How Dr Kizza Besigye and Gen. Saleh talks have to begin

There has never been a time in Museveni’s 40-year presidency where the façade of democracy and rule of law has been dented as now.

If there is anything to take from Gen. Salim Saleh’s and Prof. Ogenga Otunnu’s pitch for consociational democracy – simply, power sharing – it is that they, too, don’t feel this democracy façade makes sense anymore.

Thanks, partly, to the Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s tweets, and the normalization of torture and abduction. While these propositions are welcome, Gen. Saleh is taking on too much simultaneously – including the so-called negotiations over Dr Kizza Besigye and Hajji Obeid Lutale.

It makes his intentions suspicious. These items are so related, and have to be engaged one after another. With people with fairly large constituencies, the kingmakers on the opposition side, Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye and Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, have been kicked away from the political scene – one in jail and the other in exile – the question is obvious: power-sharing with whom?

You cannot name a baby before identifying the mother. You could, but surely no one would take you seriously. Against this, I want to propose that Gen. Saleh sticks himself to one issue before tackling another.

Let’s identify the mothers in this affair. An urgent conclusion of the Dr Kizza Besigye affair (and the safe return of Robert Kyagulanyi and other political actors in exile), makes room, and buttresses any arguments for consociational democracy.

ENTER CRISPIN KAHERU

In these pages, an old friend, Crispin Kaheru, a member of the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), and close friend with Gen. Saleh, responds to my letter to Gen. Saleh where I asked the good soldier to apologize to Dr Kizza Besigye and the country.

My letter came in the wake of endless reporting in newspapers, especially The New Vision, that there were ongoing negotiations. But as these negotiations were being publicized, Dr Besigye’s wife, Winnie Byanyima, insists nothing is ongoing.

With New Vision noting government/Gen. Saleh was talking to the clergy, I disagreed, noting that with Besigye’s family members being renowned public figures (Eng. Winnie Byanyima, Dr Olive Kobusingye) surely contacting them needed no intermediaries.

In disagreement, Kaheru contends that talking to the clergy is often the beginning of things – that “dialogue seldom begins with everyone at one table. Intermediaries make contact, test positions and build confidence before substantive negotiation becomes possible.”

This is a fair point, but not when you have the other interlocutor in prison, and in bad Intensive Care – at your own facility. Consider also that negotiations are entirely an idea from the prosecution/ government side.

Kaheru downplays my contention that while we are a very religious country, our religious leaders have been thoroughly emasculated, ironically, by our government, both politically and economically. (NRM embrace of gangster capitalism has terribly emasculated traditional churches, which cannot deliver miracles).

With due respect to the men holding religious offices, we do not have Archbishop Dr Cyprian Kizito Lwanga, Bishop Zac Niringiye or Sheikh Nooh Muzaata Batte – men that politicians on either side of the aisle trusted and respected.

While Dr Besigye is a very prayerful man, I am not sure there is a religious leader that he would give utmost trust. (I could be wrong).

The biggest part of my letter focused on the absence of the case they were prosecuting in the first place: intelligence officers on trial for forging intelligence; kidnap and other illegalities relating to Besigye and Lutale’s lawyers; Andrew Wilson Orlando’s contradictions.

With such a terribly weak case (thus far), I conclude that Besigye looks very innocent in the eyes of the public. Thus, proposing negotiations at this juncture is nothing but rightly conceding defeat.

But this concession has to be clothed in its right language: apology – not negotiations. Here is perhaps the most powerful segment in Kaheru’s response: “Serunkuma then invokes disputed intelligence reports, allegations of fabricated evidence and controversies involving security officers.

These are serious matters that deserve independent scrutiny. But allegations against particular officers do not establish that every investigation involving the intelligence community is fraudulent.”

While Kaheru acknowledges the gravity of the fabrications, he forgets that we are dealing with the question of credibility. Consider that a Ugandan intelligence employee called Amon took intelligence to Kenya claiming planned murder of President Ruto, and Kenyan intelligence said it did not even meet the level of nonsense.

I am not sure comrade Kaheru thought about the intensity and frequency of these accusations, including inside the police force as far as the time of Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura, where, at the end of his tortuous reign, a senior police officer named Nixon Agasirwe was jailed for committing crimes for which innocent civilians were arrested and tortured.

APOLOGY BEFORE NEGOTIATIONS

But Kaheru concludes on a philosophical high: “Intelligence is not proof of guilt, and allegations of intelligence misconduct are not, by themselves, proof of innocence. Both propositions demand evidence. Otherwise, we merely replace one presumption with another.”

He forgets that we are trapped in power relation where both Dr Kizza Besigye, and “intelligence-forging officers” are all being accused of their respective crimes by the state.

Consider that these officers – being accused of forgery of intelligence – were supposed to be witnesses against Dr Besigye. The point I am arguing is this: Government, which Gen. Saleh represents has a call to make: continue prosecution or abandon the case and make amends.

Surely, Dr Besigye will be happy with either of your choices. But the decision to make amends has to be honest and straightforward. It is an apology not negotiations.

Of course, there will be more individuals and families to apologize to – and officers to jail or demote. That is what truth and reconciliation entails. Then we can turn to consociational democracy.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.