What Castro teaches us

On this day, in 2008, the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced that he would not be seeking re-election and thereby resigned as Cuba’s president, after 49 years in power.
At 81, Castro had lived the eventful life of a communist revolutionary. 
Strangely, it was a life which seemed destined to go to seed before sprouting into its own. 

That’s because Castro was Spanish. His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, was an immigrant from Spain and a prosperous sugarcane farmer.
Besides not having the more desired credentials of a Cuban communist revolutionary, it was said that there were no fewer than 643 attempts on Castro’s life by the USA. 
However, the US Senate’s 1975 Church Committee stated that there were actually eight attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to assassinate Castro between 1960 and 1965. 
But, in what some would consider an anti-climax to the red meat of his passionate leadership, Castro went out without a whimper or a bang.

Instead, the National Assembly elected a Council of State and a president. The president of the Council of State became president of Cuba and that’s how Raúl, Fidel Castro’s brother, came to lead Cuba. 
Raúl stepped down from the presidency on April 19, 2018, after his successor Miguel Díaz-Canel was elected by the National Assembly following parliamentary elections.
Díaz-Canel’s tenure, having been an upshot from the Castro brothers’ presidencies, typifies the sort of continuity more civilised countries owe to minority rule instead of their majoritarian posturing. 
Sure, I am aware that it is forever in political vogue for us to delude ourselves that majorities run this world. But if they did, then the most populous countries would rule the world. 

True, you might point towards China as being the most populous country in the world and possibly the most powerful. However, China is run by the Chinese Communist Party, headed by a general secretary who is the paramount leader of China as he is kept in power by the People’s Liberation Army and not the majority of Chinese.
By this token, this minority rule becomes more pronounced in Uganda as President Museveni increasingly constitutes a majority of one.
It is to this majority that we must negotiate terms of resignation whose fine print expresses not surrender, but continuity.
This follows the logic that if the world’s greatest revolutionary, Castro, could step aside. Then Mr Museveni, who is something of a second-string revolutionary, should view his own departure as a matter of course.

It would be a tactical withdrawal on Museveni’s part, made in order to ensure the continuity of his own regime and save Uganda from chaos. 
Mr Museveni has made such a tactical withdrawal before. 
In January 1983, the National Resistance Army (NRA) was on the run after what Mr Museveni dubbed “Obote’s grand offensive” in which, he claims, 40 companies were deployed against the NRA for about four months.
This offensive happened along the Kapeka-Kiwoko axis in Luweero District, the Matuga-Kirolo-Masuliita axis in Mpigi District, the Makulubita-Semuto axis in Luweero, the Kiboga-Lwamata axis in Mubende District and the Butema-Kijunjubwa axis in Hoima and Masindi districts. 

The Uganda National Liberation Army reportedly had its infantry make use of medium artillery comprising batteries of 122mm howitzers, 12-barrelled Katyushas and 130mm field guns operated by North Koreans. 
In order to protect itself from this “grand offensive”, the NRA retreated from Nakeseke County, Kyadondo and Busiro counties to Singo (Lukoola) then into the Ngoma area. 
And the rest, as they say, is history. 
Mr Museveni may repeat such history by retreating from power in order to preserve his power and thereby protect our country.

Mr Matogo is a professional copywriter  
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