Addressing journalists at his Katonga road offices in Kampala on Friday, Former FDC president and presidential candidate KIZZA BESIGYE announced that he will soon launch a countrywide campaign against the proposed amendment of the Land Act to allow government to take over private land without prior compensation.
Besigye read out six points he believes were missed by the drafters of this amendment and asked government to consider them. He also accused government of trying to divert people from critical national issues.
He called upon the media to focus on key issues such as the “illegitimate” government in power, collapsing economy, poor health services, widespread hunger and the brewing regional security tensions leading to a refugee influx in the country. After his remarks, Besigye fielded questions from journalists.
Jonathan Kamoga transcribed the exchanges with reporters and below are excerpts:
For over 16 years, you have been struggling to oust the current regime; how do you rate yourself now? Have you been successful or are you just knocking your head on a hard wall?
I think we can have views on that ourselves, but I would like to suggest that the best judge is not yourself; I think the best judge are people who are looking at what you are doing because judging oneself is always fraught with the risk of judging yourself with a bias.
So, I think the public is the best judge of our political agenda, our political actions. And the public responds to what we do. The reason I’m telling you that we are challenging this junta now is because we believe with reason, with evidence, that we won the election. And I have shown you: why did the regime have to illegally detain me from 19th of February, the voting was on 18th, 2016, even before Kiggundu made his ridiculous announcements?
Why, if it was not for fear of the regime and what you know has unfolded since? And you were here during the campaigns; you must have seen the public response. If what we were doing was not meeting their approval, you would not [have seen] that kind of response. Did you see any candidate, where peasants were giving money, chicken, goats, cows, saying ‘let’s continue’?
No! It has never been seen. That, to me, is the indication that what we are doing is meeting success. Because what is success? Success is not just getting power of government. Success is getting approval and support of people. In fact that is the power. Sometimes people ask me, ‘what exactly is your job now?’ [Laughs] Because nobody pays me for anything.
I am not hired by anybody. But do I have influence or I don’t? I think I have some influence. Where does it stem from? It comes from what we have been doing. This is the point I was talking about; freedom fighting and servant leadership. I have been offering my servant leadership and fighting for the freedom, not of myself but, of all of us. So, achievement is not measured by simply getting a particular goal, in this case having uncontested influence in government.
The most important achievement as far as I am concerned is the awakening of our people. Our people are very much alert now. And they [ordinary people] are more discerning than the political elite actually. Because the political elite, their discernment is influenced a lot by their personal interests, but ordinary people, very, very discerning.
And even in specific actions, our achievements are seen even in what the regime does. In fact everywhere I go, people say, ‘webale ssebo watujjako omusolo’. They believe I abolished graduated tax. Now it’s not me who did it, but it’s attributable because of what we have been doing.
The students at Makerere who are getting students loans know that… And it’s pitiable, Shs 4 billion for students loans this year, just Shs 4 billion! Shs 6 billion for handshake of already well-paid people. But even that Shs 4 billion, whoever gets it knows that that is thanks to our effort. It has never surfaced in the campaigns we have had from Mr Museveni. There is nowhere in his manifesto where he puts it. It was in our manifesto.
The health sector; you remember they wanted to privatize everything, we reversed it by ourselves. They wanted to abolish students’ sponsorship at Makerere. It was official. We fought; they did not only leave it, they increased it to 4,000 from 2,000 – government sponsorship. All these are things that are as a result of struggle.
You are talking about the amendments of part of the Land Act, have you drafted and forwarded your own amendments that you want to be included?
You see that is again part of the structure of the state as it is now. Private members are not allowed to produce bills that have financial implications unless they are authorized by government.
So, you cannot just bring a bill and get it to parliament. And that law is good, even to say that we have a discussion on the financial implications. [That] in itself would not be a negative thing if there was a government that is not predatory..
So, I’m afraid much as we know what needs to be done, we can only use political pressure to get it done before we can do it ourselves when in government. We can only use popular pressure, which we are drumming up now.
There is a newly-appointed commission of inquiry led by (Justice) Catherine Bamugemereire to look into these lands issues and amendment of the Land Act; do you think it will deliver?
Of course a commission is given terms by the one who appoints it. Do not forget that our primary contention is that Mr Museveni should be having no business appointing any commission now. He has no legitimacy.
So, whatever he appoints is as illegitimate as the appointing authority. It suffers initial legitimacy problems ab initio, right from the word go. But there is nothing stopping whoever has set it up including what I have said in its terms of reference.
The minister for justice and the prime minister have on several occasions mentioned that a constitutional review commission is coming up. Do you think such matters of land should be addressed in the commission?
Again, I have only heard rumors about a Constitutional commission. I don’t know whether this is a serious thing. But if it is a serious thing that they want to set up a constitutional review commission, I think it will be grossly ill-advised to do so in the midst of the kind of legitimacy issues that I have been talking about.
Because a constitution is our basic law; it must enjoy the full support by the population. And that’s why constitution making processes are different from just legislation. That’s why amending a constitution must be treated with utmost seriousness.
Therefore, to set up such a commission in itself requires a consensus that is beyond what Mr Otafiire can achieve by just saying I’m going to set up a constitutional commission.
There is an urgent need of a reassessment of the whole political question in the country and how it is managed. If they just want to continue, ‘We have power, we are in government, we were elected’ I don’t know what. I think they will be making very grave mistakes.
You said the media needs to be focusing on critical issues and I believe this stems from the story NTV did saying that there is a plan by FDC to amend the constitution so that you return as FDC president; we want to hear it from you whether it is true.
The NTV story is definitely a part of the deliberate effort by the regime to obscure the view of citizens. I have absolutely no doubt. I was taken by surprise. I was seated at home watching TV and I saw this whole thing unfolding in front of me. I had never heard of any such a thing at all. So, I first called our leaders and asked: ‘Do you know anything about this?’ [And they said] ‘No, we are also shocked.’
So, I said ‘where then did NTV get this from?’ And I sent a tweet to Maurice Mugisha, who I think has something to do with news: I said, ‘is this NTV concoction? Where did it come from?’ He has not replied [laughs]. So, they manufactured something and went out with it.
Then they talked to Kaginda Mugume Roland, the MP for Rukungiri, and asked him, ‘What do you say about this?’ I have since asked Kaginda myself, and he says [that] what he said, they just pulled out something. He said much, they pulled out what they wanted – him saying ‘if it is agreed upon, I don’t mind’.
Then n they asked [Francis]Mwijukye, who most people know he [was] associated with me before going to parliament. And Mwijukye said many things, they pulled out something [laughs]: You see, Besigye wants to come back. Besigye wants to amend the constitution of FDC and to come back.
And even before the news ended, they put up NTV poll: What do you say about this? And then the debate started… ‘Now you see, Besigye is becoming like Museveni….’ Then the story began. That is exactly what I’m talking about; how the regime works.
But even If it’s not those [stories] manufactured by the regime, there are those which people focus on when they are not as important; like EALA. The whole country has now been seized with EALA, but what is EALA? How many people in Uganda care whether EALA is there or not there?
These starving people; you are not focusing on people who are dying, being buried out of starvation. Now the whole of Karamoja is pouring into Teso, into Acholi, into Lango; uprooting people’s cassava wherever it can still be found… There is a huge national crisis but the whole country is now EALA….[laughs] there is a war in State House.
It’s just in that context that I’m pleading and pointing out, I don’t think the media in most cases is conscious that it has been diverted. Those maybe a few… can be active collaborators of that obscurantism. But most will just go with the flow of the events. And especially the FM radios; they tell what came out on the front page, they go with that, and the debate starts.
The fourth estate is a very important estate in the building of a state, setting the agenda. You must really be conscious of the critical role that you play and how you play it. That is all I am saying.
On the Kasese massacre, are you going to sit back as the opposition or there is something you are going to do about it?
Certainly we are not going to sit. Even if the regime stopped inquiry by government, we have continued to inquire. Inquiry cannot be just wished away by the regime or ordered.
We have continued to inquire ourselves and as a result of our own inquiries, we have a lot of information and how we manage that information is a matter that we will see how it unfolds.
You talked about the six points in reference to what you want to be added in the Land Amendment Bill; were these drafted by you as a single person or a group of people?
You need to go back to our manifesto of 2016: land formed a very critical matter. So it’s not just a casual suggestion. It is a very well-considered policy framework.
It was in the manifesto. In the areas where land grabbing is intense, we translated it into local languages: in Bunyoro, in the whole of Lango and Acholi. We made pamphlets and distributed them widely.
What kind of diversionary issues do you mean?
I have already mentioned some of them, and there will be many that they will be throwing around. I am not saying that they are not important. I am saying that we should be discerning in knowing what is fundamental which should not be covered and forgotten and what should be a day’s issue.
You saw some time back when NTV asked Winnie, my wife, whether if she was asked to contest, whether she would [stand for president]: And she said ‘of course I am qualified’, and that now…….Winnie Byanyima is now a candidate for 2021. There are many of the things and they are always coming up.
You want to start your campaigns against the new law, don’t you think police will stop you as it has always done?
We do not believe that Uganda police has changed, but that can never stop us from doing what we think is important to be done. We meet in the field. That’s all.
But again, even when we meet in the field, those who are intelligent will behave slightly different, having seen their friends in the courts, some demoted. Even if they do not carry out those things I don’t think they are comfortable being paraded in courts. I am sure when they go back home, their children ask them:
‘Daddy, what were you doing in the court?’ And they will have a bit of explanation to say that ‘I was beating up people’. And all those scenes that are always put on TV.
I believe individual policemen will start questioning themselves and behaving differently. And also the top commanders must reflect; they will know that sooner or later…because those who were charged and you know what Kayihura was saying, praising them and so on… Kayihura must know there will be charges waiting for him at some time.