National dialogue must be beyond Museveni-Besigye, says Larok

Views. Mr Arthur Larok, the federation development director of ActionAid International. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • Interview. Recently, the Inter Religious Council of Uganda came up with a road map that will see a national dialogue launched in a months’ time. Along the way, a political party dialogue will be held where NRM and FDC negotiations will feature prominently alongside the constitution review. But Mr Arthur Larok, the federation development director of ActionAid International, says the quest for national dialogue should be removed from the two protagonists that have dominated the political scene, writes Solomon Arinitwe.

From your vantage point of view, how do you think we got to this situation as a country?
Our problems are not problems of yesterday. From our work and the work that I have been associated with, The Citizens Manifesto, since 2008, we have been saying that there are serious historical faultiness in the nation building project for Uganda and we have never sat as a people to deal with these historical fault lines.

We were a branded tribe by the colonialists. We were handed over a State that in my view was constructed as an oppressive system. When you look at what the British did in Uganda, they constructed an administration that oppressed without accountability. What we still have in Uganda is a typical post-colonial tax regime.

The British exploited Ugandans for the crown. They took the money to the UK. These guys are doing exactly the same thing and putting the money into their pockets. That is a major fault line that we did not construct an accountable State. We have a President that has so much authority by design. This is a legacy of the character of a State that was created with a purpose to exploit.

With all this that is going on, what is your prediction of what may come next?
In all honestly, I think the situation will get worse because the tool that the regime is left with is violence. The willingness to talk is very low. Intellectually, they cannot defend what is going on. The level of contradiction that we had from Bugiri and Arua etc.

If they are not going to tolerate dissent and do not want dialogue, what are they left with? To continue to oppress and that is why I think it will get worse before it gets better. It will get better because the demographic reality is such that we have people who have nothing to lose because they have nothing.

You have explained how we got here. How can the situation be prevented from escalating and stop the country from falling off the cliff?
The only solution, from a positive lens, is that we need to talk. Ugandans need to talk. We need to have a national dialogue because we have reached a point where we are all in a hole, Museveni is in that hole.

When he talks about insecurity, when he starts sending shivers-he is talking about his own security and not the security of Ugandans. He is worried about his own security. It is going to be a nightmare for this country if we do not dialogue about what we do for Museveni and the people around him.

About the historical fault lines, that won’t be sorted through the ballot or violence. We need to create an enabling environment to talk about our past and reconcile with it. Ugandans are hurting. If we do not deal with this, we are going to see yet another cycle of revenge.

Museveni will go, another person will come and will try to do the same thing. There are bottlenecks we have. One bottleneck is that we have destroyed alternative power centres. There are the weak and the strong. The key protagonists in Uganda, who have stood for the last two decades, are a bottleneck.

Ugandans must outlive the Besigye-Museveni mindset because they have held us captive.
Let for a minute Ugandans dream of a ballot in 2021 that does not have those two individuals. The other bottleneck is the crimes that have been committed by the people in power. They are truly afraid of leaving. Part of the issue that we will deal with in the national dialogue is truth, learning and reconciliation.

How feasible and practical is it given the diametrical divide on both sides of the political contests? The national dialogue seems to be an impossible feat
We have a problem even in the Opposition, even in the NRM. The challenge is that a lot of these groups have been hijacked by radical people who are not willing to talk. The Opposition is not willing to talk and the NRM is not willing to talk. They say who these are bandits. Pressure needs to mount from inside these political protagonists.

Within the dominant Opposition parties, we need to see more moderate thinking people put pressure on the radicals. The same way we should see moderate-thinking people in the NRM putting pressure on the government to dialogue. We need to see more pressure by non-State actors like religious leaders.

We need to be more aggressive and then the dynamics will change. The quest for national dialogue should be removed from the two protagonists that have dominated the political scene. It is up to us to organise and put these two people on the spot.
We are 41m Ugandans, why should we be held hostage by two people? Reforms are needed. Pressure is needed within the Opposition and pressure is needed on the ruling elite because they have so much to lose.