Former president Milton Obote and former British prime minister Tony Blair. Photos/File
Twenty three years ago on Tuesday, it emerged that the exiled former president, Apollo Milton Obote, had written to the prime minister of Britain, Tony Blair, calling on Britain and the Commonwealth to impose sanctions on Uganda for violation of human rights and stifling the growth of democracy.
Quoting a March 22, 2002, letter, Daily Monitor’s edition of April 8, 2002, reported that Obote, who was living in exile in Zambia, said it was necessary to impose sanctions against Uganda in the same way that the Commonwealth had imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe.
“On Zimbabwe and Uganda, I draw attention that during the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia, you repeatedly stated, ‘There are no half measures about democracy. I write, therefore, to enquire why, since you hold that ‘there are no half measures about democracy’, the policy of the government of which you are the head is that the 16-year-old terrorist, military, one-party dictatorship in Uganda must continue until the year,” the letter read in parts.
Zimbabwe was on March 19, 2002, suspended from the Council of the Commonwealth for one year, after international election observers condemned the conduct of elections that had been held in the South African nation earlier the same month.
The observers claimed that what turned out to be a disputed presidential election was unfairly tilted in favour of president Robert Mugabe. Mugabe was declared winner on March 13, 2002, with 1,685,212 votes, followed by Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change, who had 1,258,401 votes.
But Tsvangirai rejected the result. “It is the biggest electoral fraud I have ever witnessed in my life," Tsvangirai said. The Guardian newspaper reported in its edition of March 13, 2002, that Tsvangirai had claimed that the “the people of Zimbabwe in their entirety" were stopped from voting and that the result was the culmination of two years of violence "sometimes with the connivance of the police”, adding that the election "does not reflect the true will of the people of Zimbabwe and is consequently illegitimate in the eyes of the people”.
Tsvangirai died in February 2018, at the age of 65, after a protracted battle with colorectal cancer. Mugabe was removed as president and leader of Zanu-PF in November 2017 and replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa. Mugabe died in September 2019, aged 95.
Suspending Zimbabwe
The Guardian newspaper reported in its March 19, 2002, edition that the decision to suspend Zimbabwe was arrived at in London following a meeting attended by the president of South Africa, Mr Thabo Mbeki, the president of Nigeria, Mr Olusegun Obasanjo, and the prime minister of Australia, Mr John Howard.
"The committee has decided to suspend Zimbabwe from the Councils of the Commonwealth for a period of one year with immediate effect. This issue will be revisited in 12 months time, having regard to progress in Zimbabwe based on the Commonwealth Harare principles and reports from the Commonwealth secretary general," The Guardian reported Mr Howard to have announced in London.
The decision reached by the three leaders on behalf of the 54-member Commonwealth meant that Zimbabwe would not be allowed to take part in any of the group’s meetings for the next year. The decision came against a backdrop of pressure from Britain and other industrialised nations, which had been pushing for Zimbabwe's expulsion after the controversial elections resulted in Mugabe being sworn in for another six-year term.
African members of the Commonwealth were, however, more measured and keen on taking a softer approach. Election observers from South Africa had actually declared the polling in Zimbabwe legitimate. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu–PF) had been allies since the 1960s when both were fighting to free the Black majorities in their countries from white minority regimes, which partially explained why South Africa had chosen to go slow on the matter.
Other election observers had, however, said voters were not adequately allowed to freely express their choices during the three days of voting that commenced on March 9, 2002.
Independent election observers said the poll was intentionally tilted to ensure a Mugabe re-election. Mr Blair welcomed the Commonwealth’s decision to suspend Zimbabwe.
Why not Uganda?
In his letter, Obote argued that whereas Zimbabwe had been suspended, political parties existed in the body politic of the country and could contest public elections, which was not the case in Uganda. “In Uganda, on the other hand, the military and the Constitution have, for 16 years, made the Opposition political parties exist only at their respective national headquarters,” he stated.
Obote started off by telling Mr Blair that he was a former president who had been elected in December 1980 in an election that was contested by four political parties, which election observers from the Commonwealth endorsed.
“We believe this has been a valid electoral exercise which should broadly reflect the freely expressed choice of the people of Uganda,” Obote quoted the observers to have stated in their first report. Obote further said on January 12, 2002, his Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) organised a rally in support of the coalition of nations against terrorism and dictatorship, but that the government had crushed it.
“The peaceful UPC rally was brutally suppressed by armed police and a paramilitary force. The Uganda dictatorship is not with the coalition but with al-Qaeda,” Obote said. Obote further accused the British Secretary of State for International Development, Ms Clare Short, of stating in a 1997 press conference in Kampala, that Uganda had a government with which the New Labour government would happily do business.
“This shows that your government had accepted the gross suppressions by the Ugandan dictatorship of the human rights and freedoms,” he wrote.
The newspaper further reported that Obote had in his letter revealed that he had in 1998 written to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary to enquire about the position of Britain on the referendum on political systems.
The response, he said, was that Britain’s position was that the referendum be held a year after the lifting of restrictions on operations of political parties, but that that position had drastically changed.
“In 1999, however, your government became aggressively in favour of holding the referendum with the restrictions still on and your High Commissioner in Uganda even took the initiative to form what became known as the Referendum Support Group (RSG), now known as the Post Referendum Support Group,” Obote says.
“Short of a Zimbabwe type of treatment or even more, your government has nothing on which to peg any hope that the Uganda dictatorship will voluntarily accept democracy in the year 2006,” Obote told Blair.
Obote, who ruled Uganda twice between 1962 and 1971, and between 1980 and 1985, and was in both cases ousted by his army commanders, first by Idi Amin, and then Gen Tito Okello Lutwa, died on October 10, 2005, of kidney failure in a hospital in South Africa,at the age of 79.
Former president Milton Obote.
The peaceful UPC rally was brutally suppressed by armed police and a paramilitary force. The Uganda dictatorship is not with the coalition but with al-Qaeda.’’
About obote
Obote, who ruled Uganda twice between 1962 and 1971, and between December 1980 and July 1985, and was in both cases ousted by his army commanders, first by Idi Amin, and then Gen Tito Okello Lutwa, died on October 10, 2005.
