Former Forum for Democratic Change presidential candidate KIZZA BESIGYE used his New Year message to lash out at critics who compare him to President Yoweri Museveni.
Speaking at his Katonga road offices in Kampala, Besigye said he did not have the kind of money or power Museveni uses to bulldoze his way around the country.
He also denied claims that he has stifled the emergence of new opposition leaders like Museveni has done in NRM. Last week, renowned journalist Andrew Mwenda drew a social media buzz when he described both Museveni and Besigye as Uganda’s problem because they have failed to give way to new leaders.
Below are excerpts of Besigye’s question and answer session with journalists, as recorded by Baker Batte Lule.
Would you be part of the dialogue organized by President Museveni?
Certainly if Museveni invites me for dialogue, I won’t go and that is because if I invited him I wouldn’t expect him to come. There are very deeply-entrenched problems in this country, which mainly revolve around the capture of the state? The person who has captured the state if he calls you; what are you going to do to change that capture.
Even if you talk and agree on many things, how are you going to ensure that they are implemented? Even the laws which are there are not observed. I was under illegal detention from the 19th of February until the 11th of May 2016, when I was taken to Moroto and charged. As a person who had won the election and had evidence I had won, I was instead detained and not taken to any court.
These kinds of situations cannot just be wished away by having a chat over a table. There must be a properly-structured process, and that is why we have been talking about agreeing on a mutual facilitator that starts the process – not not either Museveni inviting Besigye or Besigye inviting Museveni or a Church leader inviting these people.
You must consider what mechanisms will guarantee the implementation of what we agree on because there have been many agreements reached that are gathering dust on the shelves. One must think of a process that guarantees the implementation of what is agreed. You were all powerless over my detention yet you knew it was illegal and I was shouting; what could you do? Nothing.
We must also agree on what should be discussed. In 2006, I received an invitation as leader of FDC to go for a discussion with Museveni in Entebbe. I wrote back and asked what it is we were going to discuss.Could I propose my own things on this agenda, could I propose a different venue.
They wrote back to me and said the invitation was as it is. I said okay take your invitation. My colleagues Miria Obote, then UPC leader; and John Ssebaana Kizito, then DP leader; and I think Abed Bwanika and some other people went; what became of what they discussed? Absolutely nothing; they had tea, they were photographed for the newspapers.
That is not something I’m interested in at all and neither [are] the people of Uganda. That is why we talk about a very clearly-structured dialogue that has reasonable expectations. That is a position we are not about to retract from. In Uganda we have also a big problem of meetings being some kind of business.
In fact the hotel business is flourishing on meetings of all kinds mainly paid for by donors. Workshops on this, dialogue on that, which never bring anything. We are very committed to dialogue but it must make certain things happen; reforms must be respected. But before you fight for reforms, even what is there should be respected; why do you arrest citizens illegally; stop them from moving? If insisting on having structured dialogue is radicalism, I have no apology at all.
Some think that just as Museveni has prevented the emergence of any political leader within the NRM even Dr Besigye has blocked the emergence of other leaders in the opposition.
The campaign by apologists who say Museveni and Besigye are a problem: [there] can never be a more ridiculous position than this. That’s why I hold many of our elites in contempt. How can Besigye be a problem? What force does he have? Museveni would never have been a problem if he had no guns; we would have dealt with him long time ago.
I have no means of coercing anybody. Secondly, I’m not occupying any office that has powers of patronage; giving favors of say appointing people or giving people money like you see now. You have seen, it is the population giving me money, and not me distributing it. How can I be a problem to anybody?
I was a leader of a party and I left well ahead of my time; we have term limits in FDC; not only did I not tinker with them like Museveni has been doing to the constitution. I could never contemplate changing our party constitution. Instead of serving 10 years, I served seven years. It’s now five years already since I left the leadership of FDC, I don’t sit on any leadership organ of the FDC.
I cannot influence how FDC decides. So, for somebody to compare me with somebody who describes himself as the commander in chief of all armed forces, as the controller of all the money and the owner of the oil; the giver of all jobs; who says in my home there are many rooms; would that person really have something in the head? It really defeats me.
You hear them say Besigye should also go; I ask them go from what? The only quarrel they have is that I have been a candidate many times. A candidate is not an office. I have never been a candidate by coercion or without a contest. Museveni has never contested to become a candidate; you saw what happened to [former prime minister and presidential candidate Amama] Mbabazi when he tried.
Therefore, how can someone suggest that this Besigye somehow must give up his fundamental right of seeking leadership if he wants? I don’t know whether my brother Norbert Mao was misquoted. That he said he doesn’t mind if Museveni gives power to [Brig Kainerugaba] Muhoozi or [First Lady] Janet[Museveni].
I suspect he meant through a free and fair election. If Museveni passes on the baton to his son to carry on with the same thing, why would anybody not have an issue with that? They say that but you’re very dominant; how did I come to stop any other person from being the same? Did I displace anybody? Those arguments are made by Museveni apologists. Some of these apologists are also fifth columnists in the opposition ranks.
Government has indicated there would be LC-I elections; are you preparing to participate in these elections?
Elections organized by a dictatorship using its institutions can never be free and fair and cannot engender change but that doesn’t mean when they [elections] come, we sit; never. That was the debate even in the last election. We participate in elections to defy all those disadvantages for two reasons.
One, it’s an opportunity to change the people’s mindset. Before Christmas day, I was going to Mbale for a meeting; they brought mambas [amoured personnel carriers] and all sorts of things and blocked the road the whole day. I couldn’t go to Mbale; why, they said what are meetings for? Elections ended.
So, ordinarily you will never have the chance to talk to people; if there is an election, they put themselves in a dilemma because we have to go and organize and explain why people must be elected. So, it is an opportunity that we must not shy away from. Even if Museveni is the formal chairman of the Electoral Commission, if he calls for elections, we go.
Two, we shall use it [LC elections] to organize our people. By the way, we can even defeat them in their election by defiance. The reason they are killing the people in Kasese is that they [opposition] won by defiance, not because the election was free and fair. They killed a person at the tally center but people never left until they announced the right winners.
If we had been organized, [former EC chairman Badru] Kiggundu should never have left Namboole stadium after announcing all those funny things. I have also never seen a person who has a selective mind like Museveni. He thinks it is alright to go to Luweero and fight and cause the death of half a million people because of a stolen election but he thinks people should not organize to resist a stolen election.
Let our people be ready; they call the elections, we go for them. The election they want to organize is illegal and maybe it will even be challenged in court. They want people to line behind candidates, taking away their right to choosing people privately.
If we have said that fear is the biggest problem in the country, people are being gunned down and nobody knows who is gunning them down and now you come and say let them line behind Besigye.
You’re asking them to do something very difficult that certainly can’t bring fairness. Even schools organize secret ballot elections; how can a country fail to? By the way, it doesn’t have to be very expensive. If you ask people to organize their secret ballot, they will organize it without the involvement of anybody.
During the campaigns, you advocated for the creation of Power 10 that was mobilizing the grassroots to protect your votes. Now you’re coming with the people’s government network. What was the progress of P10?
Power 10 is one of the networks; it’s good that they are many. We have our party structures but this struggle is not primarily a partisan struggle. We are in a liberation struggle that is not only limited to FDC. We will have people who are non-partisan or in other parties who are part of the struggle.
So, we cannot use only FDC structures. DP, FDC, P10 and the people’s government networks structures will be there. These are all networks for the struggle and will remain there and we engage all of them. When there is terror, part of the networks have to be silent because as soon as they are known, they are attacked. We now have a very scared regime, which attacks anybody.
They have been attacking mosques. The other day they apologized after attacking a mosque. They said they had wrong intelligence. Can you imagine the national police attacking a mosque, arrest people, cause all kinds of problems and then say sorry I had wrong intelligence. All Ugandans must condemn this kind of behavior of attacking religious institutions in such a way that is disgraceful.
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