Rhino RadioRadio Rhino
Click now to listen
Uganda Peoples Congress

Uganda Peoples Congress
National Secretariat
Plot 8-10 Kampala Road, Uganda House,
P. O. Box 9206, Kampala
phone/Fax:+256-41-236748

Two Decades of Dictatorship and Plunder

Press Release

24 January 2007

  1. On Friday 26th January, 2007 the NRM leaders, cadres and conspripts will at public expense gather to celebrate 21 years of the "victory" of their revolution, which was promised to be a fundamental change and not to be a mere change of guards.
  2. Members of the Uganda Peoples Congress and millions of other Ugandans, who have borne the brunt of more than two decades of dictatorship and watched the decay of their nation, will quietly mark the day in a sombre mood of mourning and reflection.
  3. The NRM leaders went to the bush in 1981, plunging the country into bloodshed less than two years after the UPC led 1978/1979 liberation war, ostensibly to fight the "undemocratic" UPC government and restore the "rule of law".
  4. The score card of the victorious NRM "democrats" on politics and democratisation is the very opposite of the lie they used to cause death and destruction in the Luwero triangle. What will be marked unashamedly on 26/1/2007 is:
  5. The illegal banning of political parties between 1986 and 1995 and the entrenchment of a one man military dictatorship reminiscent of Idi Amin's rule.
  6. The suppression of fundamental human rights and freedoms during the same period.
  7. Breach of the promise to restore democratic governance in four (4) years. The dictatorship was extended repeatedly through manipulation of the constitutional making process from 1989 and ostensibly ended in 1996.
  8. After 1996 article 269 of the manipulated and partisan Constitution was utilized to continue the ban on political parties.
  9. Even after article 269 was removed and multiparty politics re-introduced, the NRM still uses guns, tear gas, violence and threats of violence, as of old, to break up peaceful assemblies organized by opposition political parties and other unarmed groups including striking students.
  10. The NRM party still routinely uses public funds, resources including security forces to unfairly campaign in elections and buys and obtains support through violence and threats of violence.
  11. The NRM has continued with its militarization of the police, prisons, civil service and society through the chaka muchaka courses.
  12. The NRM government has been reluctant to negotiate peace with the LRA and will use any excuse to resume the war in Northern and Eastern Uganda .
  13. The undemocratic NRM has continued to establish illegal para military forces including Kalangala Action Program, Popular Intelligence Network (PIN), Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) and a myriad of others to terrorise innocent persons, torture and sometimes kill them in "safe houses".
  14. The NRM government has continued to ignore the rule of law and frowns on decisions, even of the most superior courts in Uganda . The litany of human rights violations is too long to detail here.
  15. As regards the economy, the NRM has been a predator and acts like blood suckers and scavengers. After abandoning the wasteful experimentation with barter trade, the NRM plagiarized the UPC Recovery Programme and in the name of liberalisation and attraction of foreign investment destroyed the very foundation of our national economy by:
  16. Surrendering the economy to most anti-nationalistic donor conditionalities including massive retrenchment of public sector workers, freeze on employment in the public sector and privatization of public enterprises at give- away prices.
  17. Destroying all import substitution industries and making Uganda a net importer of even the most basic groceries.
  18. Institutionalizing corruption as a pillar of governance thereby creating a tiny class of rich Ugandans while millions wallow in abject poverty.
  19. Sale of public enterprises to NRM cadres or foreigners fronting for them for a song. For example, the Bugolobi complex formerly belonging to the once economic giant, Coffee Marketing Board, was given to Apparel Tristar together with billions of public funds that were lost in a corrupt transaction. Not deterred by this scandal, government wants to invest more money in the Apparel Tristar enterprise, some form of re-entry into public sector through a dark back door. Similar dubious arrangements have been made with Sudhir Rupaleria by way of a "joint venture" for a "CHOGM hotel".
  20. Billions of local savings were plundered in the 1987 dubious currency reform exercise whose proceeds have never been explained to the people of Uganda.
  21. The mismanagement of land and natural resources, remiscent of the scramble for Africa by colonial powers, is leading to an environmental disaster and threatening sustainable agriculture and food security and likely to leave millions landless.
  22. The ruin of the transport and power infrastructure. Load shedding with all its wrecking effects of the national economy is now a permanent feature of our economy. It is now taken for granted that only four wheel vehicles can be procurred for public servants to travel on the bad roads whose bad condition is permanent.
  23. Two decades of NRM mismanagement has left its ugly and bleeding wounds on the social services. Todate,
  24. The educational sector is in shambles with:
  25. Government ashamed of publishing statistics of PLE examinations that would show the failure of the UPE scheme and the glaring huge educational gap between a few urban areas on the one hand and the rural schools in the majority of the impoverished rural districts of Uganda.
  26. Public universities struggling to keep open and offering substandard education and producing millions of graduates who cannot find work in the decaying economy.
  27. Poorly designed plans to ruin secondary education, as with primary education, in the name of Universal Secondary Education (USE).
  28. The health sector especially in rural areas is in ruins. The so called Health Centre IV are mere white elephants with no medical staff and basic supplies. The hospitals that UPC built in the 1960's only exists in name.
    Curable and preventable diseases like malaria have resurfaced at epidemic levels.
  29. Twenty one (21) years of NRM administration have left Uganda as a suspect and pariah state. Our military misadventures in Rwanda, the Republic of Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo and our conspiratory actions against Burundi and Kenya have left us with no genuine friendly neighbour. We are the cause of war and carnage in the great lakes region and are now poised to intermeddle in the delicate affairs of Somalia, courtesy of the imperial designs of the NRM leadership.
  30. The UPC will not rest and helplessly look on as the very national existence of Uganda as a viable national state is threatened but shall continue to campaign for the collapse of the NRM government that has continued to hold the nation in bondage.
  31. We call upon the people of Uganda and all her friends world wide to join and support the UPC campaign against the NRM dictatorship. All should, as part of this campaign shun the NRM celebration of their carnage and destruction of our beautiful country.

For God and my Country

Miria Kalule Obote

PRESIDENT