Celebrating NRM day is dancing on Luweero graves, says Besigye

Luweero.

Forum for Democratic Change presidential candidate Kizza Besigye yesterday told the people of Luweero District that celebrating January 26, the day President Museveni captured power in 1986, is a mockery of the people who died in that war.

About 500,000 people are believed to have been killed in what is called Luweero Triangle as Mr Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA) guerillas battled the then government forces of Dr Milton Obote. A number of former key fighters, many of whom have fallen out with Mr Museveni, now accuse the President of diverting from what they fought for.

“The NRM that captured power has been captured by Mr Museveni. NRM is now a personal property; it is Museveni and Family Limited. What we fought for died a long time ago,” Dr Besigye told the first gathering at Kikunyu, Makulubita Sub-county, where fierce battles were fought between 1981 and1986.

On the annual celebration of the day the NRA triumphed, Dr Besigye said: “This celebration is now (like) dancing on the graves of those who died in the war. That is why I don’t care… even if I die in this struggle, I would have died fighting to achieve the cause our people died for.”

He said Mr Museveni had wrongly self-proclaimed himself as the chief fighter during the liberation struggle. “I hear Museveni calling himself Ssabalwanyi (chief fighter). Which Ssabalwanyi? The real ssabalawanyis are here; those who protected us when we were here.”

Dr Besigye was Mr Museveni’s Bush War doctor. At Kikunyu, he pointed in the direction of the nearby Kitemamasanda village, where the rebels camped for a long time. He said that is where he met the then rebels when he joined them from Nairobi where he had worked as a medical doctor. At Makulubita Sub-county headquarters, Dr Besigye paid his respects to some 1,200 people whose skulls were interred there.

The entrance to the grave was locked when Dr Besigye arrived, with residents saying the police had locked it up when they realised that the FDC presidential candidate would visit the place. The people in his entourage forced the gate open and he proceeded to lay a wreath on the grave before hitting the campaign trail.
Dr Besigye told his audience that Mr Museveni had betrayed the objectives of the war.

“About 500,000 people died in the war that Mr Museveni started because of vote rigging,” Dr Besigye said in Bombo Town, “Is there vote rigging today?” The chorus answer was “yes”. Dr Besigye said: “These days they do not even wait to steal my votes; it is NRM stealing NRM votes (referring to NRM primaries).”

Who is likely to take Luweero?

President Museveni has won in Luweero on each of the four previous occasions he has stood during his reign, and he polled 69,453 votes in the last election in 2011, accounting for 68 per cent of the total votes in the district. Dr Besigye, his closest challenger then, garnered 28,288 votes, representing 28 per cent of the total votes.

But Mr Museveni and the ruling party’s hold on to the district has been shaken in recent years, with Ms Brenda Nakubenya of the Democratic Party grabbing the Woman MP seat after a joint Opposition push in a by-election in November 2011, a victory on which the Opposition hope to build in this election.

Hajj Nadduli, despite being the NRM vice chairperson in Buganda, lost the NRM primaries for the district chairman seat to Mr Ronald Ndawula in what was a heavily contested and violent election. Hajj Nadduli now backs an Independent candidate, Mr Ali Ndawula, against the official NRM candidate. These are the divisions that FDC’s Absolom Bwanika Bbaale, the FDC chairman for Luweero who also leads Dr Besigye’s campaign in the district, hopes to capitalise on to grab the district chair for himself.