Opposition trickery should be understood

Most commentators as well as some sections of the media have been quick at faulting the police on excessive use of force to quell the riots and in particular the manner in which Besigye was arrested, blatantly ignoring the uncivilised and militant conduct of Besigye himself and his handlers.
My argument today in this piece of writing is that we should peep beyond this consequence and rather explore the causes while understanding the behaviour of every actor.

Police actions normal
We must note that members of the police force are not hired mercenaries or creatures from another planet. They are our brothers and sisters and largely products of our society. If we can’t promote restraint and sobriety as leaders, as we go around our business, then we shouldn’t expect the police to have ‘’no exceptions to the general rule’’.

If we slap armed police officers on duty and only expect them to return smiles, then we are fooling ourselves. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Police men and women are human beings and therefore some of them are bound to commit mistakes either inadvertently or otherwise.

We therefore need to take that into consideration and at the same time be cautious as leaders not to make them stumble in the execution of their constitutional mandate. True, those who commit mistakes should be punished and be held accountable and sanctioned individually.

Likewise, leaders, citizens of all calibres should comply with the existing laws and equally treat with dignity those who are entrusted with the mandate of enforcement.

Sometimes I wonder and laugh, ironically though, at the sheer rhetoric and double standards exhibited by some of our elite civil society groups (talk of the law society for example) as they time and again selectively choose to condemn actions of government actors so as to account to their sponsors in the name of fighting for human rights and rule of law, yet in other instances shamelessly keep an eye off on other violations occasioned by some political actors. We have on record plenty of these occurrences. And these day by day prompt me to ask; what is the definition of human rights? Has it changed meaning, in the contemporary world? Should political leaders be the only ones to enjoy human rights as they go around with impunity trampling on other people’s rights- and especially those under their stewardship?

The arrogance of the Ugandan opposition to blatantly disobey established law, in their desperate quest for publicity, especially when their political fortunes get dwindling, has persisted for some time now.

We have seen in the past, both armed and unarmed police officers get slapped and battered by high political figures of the opposition with no retaliation in self defence. Notable ones include, Hon. Winnie Byanyima, now a diplomat with the United Nations, a former member of parliament highly regarded as a champion of women rights and above all, wife to Dr Kizza Besigye, who slapped a woman police officer on duty at the high court in Kampala. Just imagine that treatment to a poor woman police officer, coming from her would-be political defender?

Some months back, a leading opposition figure woman MP from Kasese, slapped a helpless woman on the street for begging her, and went on to brag in the media of how justified she was to unleash the slap to the beggar? I can’t narrate all of them because of space, but not to forget the numerous insults, threats and labels Kizza Besigye has always accorded the police. Interestingly, groups like law society or the various women civil society organisations have no clear lenses to see all these and condemn them as actions ‘raping the rule of law’, to use their comic words.

Does exercising political dissent mean promoting lawlessness, impunity and anarchy? My answer is NO. A principled and civil opposition needs to exercise some degree of maturity when exercising its rights so as to win the ultimate confidence of the citizenry and thus be cherished as an alternative government in waiting.
I wish as well, to throw a piece of challenge to our diplomatic partners mainly from the western world, (and it’s unfortunate that last week I missed to attend and speak at the development dialogue meeting organised by the deepening democracy group at Protea hotel because of the riots; perhaps I could have delved into it) who are so passionate, and rightly so, about civil freedoms and liberties, whether in their countries, law enforcement and enforcers are defied and their lawful orders treated with contempt, in the name of citizens’ right to freedoms? At least, I have seen civility and cultured behaviour at work in their countries. Leaders and other unhappy citizens comply and submit to the police when asked to do so, the question of their rights and freedoms notwithstanding. The recent case is that of the Lord Mayor of Washington DC.

Mayoral arrest
Washington Mayor Vincent Gray was arrested while protesting the city’s potential loss of funds for abortion services in the federal budget deal that averted a government shutdown; he behaved in the most responsible manner and went through the process of his arrest without stirring any dust or hurling insults at the Police. He complied and submitted to the Police who even handcuffed him. Wasn’t he aware of his rights or can we now say the Obama administration is cracking down on dissent?

It was clear that his protestations were in principle and not out of sheer opportunism like it has been with the recent walk-to-work demonstrations, but all the same police restrained him and he complied. Why then didn’t he call upon his supporters to fight the police, riot, burn tyres on bitumen roads and pelt stones at passersby?

This is the point: I would wish our diplomatic partners to objectively share their views with the world and especially Africa, since quite often their advocacy for human rights and emphasis on the need for governments to observe them, has wrongly been construed and lent credence to that behaviour of impunity and lawlessness especially in Africa, yet back in their home lands, the practices and manner in which citizen rights are demanded and protected are different.

The Lord Mayor of Washing ton was among the 41 people that included several city council members arrested and charged with blocking a street near a Senate office building, which in the Police operational wisdom was odd and unacceptable, in exactly the same way Besigye has been blocking roads here in Kampala.

Uganda is for all of us. Peace or no peace affects us equally irrespective of our political affiliations. The act of Besigye and company of hiring goons to stage illegal roadblocks and extort money from the pedestrians, molest to death and pelt stones at those they find to be politically non-compliant with their political feelings all in the name of peaceful demonstrations is a real mockery to the principle of good governance and actually a direct input factor to destabilising the macro-economics. By and large, the actions of the opposition leaders are far from offering alternative solutions to the ills of our economy. To the contrary they are worsening and paralysing business.

No policy interventions
Any pro-citizenry and wiser opposition group contesting to convince and win the hearts of all, as the most superior in terms of ideas that can fix our economy, should have articulated alternative policy interventions urgently needed to arrest the shocks and surges within the economy which have mainly been precipitated by the long drought (causing massive crop failures) and the high fuel prices.

Other than sponsoring riots that cause substantial damage to life and property of Ugandans, no single piece of alternative option has been advanced by the same.
The eighth Parliament is coming to a close, and as members of Parliament we have just concluded an activity of reviewing the budget framework papers from various sectors and ministries and thus considering the budget priority proposals for inclusion in the mainstream budget of the upcoming financial year. It should have been at this point that we expected strong voices from our opposition colleagues to be coming out agitating for more budgetary allocations to sectors like agriculture that can help mitigate inflation and revive the dwindling volumes of agricultural production. They advanced none and in effect agreed with the government proposals.

Statistical evidence
The Ugandan Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) recently gave the inflation figures at 14% and correctly defined the causes of the worse economic situation as being high food and fuel prices and long periods of no rainfall. Largely, this should be common sense. Ugandan agriculture is 100% rain fed. Any irregular rainfall patterns therefore, will not only lead to adverse climatic conditions but directly affect negatively food production because of massive crop failures.

The instructive and suggestive message from that UBOS statement is that we must increase production in both the short and long term so as to mitigate the food scarcity and spur economic growth. Even the agitation for putting up food reserves I have dismally heard about from some commentators can’t offer any solution if production as the starting point of the entire value chain is not enhanced substantially. Otherwise, what will the food reserves store? It’s all about investing in production initiatives and fighting the usual constraints like water for production, means of land tillage, fertiliser usage, etc, which farmers have faced for long. It’s high time we reviewed our entire agriculture sector spending priorities.

Way to go
Specific interventions that can be given priority and help to scale up production levels and thus reduce scarcity may include: design and dissemination of simple irrigation techniques, water harvesting techniques for both production and human consumption, addressing the issue of land tillage capacity, opening of deep rural access roads to facilitate delivery of agricultural produce to the market as well as supporting hands-on-farmer-demand-driven-extension services.

How I wish those demonstrating and their leaders were articulating such kind of messages. The reason why the Ugandan citizenry has time and again voted President Museveni and believed in him is largely because of focusing on such issues and moreover has been a lone champion of the same. Quest for political power through unsustainable populist maneuvers of trying to play victims of persecution or martyrs for democracy can never be tenable. Ugandans have understood all this trickery and are aware.

The writer is MP Kibaale County, Kamwenge District, and Chairman finance committee of Parliament