The NRM regime is a shame to Bush War heroes - Besigye

So the essence of the current regime is a military regime. However, because of international pressure and convenience, he has tried to create a facade of a civilian regime by first of all retiring from the army or claiming to retire from the army in order to stand in elections and then also organise regular elections.

This is a facade to create a veil as if there is a civilian regime. Now this veil he created has not served him as he wished in the current Parliament. It has started itching him, it has grown horns, it has grown some spikes; the cloth the military is putting on has grown some spikes which are pricking him. And so his statements are really a reflection of frustration, saying “you cloth which I am putting on, if you continue making me uncomfortable, I will pull you off and live without cover.”

The Constitution doesn’t allow a military officer to become a president. That is very clear: if you are a military officer, you cannot become a president. But you see Mr Museveni putting on his General fatigues, which is in contempt of the Constitution, and aims at intimidating not only Parliament but the general public that you know, I came by force and you better know, I still have that force.

People really fear living under military rule and so it is in line with what he has been doing - putting on military uniform.

Aronda cannot take over from Museveni, Aronda is just a lieutenant of Museveni and there is no threat of a takeover because you have the military already in charge.

I think it is good in a way that people are reminded that the regime is not really a civilian regime and that if we really want power for the people, we must work for it because some people who are not really attentive on what is going on can get carried away and think that there is some sort of a democratic dispensation.

Doctor, having worked with the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), and you still have friends in there, do you think there are individuals who can resist manipulation to carry out a coup in case it is staged?

As I have said, nobody is going to manipulate the UPDF. To take over from who? It is the UPDF which is in power. What the UPDF elements who are in power would be afraid of are other elements within the army who don’t like them, but the elements in UPDF who don’t like them are like Parliament which is disturbing them.

They are also fighting them within the UPDF, marginalising them, and frustrating them, otherwise the Muhoozi [Kainerugaba] army cannot take over from Museveni and the main army, the main Force of the UPDF, is controlled by Muhoozi under the so called Special Forces. So that cannot takeover. Very many people who are there are frustrated, disappointed with what this group in power is doing, and those are the ones they have to be afraid of, but those would not take over to fight Parliament. They are on the same side as Parliament demanding accountability from this mafia group.

Are you saying that Brig. Muhoozi is more powerful than Gen. Aronda?
Well, I think that question really goes begging because you should not forget that Muhoozi was in primary school when we came to government in 1986. Later on when he was in Senior Six, he started recruiting people into the UPDF and training them in Entebbe as a civilian and when people challenged his father, Museveni said Muhoozi was acting as an LDU (Local Defence Unit). But LDUs had no right to recruit people into the army. Most of the people Muhoozi recruited are now colonels, a few are brigadiers and they are in charge of the most sensitive areas of the military.

Later on, Muhoozi himself was recruited illegally into the Force. Aronda knows Muhoozi was illegally recruited into the army; Muhoozi never went through the right procedures. So Aronda is an army commander knowing that Muhoozi is an entrant into the Force illegally but in spite of the illegal entry, he is commissioned.

Muhoozi has attended very many military courses, while the people who were officers while he was in primary school have not had the chance to attend those courses. Who has been selecting him to attend all those courses? Having just come at that time as a lieutenant deployed in PGB (Presidential Guard Brigade), was he deployed by the army commander? Why didn’t he go to other fighting units like other lieutenants? And has had those rapid promotions.

A Force has been created for him - Special Forces. It is the first creation for him, nobody has ever commanded the Special Forces except Muhoozi.

Of course he does all those while he is the First son with direct access to his father, so where can Aronda be in all that? He is nowhere and you have a power structure which doesn’t depend on appointments.

Aronda today salutes Saleh (Gen. Salim), yet he is the Chief of Defence Forces; nobody is higher than the CDF in the defence forces. If you are a civilian, with higher appointment, Aronda is right to salute ministers because the army is under a ministry led by a minister, but nobody in uniform. But he also salutes Gen. Tumwine (Elly). This is not a professional Force to talk about. Whereas Muhoozi may be a brigadier, exercise of power does not follow those things [ranks].

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, which you once belonged to, on Wednesday last week celebrated 27 years in power. What is your take on such an occasion and was it worth celebrating?

No, absolutely, none and I actually think a debate should come up that if it is just celebrating change of governments, then the other landmarks where government changed would also be celebrated. Amin’s coup of 1971, which was also on January 25, should be celebrated; Tito Lutwa should be celebrated and so on.

Because it cannot be the change of government that is a cause for celebration, there must be something fundamental. Now Museveni on January 26, 1986, said what had happened was a fundamental change. I don’t know how he can explain to Ugandans that there has been a fundamental change.

The cause of trouble in Ugandan politics has always been the repression and marginalisation of the population by military power. That happened right from the colonial government when the colonialists arrived with gun powder while our own chiefs were with arrows, bows and spears.

They silenced them and established authority over all persons in Uganda using the gun and that was the basis of the power of the colonial regime. When they left, they handed over the guns to the government they left here and the government continued to dominate and marginalise the population using the guns.

So what we joined between 1981 and 1982 and so on was supposed to be a liberation from military rule. It was not just a liberation from a person but a liberation from military control of national politics so that people have power, become supreme and the military would be subordinate to civilian authority. But that has not happened and that was the central struggle.

The core of the struggle was not about UPE, we didn’t join the bush because we wanted UPE, Naads or Bujagali: no! The reason there was war was because we wanted freedom from control and domination by people with guns.

That has not changed and the statements he makes as he celebrates 27 years in power, such as the military taking over, emphasises that.

So the people he is threatening are people’s representatives, the Constitution is very clear, all power in Uganda belongs to the people of Uganda and they will exercise it either directly or through their representatives and that is Parliament.

People’s power lies in Parliament and that is why it is Parliament that can make laws, divide and allocate money. The President is just an executor, but he calls them to Kyakwanzi dresses them in uniforms, makes them to salute and he tells them if you don’t do this, you will see.

Why? Because he still dominates with the military might. So from that point of view alone, the locus of power has not changed from military domination to civilian rule. The NRM promised to implement other programmes when it attained power, most important among them was dealing with corruption, but now corruption is official after 27 years.

In fact I consider that what we have in Uganda is not just ordinary corruption; we have a criminal syndicate in power, like a mafia. We have a mafia regime, a criminal organisation in power.

So it is organised crime and that is why you see the Ministry of Finance is involved, Bank of Uganda, Prime Minister’s office, President’s Office, Attorney General and the Solicitor General.

The other cardinal point was security of persons and property. On that front, Uganda has had mixed fortunes in the 27 years. There are areas which have suffered, especially in the north, West Nile, east, Rwenzori areas and part of Buganda.

But to many Ugandans, they are actually thankful to the NRM for peace and security. Actually in some parts of Buganda, people say NRM re-introduced sleep (Tulo). So don’t you think that the NRM has achieved on peace and security?

In some parts of the country where there were no insurgencies, especially the Southern and Central Uganda, security has been generally better than it was before 1986 and one can say, therefore, thanks to the NRM government. But that is debatable because indeed there was no challenge to the regime.

The reasons for abuse of human rights and insecurity before 1986 are that there were a lot of challenges to the regime within Luweero. So one could then argue that if there were similar challenges here, we would have a similar situation as before, but happily there wasn’t and therefore security in some parts of the south and the central has been better in the last 27 years.

But as you may have realised security is also deteriorating because of the terrible poverty that has bedevilled every Ugandan and as we talk in some areas, people can’t sleep in their houses. We have seen many cases where families are slaughtered, we have the iron bar hit men rampaging all over the place and all other kind of crimes. That was another cardinal of the NRM programme.

But the NRM has grown the economy; President Museveni revealed at the same function that the economy is growing 14 times annually?
It is very clearly spelt out that the aim of the NRM was to establish an integrated self-sustaining mixed economy. Integrated means, the intention then was that agriculture would be integrated with industry so that there is value addition for what is produced. And that industry would be producing what people in agriculture need, whether it is tractors, ox-ploughs, irrigation technology and so forth.

Industry would be linked to housing so that the housing industry would benefit the production locally and so if you are building, you don’t have to import house equipment. Same with transport benefiting from industry, but what has happened after 27 years?

In fact on the day of swearing in, Museveni wondered how anybody could call himself His Excellency the President when his country cannot even make a needle, how can somebody call himself the president and ride in a presidential jet to the UN when his people are suffering from jiggers, they have no shoes? 27 years later he has bought four presidential jets, he has the latest presidential jet, jiggers are actually killing people and Uganda certainly cannot make a needle; we are importing all needles to this country.

And has destroyed the industrial base he found because we had a railway which was providing transport from Mombasa all the way to Kasese, Pakwach in West Nile through the north but it has gone after 27 years.

We used to have Uganda Airlines but parts of it were sold to Kutesa [Sam] and Saleh. So today Uganda does not own a carrier, we depend on Kenya Airways, South African Airways, British Airways and now Rwanda Air.

That is the Museveni regime of 27 years. And all our industries we had, Nytil industries making cement and all kinds of things were all sold or stolen. We had financial services under Uganda Commercial Bank, Uganda Hotels which was a proud heartbeat of tourism. All these things were sold.

And I am not against selling them because some of them were not efficiently run by the government. I am not opposing privatisation but having privatised, 27 years later, nobody has ever shown Ugandans how much money was realised from selling all national asserts and what that money has done. And the NRM programme was not a private sector economy but it was a mixed one, which envisaged that money would go to stimulate areas where private sector wouldn’t do.

Where is that money? How much is it anyway, nobody knows and certainly it has not been reflected in the accounts in the Bank of Uganda in the consolidated fund. So we can safely assume that the country’s assets were actually stolen.

The current regime is, therefore, a shame for everybody who associated with the struggle.

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