shall demand for an integrity audit on each of the new committee chairpersons because we know their past record in some of those committees isn’t clean.”
  Ms Musumba says the cry out over the change in the leadership is not genuine. “They are only crying because of the bags of the money they have been carrying from those committees and if they stretch us beyond common sense, we shall explode with evidence.”

  Committee scorecard
  It is difficult, to be fair, to assess with exactitude the performance scorecard of a committee chairperson, especially in absence of universally agreed upon parameters and benchmarks or terms of reference.
  If the disagreement even on basic facts between the leaders of what are clearly factions is anything to go by, it is not far-fetched to arrive at the conclusion that FDC faces tough choices ahead. Already, Gen Muntu is in Arua Municipality campaigning, alongside MPs friendly to him, for Mr Kasiano Wadri, who is an Independent candidate against the FDC flag bearer.
  In a tweet after consultations in Iganga, Gen Muntu wrote: “The truth is, we face tough choices ahead as a party. Pretending that we don’t doesn’t help us move forward.” In fact, an analysis of his torrent of tweets, some of which are witty, veiled whips at some of his colleagues shows he is headed for a journey of separation or divorce from the party.

  Is there a third hand?

  Outside influence. Other sources we spoke to assert that third party influence in determining the course of the party can’t be ruled out with fifth columnists potentially planted by the state to sow seeds of discord.
  Ms Musumba says: “In fact, I can say without fear of contradiction that NRM was taking over our party and Museveni was starting to run it so we had to act. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a party by 2021. Does it surprise you that NRM leaders are crying more than the bereaved over these changes? We want to keep FDC out of the reach of Museveni, who promised there will be no Opposition by 2021.”
  Ms Musumba adds: “The plan is to cause anarchy, escalate the contradictions and then break FDC apart. It is a very cruel way to move, especially by colleagues who committed to an election and I wonder why they would contribute to making FDC then work to shatter it. In fact, Teso is being plotted as the launch pad of what will eventually become a new party and Mr Amuriat’s biggest Opposition is from Teso MPs. We are ready for all the possibilities.”
  Party relevancy. To put the position FDC is in context, Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago implores us to look at the situation in the Democratic Party and Uganda People’s Congress party, where similar fractures have occurred.
  “Uganda is ready for a transition from Mr Museveni and Ugandans will come 2021 coalesce around a leader, one person they think poses a formidable challenge to Museveni and that will not be driven by parties, whoever emerges as a trusted flag bearer of the forces of change is the one people will rally around so what is happening in the parties doesn’t matter much, it is expected in a military dictatorship.

  New party in offing?
  Outside influence. Other sources we spoke to assert that third party influence in determining the course of the party can’t be ruled out with fifth columnists potentially planted by the state to sow seeds of discord.
  Ms Musumba says: “In fact, I can say without fear of contradiction that NRM was taking over our party and Museveni was starting to run it so we had to act. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a party by 2021. Does it surprise you that NRM leaders are crying more than the bereaved over these changes? We want to keep FDC out of the reach of Museveni, who promised there will be no Opposition by 2021.”
  Ms Musumba adds: “The plan is to cause anarchy, escalate the contradictions and then break FDC apart. It is a very cruel way to move, especially by colleagues who committed to an election and I wonder why they would contribute to making FDC then work to shatter it. In fact, Teso is being plotted as the launch pad of what will eventually become a new party and Mr Amuriat’s biggest Opposition is from Teso MPs. We are ready for all the possibilities.”
  Party relevancy. To put the position FDC is in context, Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago implores us to look at the situation in the Democratic Party and Uganda People’s Congress party, where similar fractures have occurred.
  “Uganda is ready for a transition from Mr Museveni and Ugandans will come 2021 coalesce around a leader, one person they think poses a formidable challenge to Museveni and that will not be driven by parties, whoever emerges as a trusted flag bearer of the forces of change is the one people will rally around so what is happening in the parties doesn’t matter much, it is expected in a military dictatorship.

  what some of the key players say...

  Alice Alaso, former FDC secretary general and Serere Woman MP. I know my brother Patrick [Amuriat Oboi, FDC party president] well. If he had his way, there was no way he would appoint Aol as LoP. Dr Besigye is using him to have a LoP who won’t have peer respect and will not command a following, even from the media.”

  Salaamu Musumba, FDC vice president – eastern region. I can say without fear of contradiction that NRM was taking over our party and Museveni was starting to run it, so we had to act. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a party by 2021. Does it surprise you that NRM leaders are crying more than the bereaved over these changes?”

  Erias Lukwago, Kampala Lord Mayor. Uganda is ready for a transition from Mr Museveni and Ugandans will, come 2021, coalesce around a leader, one person they think poses a formidable challenge to Museveni and that will not be driven by parties. Whoever emerges as a trusted flag bearer of the forces of change is the one people will rally around...”

• I can’t start party out of emotions - Muntu

  

  Gen Muntu told supporters that if parties were to be formed out of emotions, then his team would have formed one when he lost the FDC presidency to Mr Patrick Oboi Amuriat

• Amuriat fires Muntu team in big shake-up

  

  Ms Aol is a third termer but has not made headlines in the past, with her stint as Deputy Opposition Whip in the Ninth Parliament passing largely unnoticed

Therefore, after conceding defeat and officially handing over the party, I also publicly announced that we would engage in nationwide consultations to determine our next steps. We promised that we would be transparent about our activities and intentions at every step of the way. I am therefore glad to report to you that there is no single consultative meeting we have held without the involvement or informing of local party leaders. Each of these meetings has also been open in nature, with people from all sides of the political spectrum in attendance.

Reasons for Consultations
As mentioned earlier, our view has always been that we cannot hope to achieve our objectives without strong grassroot structures and networks. This view is not just a theoretical ideal. You all know that after the 2016 presidential elections, we had decided to contest the outcome as declared by the Electoral Commission. When we set about gathering our evidence however, we found ourselves in a situation where we could not collect or locate over 9000 DR forms.

In our view, the logical thing to have done after we had been cheated in the 2016 general elections would have been to do an assessment of our situation and plug our weak points. Instead, we slid back into our internal fights as had been happening in the last five years.
During the party presidential campaigns, it became very clear that there was even less tolerance for alternative views. Not towing the ‘correct line’ meant being branded a mole. After the elections, many of us sincerely wondered whether there was still a place in the party for our views or if we were simply expected to keep quiet and follow whatever others believe. This is not a sustainable way to live or lead. We also could not in good conscience, engage in sabotaging the new leadership or compromising their efforts. As someone who lived through that kind of situation first hand during my 5-year tenure as president, I can authoritatively say it is of no use to anyone. It neither advances the party nor benefits any of the warring groups. All it does is distract the entire opposition, spend all our energy on internal power struggles and benefits those in government. And so, the only way forward was for us to engage in an open, mature, systematic and inclusive nationwide dialogue about whether to stay in the party or not.

Available Choices
It is no secret that there have been calls from the population for new political actors. In the aftermath of our party presidential elections, there was talk of formation of a ‘Third Force’. There was also anecdotal evidence of a need for this; the number of independent MPs and leaders has been steadily growing, several people even within the ruling party have been dissatisfied with their party but not convinced enough to join ours and there is a huge number of youth, especially among the working class, that is critical of government but sceptical of the opposition as well. These are facts that every political actor must seek to understand.

Nature abhors a vacuum. When we started FDC, there were already established parties. Yet the reality was, none of them was fulfilling the political desires of the people at the time. Indeed, within a few months of our formation, we had membership that far surpassed that of all other established opposition parties. None of this was because of a single individual. It was because the mood in the country was conducive for another political force to emerge. The questions that we had hoped FDC would ask itself were as follows:
1. Is the political space in Uganda ripe for a different approach to politics? If consultations were held and the conclusion was that it isn’t, well and good. If not however, we’d then need to proceed to the next question.

2. What are the changes that need to be made to meet this political vacuum and are we as a party willing to make those changes? Sometimes, you find that while there are calls for a certain change, the party is either unable or unwilling to make those changes. If for instance there is a sizeable number of people calling for armed conflict, it might be a real desire, but one that we as a party are unwilling or unable to heed due to our principles, values or status. If on the other hand, the changes to be made are reasonable and within our reach, then we would set about engaging in them in order to fill this vacuum.

SEE MORE:

• FDC admits its house is on fire

  

  Party officials say the fights have been caused by both internal and external forces beyond.

• Opposition parties, like NRM may fall ‘slowly slowly’ before crashing

  

  Recent campaigns for Bugiri Municipality and Arua Municipality parliamentary seats clearly showed that Opposition parties in this country are skating on thin ice

• Displacement effect of Bobi Wine’s entry

  

  In the end, Bobi Wine’s entry might have implications not only for Museveni but for his opposition counterparts too

Our consultations therefore, have been an attempt to answer these questions. Of course given that we are not the ones in leadership, our hope was (and continues to be) that the FDC leadership appreciates that we set out to seek answers to questions that concern us all. Our reading of the situation was that for all intents and purposes, there were two parties existing in one. And until this was resolved, the party would end up suffering from infighting.

In view of the above, we conducted nationwide consultations and have come to the following conclusions:
1. There is a nationwide recognition of the fact that FDC is fractured. During all our consultation meetings, everyone that spoke admitted to or spoke of an internal rift in ideology. Many of our people are frustrated, either with the way things are being run by the current leadership or with the way things were being ran under mine. The purpose of pointing this out is not to apportion blame, but to simply articulate what most, if not all of us know for a fact.

2. There is a strong desire among many party members for the reconciliation of the two major outlooks within the party. However, in spite of the good intentions, it has been our experience that simply reconciling for the sake of reconciliation is neither sustainable nor even ideal. During my term in office for instance, the amount of resources and time we spent on trying to keep the party united far outweighed the effort that was spent on building the party and furthering our agenda. Therefore, while I had the honour of handing over an unfractured party with more financial resources and stability than I inherited, it is also a fact that we had not made as much progress as we could have had we not had internal intrigue to deal with. It is therefore our view, that under the current circumstances, attempts at reconciliation will only be cosmetic, hinder the growth of the party and quite simply leave most members feeling dissatisfied at best and antagonistic towards each other at worst.

3. Our reading of the current political situation in the country is that there is a political void that is not being filled by the party’s current strategy. We believe that this vacuum needs to be filled as soon as possible by approaching our leadership problem from a different perspective. Once again, the purpose of pointing this out is not to criticize or undermine the current leadership, but to simply state things as we see them. There are two possible outcomes of our conclusion on this matter; either we are wrong in our assessment or we are right. If we are wrong, then the party need not worry about it because our efforts will quite simply fall flat sooner than later and it will prove to us all that our ideology is flawed. In the event that we are right however, and our perspective resonates with a huge number of Ugandans, it is in FDC’s interest that those who fill this political void are friends of the party and are able to work with it on the shared goals and interests. Whichever way our reading of the situation goes therefore, it is our belief that it is in the best interests of the FDC for it to be explored.

• Would Muntu’s party dislodge FDC as main Opposition force?

  

  After being quiet for the whole of December 2017, former FDC party president Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu finally started his consultations On January 15. While his supporters urge him to quit FDC and start a new party, analysts say the move will be disastrous for the Opposition.

• Gen Muntu supporters warn him against forming own political party

  

  The leaders say it would be a political suicide if Gen Muntu opted to form his own political party

• This is how a Muntu ‘third way’ party could succeed or fail

  

  There is a belief that a more moderate FDC, will attract middle-of-the-road NRMs, and soft anti-Museveni elements, and create a winning combination

In view of these conclusions, I write to inform you of the following decisions we are taking:

1. We have resolved to leave the party. As already explained, we do not do so in anger or animosity towards the current leadership, but in careful consideration of the national cause of liberating our country. The current party leadership needs to be given the opportunity to pursue their agenda untethered by the constant worry of sabotage or suspicion.
2. To the extent that it depends on us, we are committed to ensuring that our departure causes the least possible disruption to the party and is amicable. We recognise that even though our preferred modes of operation differ significantly, our general goals and objectives for the country are aligned. As has been our policy throughout the consultation process, we commit to discussing issues, not people and to continue to put the country’s interests before selfish or partisan ones.
In the same spirit, we call upon the FDC leadership to receive our departure in good faith, not as an indication of defiance to them, but a reflection of our confidence in the possibilities of unfettered cooperation.

3. We recognise that there are leaders elected on the party ticket that are aligned to our view of things. While we encourage them to be true to what they believe, the decision of whether to resign their positions and join us, remain in their positions and cooperate with us or any other such action is entirely theirs to make. We neither seek to hold anyone at ransom nor cause any institutional disruption.
Likewise, those party leaders opposed to our departure can rest assured that we respect their position and will not attempt to antagonise them. We encourage everyone to make a personal choice and commit to it without unnecessarily maligning others’ choices.

4. Given the legal, logistical and practical challenges that will inevitably come from our decision, we are willing and offer to have a small committee composed of members from either side to discuss and agree on the best way to handle our departure. However, should this be deemed inconvenient or disruptive by the party, we would not like to place any extra burden on it. Our only hope is that an atmosphere is created that enables people to choose the direction they want to take without feeling unduly constrained.

In conclusion, we believe that for the country to move forward, it needs strong parties and institutions. For a long time now, there has been a culture of individualism and we are conscious of the fact that attempts to build structures that are stronger than individuals will be an uphill task. Nevertheless, we persist, fully convinced that the destiny of our country rests not on the strength of a benevolent dictator or patriotic individual, but on the structured effort of every citizen. The sum total of our collective effort is far greater than our individual capacities. And so our commitment to you is that when we are finally established elsewhere and need to work with you to achieve common goals, our doors and hearts will always be open with the friendship and bond of beloved kin. For we are not enemies but allies.

Together in the struggle
Maj. Gen. (rtd) Mugisha Muntu
…………………………………….