UGANDA PEOPLES CONGRESS
(Office of the President)
17 October 1997
UPC AND NRM DICTATORSHIP
- The British Labour government contrary to their policy to conduct foreign relations on "ethical and human rights dimensions" policy are now engaging in entrenching dictatorship in Uganda.
- The short answer may be divided into two. The first is that the interests of Britain and Uganda are not the same. The second is that it is largely the Ugandan political leaders and leaders of organizations who, by supporting dictatorship have made it easy for foreign governments to also support dictatorship.
- On granting Independence, the British or any other former Colonial power did not want a former colony to be independent. They wanted each former Colony to be ruled by their NYAMPALA (Headman) going by the name of President. It was the people in a number of former Colonies who thwarted and frustrated the scheme of the former Colonial powers to have NYAMPALAs everywhere in Africa.
- In Countries like Ghana, Guinea-Conakry, Mali the people rejected NYAMPALAs and chose Nkrumah, Sekou Toure and Modibo Keita who were nationalists. In Congo-Zaire the people chose Lumumba another nationalist. Except for Sekou Toure who died while still the President of Guinea, all other nationalist leaders who were President or Prime Minister were deposed through coup d'etat and replaced by NYAMPALAs.
- A NYAMPALA is someone who, for instance, would regularly send to Britain a loaf of bread made in Uganda to an old woman in Britain and not give it to an old woman in Uganda. In return, British media and government would give most favourable and saturating praises for the NYAMPALA.
- Uganda has had, throughout her history, only one country-wide nationalist Party and that is the UPC once known as the Uganda National Congress (UNC). From its birth in 1952, the UNC was bedevilled by splits engineered by the British rulers until 1960 when it was reorganized and renamed the UPC to make it a united formidable nationalist force in Uganda.
- The Colonial power (Britain) certainly did not want the UPC to form the government of an Independent Uganda but the people of Uganda thwarted and frustrated that scheme. In early February 1966 the forces of imperialism and neo-colonialism very nearly overthrew the UPC government. In January 1971 those forces succeeded and immediately propagated that Amin was "a gentle giant" precisely at a time when he had established a state of terror and massacres.
- Various politicians joined hands with Amin and so were the Western governments. The President of the DP became Amin's Chief Justice only to be unfortunately murdered after giving credibility to Amin's dictatorship. Godfrey Binaisa issued a statement in praise of Amin in which he said that Amin overthrew the UPC government not because he loved Obote less but because he loved Uganda more! Others wrote very dirty and stinking statements which attacked the President of Tanzania for giving asylum to Milton Obote. In 1979 those same men went, without shame, to praise Tanzania for standing against Amin, their erstwhile ally!
- During the war which ousted Amin, the British government and the other Western governments demanded of Tanzania that the UPC should not be the government after Amin. A former British Foreign Secretary, Lord David Owen has disclosed the fact in his book entitled "Time to Declare".
- It was again the power of the people, like in 1962, which made the UPC to win the 1980 elections and form government. In four and a half (4 1/2) years, the UPC stopped the decline of the economy and put it on upswing course and put money in the pockets of the people. The performance worried the imperialist and neo-colonialist forces who decided on a course to remove the UPC government and make the people of Uganda poor, disease ridden an ignorant. The course adopted was another coup d'etat.
- I have, as President of UPC, never blamed Tito Okello or Bazilio Okello for the coup of 1985. What the two Okellos did was exactly the same as what Patrice Lumumba did. In the case of Lumumba it was American diplomats who advised him to invite UN troops to Congo which he did and it was the UN troops who arrested him and handed him to be murdered by Tshombe. In the case of the 1985 coup, unknown to the two Okellos, the imperialist and neo-colonialist forces made Okellos to open and pave the way for the Museveni NYAMPALAISM in which the first objective was to be the destruction of the UPC which destruction had eluded the imperialist and neo-colonialist forces since 1952.
- The UPC can, on political matters, be likened to a very big Insurance Corporation which is capable to redeem and make good what may have happened. To the UPC, for instance, slaughters of the people in Gulu and Kitgum Districts, the herding of the people in insanitary and dehumanizing concentration camps, the destructions of agriculture, schools and dispensaries constitute a national tragedy and not an Acholi tragedy. To the UPC, the whole of Uganda or at least Uganda nationalists must find a way to put this tragedy to an end.
- Ugandans who are politically aware have not failed to see that praises which the donor governments have heaped onto the Museveni NYAMPALAISM are exactly the same as those heaped onto the Amin NYAMPALAISM. The DP joined hands with Amin. From the evidence of the DP leaders such as Bwengye and Kitariko, it is clear that the DP also joined hands with Museveni during the Luwero war. After the ouster of Okello and Okello in January 1986, Museveni formed what he called "broad-based government embracing all the Parties." It was a lie to cover a most virulent campaign to destroy the UPC and in the process massacre millions of Ugandans.
- Museveni's 1986 Broad-based government had over fifty members of the DP as ministers while the UPC had only a tokenism in the name of Anthony Butele. During the short Okello and Okello interregnum, the entire Western Region was under the control of the NRA which massacred and sought to wipe out UPC leaders and activists in the Region. After 26 January 1986, the NRA did the same to the UPC leaders and activists in Buganda Region.
- In the Eastern and Northern Regions although there was no armed resistance, after January 1986, to Museveni the NRA pursued the policy of terror, persecution and outright plunder in which many people were killed. In February 1986, the UPC President who was in Lusaka, Zambia, sent a message to Gulu to Tito Okello and Bazilio Okello to urgently send a delegation to Lusaka.
- The delegation led by Olara Otunu and Captain Owiny arrived in Lusaka in March 1986. The delegation and the UPC President reviewed the entire situation. It was agreed that the remnants of the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) still under the control of Okello and Okello should avoid military confrontation with the NRA and that the two Parties should study developments and keep in touch with each other.
- In July 1986 another delegation from Okello and Okello led by Dr Benjamin Obonyo and Captain Owiny met the UPC President in Lusaka. Again the entire situation particularly the NRA terror, persecutions and plunder in Acholi was reviewed. It was agreed that both parties should report to their respective principals namely, the delegation to Okello and Okello and the UPC President to the Central Executive Committee of the Party on what should be done against the NRA/NRM and then meet again.
- However, in August 1986 without any information to UPC president, the remnants of th UNLA under the control of Okello and Okello was reported to have invaded Uganda from Sudan. The invasion was reported to have been easily repulsed by the NRA. That was the first time when Museveni used for the first time words which were later to epitomise massacres in Northern and Eastern Uganda. The words were: "We massacred those chaps very badly."
- In 1987 having learnt that Bazilio Okello had ceded the leadership of the remnant UNLA to Otema Alimadi and that the remnant UNLA would operate under the name and title of Uganda Peoples Democratic Movement (UPDM) and Uganda Peoples Democratic Army (UPDA), the UPC President sent Dr Henry Opiote to London with a message for Otema Alimadi.
- The reply from Otema was that the UPDM/UPDA needed nothing from the UPC but would appreciate it very much if the UPC President would provide arms for the UPDA. Dr Obita, on behalf of the LRA has also taken the line that the LRA alone is capable to remove the NRA/NRM dictatorship. In addition, Dr Obita appears to be pathologically opposed to working with the political Parties particularly the UPC. He is in that way knowingly or unknowingly enabling the Museveni dictatorship to entrench itself.
- The leaders of the DP and some religious leaders were the first to side with Museveni during the Luwero war and also the first to enable him to implant his dictatorship after the ouster of Okello and Okello. The fake Broad-based government, the massacres and the persecutions of members of the UPC or terrors did not weaken the UPC. In fact even the ban on the Parties imposed in March 1986 made the UPC even more popular. NYAMPALA Museveni and his mentors, the imperialist and neo-colonialist forces have therefore to find some other way to weaken and destroy the nationalist UPC - the Party of the People.
- The first course of action to destroy the UPC which NYAMPALA Museveni and the imperialist and neo-colonialist forces took was to kill the UPC President. It is still course number one because after the killing, the UPC would be in total disarray with no acknowledged leader elected under the provision of the Party's Constitution. Consequently, the dictatorship using its resources would push a quisling or fifth columnist who would then do what Ssemogerere did with the DP: make the UPC to accept the dictatorship.
- After several assasination squads had been to Lusaka and failed, Museveni and his imperialist and neo-colonialist mentors decided on a second course of action for the destruction of the UPC. This second course involves finding UPC members who love money more than they love the people and then to bribe such members with much money and/or appointments and set them to work to cause disarray in the UPC. The former Speaker of Parliament, Butagira, the former Deputy Minister of Education, Mateke and others like Ateker Ejalu and Rev Kefa Sempangi are amongst UPC members who have been suborned. The scheme is for such persons to leave the UPC with thousands of members.
- In October 1994 after having been working on Cecilia Atim Ogwal for some years, Museveni asked her to go to Lusaka with a mission other than UPC affairs. It so happened that the UPC President had requested Mrs Ogwal as Chairman of the PPC to travel to Lusaka accompanied by at least two members of the PPC. Mrs Ogwal told the Party President in Lusaka that before leaving Kampala, Museveni had offered her the post of Vice-President. She did not disclose to the Party President that the offer was conditional on her return to Uganda with a signed document by the Party President appointing - without authority - Mrs Cecilia Ogwal to be the UPC leader in place of Milton Obote.
- When Mrs Ogwal returned to Uganda and reported to Museveni without the document signed by Milton Obote, Museveni was reported to have reacted with much fury. In that fury, Museveni told Mrs. Ogwal that because of her failure to get Obote to resign, he (Museveni) was going to annoy Mrs Ogwal by appointing another woman to the office of Vice-President, and on the same evening, the appointment of Dr Kazibwe who was in Morocco at the time was announced.
- It seems that Mrs Ogwal took Museveni's offer very seriously and wanted it. This came out from her utterances to her friends to the effect that the Party President by not resigning frustrated her appointment to the office of Vice-President. Throughout 1995, Mrs Ogwal increasingly distanced herself from the Party President. A good example is the Inter-Political Forces Co-operation (IPFC).
- The idea of having an organization in whose name the UPC an the other multipartists would struggle and campaign, came from the UPC President in 1991. Mrs Ogwal as Chairman of the PPC did nothing to promote the idea until July 1995. It so happened that during the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly (CA), the multipartists in the CA formed what they called CAUCUS. In July 1995 it was reported in the Uganda Press that Mrs Ogwal and other UPC members in the Caucus had adopted Paul Ssemogerere as their Presidential Candidate to stand against Museveni. The UPC President saw the Press reports (if true) as putting the cart before the horse before it was known whether the elections would be on multiparty model or not. Repeated Communications by the UPC President to Mrs Ogwal as Chairman of the PPC for a brief on the Press reports were not answered.
- A bombshell then followed in August 1995. This was that the Caucus would be the Mother organization under which UPC and the UPC members would contest the Presidential and Parliamentary elections. The UPC President reacted with more urgent requests for information as to why and how the Party was being dragged increasingly to commit itself into participation in elections in which the Party would be debarred. No reply was sent from Kampala but in the middle of August the Vice Chairman of the PPC, Dr James Rwanyarare arrived unannounced in Lusaka.
- The information which Rwanyarare took to Lusaka was shattering, it was that the UPC, DP and other political Parties were to join and be members of the Caucus. The UPC President told Dr Rwanyarare that it was strange that the UPC, DP and the other Parties with members and structures should each join the Caucus which had no members, structures or Constitution. The UPC President wrote a Memorandum which Dr Rwanyarare took back with him advising the PPC that the founder members of a multiparty organization should be the UPC, DP and the other political Parties. This was accepted by the PPC but in forming the Inter-Political Forces Co-operation (IPFC), its main objective was made not to be campaign against the NRA/NRM dictatorship but participation in personal merit elections in which the Parties were to be debarred.
- Throughout 1995, Mrs Ogwal avoided direct contact or communication with the Party President. In October 1995 the PPC formed what it called TASK FORCE. It was an ad hoc Committee to mobilize support for the elections. What was called Leaders Conference was also convened and together with the TASK FORCE, the Conference debated a motion which aimed at dissolving the PPC so as to leave the affairs of the Party in the hands of Mrs Ogwal alone. Instead, the Task Force and the Leaders Conference unanimously endorsed the continuance of the PPC, and praised the Party President for establishing it.
- In November 1995, Mrs Ogwal having called a meeting of one of the Committees they had set up for participation in the elections, suddenly left for Nairobi. Since 8 October 1995, when Museveni promulgated his Constitution, the Party President wrote again and again to the PPC for a brief on the policy of the UPC on elections which the Constitution debarred the Party from contesting. No brief was sent to Lusaka. In the November meeting of the Committee, some members even suggested that the Party President be removed because he was against elections and was not in touch with the events in Uganda.
- On Thursday 28 November 1995, the Party President received a phone call in the afternoon from Dr Rwanyarare conveying a message from Mrs Ogwal. The message was that Mrs Ogwal would be in Nairobi on Tuesday 3 December enroute to London and Washington and that Mrs Ogwal was appealing to the Party President to write for her a document on donor policy in Uganda. It was amazing that only ten days back Mrs Ogwal's supporters wanted the Party President removed because he was not in touch with events in Uganda and now on 28 November she wanted the man who was allegedly not in touch with events to write a document for her on those same events.
- The Party President wrote a document of some seventy (70) foolscap typed pages. The document was posted to London via DHL on Monday 2 December with instruction that it be handed over to Mrs Ogwal which was done. On Tuesday 3 December while at Nairobi airport, Mrs Ogwal rang Lusaka to ask for the document. She sounded desperate and said that without the document she had nothing to present in Washington and London. She never told the Party President who she was to meet in the two Capitals.
- To whom Mrs Ogwal presented the document in Washington and London is not known to the UPC President. What he knows is firstly that Mrs Ogwal except for one word, did not add to and did not subtract anything from what the Party President wrote. The one word is that instead of Donor Policy in Uganda, Mrs Ogwal replaced the word "in" with the word "on". Secondly, in Washington, London and Uganda, Mrs Ogwal most curiously did not want a UPC document widely circulated to UPC members. The answers to this curious behaviour lies in why she asked the Party President to write the document, who invited her to Washington and London, and for what purpose.
- The Party President now knows that Mrs Ogwal was asked to go to Washington and London in early December 1995 because Washington and London were worried that the UPC on the advice of the Party President was going to pull out from Museveni's fraudulent elections. Mrs Ogwal was therefore asked to get the views of the Party President on donors policy in Uganda, written by the Party President himself for deep study in Washington and London so as to find ways of circumventing those views. After submitting the document to officials in Washington and London, Mrs Ogwal was asked not to circulate the document widely to UPC members to avoid poisoning their minds.
- In February 1996, the Party President received a most perturbing information regarding an agreement between Baroness Chalker and Mrs Ogwal. In a letter to an MP in January 1996, Baroness Chalker disclosed that she had agreed with Mrs Ogwal that the UPC would "remain engaged in the political debate and to argue its case by peaceful means". It is this agreement which Mrs Ogwal has been implementing since December 1995 and particularly since she set up her rival UPC in July 1996. Essentially, the agreement is that the UPC, like the DP, should join the NRM, give credence to the NRM Parliament and give credibility to the Museveni rule, and through the referendum in the year 1999 or 2000 die off.
- In March 1996, the Party President asked Mrs Ogwal to travel to Lusaka. She was asked about her agreement with Baroness Chalker. Mrs Ogwal denied having concluded any such agreement. She was asked to write to Baroness Chalker with a blind copy to the UPC President and refute the agreement. Mrs Ogwal never wrote to Chalker.
- After failing to write to Chalker and refute the agreement, Mrs Ogwal instead decided to implement the agreement by going into the NRM Parliament in order to "remain engaged in the political debate" and to set up her rival UPC which is also in that Parliament and thereby cause disarray in the UPC.
- There is a subtle and specious difference between Ssemogerere/DP in the dictatorship and Mrs Ogwal and her rival UPC in the dictatorship. The difference which on the surface appears plausible but in reality is hollow is that Ssemogerere's usefulness to the dictatorship was to give credence and credibility to the dictatorship by simply being a minister. In the case of Mrs Ogwal her usefulness to the dictatorship is her being a member of the Parliament of the dictatorship thus giving credence and credibility to the dictatorship, and secondly to cause or create much disarray in the UPC, and thirdly to appear to be opposed to the dictatorship and therefore to sell the NO PARTY DEMOCRACY as a system which allows dissent and criticism.
- Except for the initiated, it is clear that the imperialist and neo-colonialist forces, Museveni and Mrs Ogwal have the same agenda namely, to destroy the UPC.
- After the Lusaka Consultative Meeting, UPC members are being duped with the campaign for reconciliation with Mrs Ogwal who is already an adjunct of the dictatorship. She is not only an MP in the Parliament of the dictatorship and does not want to resign but is also the second biggest supplier of food to the NRA for which she is paid millions of shillings per month - she is second to Salim Saleh who is Museveni's brother. To guarantee that she continues to be paid those millions, her job is to cause much disarray in the UPC. She is also supplier of food to Rwanda and recently awarded a contract for Zaire.
- Recently, Mrs Ogwal spent weeks in London. Her mission, unknown to many UPC members in the UK was to make the UPC Bureau look silly or redundant. She wants the Bureau to support her while she continues to give credence and credibility to the dictatorship. If members of the Bureau decide to support her, they would automatically also be supporting the dictatorship at home.
- The most important mission of the Bureau on behalf of the UPC and the people of Uganda is to campaign against the dictatorship at home. For the Bureau to support a person who is a member of the Parliament of the dictatorship which Parliament is, in fact, an organ of the NRM, the Bureau will have no leg and no logic to argue with British Ministers, MPs, etc etc that they should not support the same organ or the dictatorship. Mrs Ogwal want the Bureau to be part of her luggage to take to the dictatorship, and an evidence of reducing voices against the dictatorship.
- The UPC, its organs and Bureaux, must be and must be seen to be against the dictatorship and all its organs or else it abandons its historic mission to be a nationalist Party dedicated to guarantee the dignity of every citizen of Uganda, and the voice of every citizen in the governance of Uganda.
A. Milton Obote
President
Uganda Peoples Congress