MEMORANDUM
FROM
NEW ORDER DEMOCRACY (N.O.D.)
AND A CALL FOR
A NATIONAL SOVEREIGN CONFERENCE
AND A TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT
TO THE
UGANDA GOVERNMENT
THROUGH
THE PRESIDENT OF UGANDA
LT. GEN. YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI
Mr. President,
The NEW ORDER DEMOCRACY National Executive Committee would like to seize this opportunity to accept your invitation extended to our National Chairman through the auspices of a friendly country to meet with you.
Mr. President, in accepting this invitation, N.O.D. is practically and honourably pursuing its most important idiosyncrasy of Peace and Love, which are the most powerful weapons known to mankind. N.O.D. stands for Peace, National Unity, Reconciliation and Development.
Mr. President, despite the fact that the scheduled meeting did not take place, we are nonetheless eager to communicate our concerns to you and your government, and have therefore sent this memorandum in good faith believing that you will give it your deserved time.
Mr. President, N.O.D. wrote to you in 1996 after the General and Presidential elections, spelling out its concerns and its shared vision for our motherland Uganda, and although we know for certain that you did indeed receive our communication, we are yet to hear from you concerning the grave and urgent issues we raised then.
Therefore, we shall try and encapsulate these and other concerns that have been and are the raison d’etre of N.O.D.
1. No Party Democracy
First Mr. President, N.O.D. strongly objected to your notion of “No Party Democracy”, which is in fact a pseudo name for a One Party System. Our objection to this concept of “No Party Democracy” or One Party system couldn’t be any louder now, after your aborted 18 years trying to make it work, or “force it down, if need be”, according to your own National Resistance Movement (NRM) Manifesto.
Your system of “No Party Democracy” tried to justify its entry and existence on our country’s historical iniquities which iniquities cannot be denied. However, “No Party Democracy” even given some of its strong points of, for example, unity under Africa’s contextual complexity, could never be adequate, and therefore acceptable, if some fundamental universally accepted norms were removed /altered to suit the “African context”, specifically, the “Ugandan context”.
In your “No Party Democracy” / One Party approach, the universally held and accepted idiom of freedom of association, which is freedom of choice, and therefore freedom of thought, is deliberately removed in your One Party governance system, while at the same time, forcing all the people to belong to a political association of your choice, the NRM; with the result that many of us our countrymen and women who do not agree and espouse the NRM vision are disenfranchised, and cannot therefore get involved in contributing to the development of our country
Your argument was and still is that Uganda being perceived according to your own words as largely “ tribalistic, backward and politically immature country”, needed to be “shepherded” through a single grassroots political movement to remove tribalism and other vices, and for uniting the people for development.
You also argued that it was necessary to go for a One Party system in order to unite and rid Uganda of the “divisions and anarchy” caused by the mainstream and according to you “parochial old political parties” that were in existence then.
Therefore the deliberate manipulation of the 1995 Constitution where One Party politics was to be anchored (which Constitution took a record 5 years to draw –in itself another fraud within fraud, thereby holding political debate still), and the subsequent fraudulent referenda to outlaw multiparty politics, were therefore in themselves the climax of the NRM objective to cling to power, and a far cry from democratizing Uganda.
Can you Lt. Gen. Museveni now in all honesty argue that after some 18 years of your ‘remedial’ “No Party Democracy /One Party political system”, that you have eradicated tribalism and brought about national unity and identity in Uganda? Can you argue that all the other countries in Africa now grappling with multiparty dispensations but not under the “No Party Democracy /One Party political system” concept are therefore more tribalistic than Uganda is, or are therefore farther back in their quest for democracy, than Uganda is? Or can you still try to argue that Uganda and only Uganda is so uniquely different from all the other African countries pursuing democracy through multiparty dispensations, such that it alone needs to pursue democracy through a one party model? And can you now argue that after 18 years of your system, that you have minimized or eradicated the main political system’s influence on Ugandan politics?
Have you wondered as to why no other African country genuinely trying to democratize has followed your model? Have we not just emerged from failed post colonial one party dictatorships of the1960s, whose creation were predicated almost solely on the virtues of national unity?
And why Mr. President, after 18 years of trying to enforce your doctrinaire approach as an ideopraxist, have you now turned a full circle, and are now ready to pull Uganda back to multi party politics, albeit with some nose tagging by the Western democracies (and of course the tremendous and consistent pressure from Ugandan multi-partists) hopefully by the next general and presidential elections due in 2006?
This is what we have been preaching about. It is the crux of our objection and the objection of the entire democratic world to your government. Mr. President, there is no doubt that the political process in Uganda has been rendered prostrate despite the rosy picture some people want to paint, the economic and other socio-cultural gains given, especially on the fight against the HIV /AIDS pandemic.
Your U-turn and acceptance of our position of multiparty democracy after 18 long and bloody years is our total vindication, even though this turn-about has been precipitated by the two historic landmark Constitutional Court rulings of June 25 2004 which annulled the 2000 Referendum on political systems, and the December 2002 ruling which in effect implied that the 2001 presidential, parliamentary and local government elections were invalid, and of no consequence, and therefore all government’s decisions and actions taken since were therefore illegal and null and void; in short, the NRM government has been operating illegally since 2001.
2. Human Rights gross violations
Mr. President, your government’s record on HR is, put simply, abysmal (witness the numerous reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch Africa, Uganda HR etc.)
The catalogue of arbitrary arrests, torture, harassment, intimidation, rape, murder etc by all sorts of security organs (number not known) in all sorts of ungazetted “safe houses”, bemoans in the belly of dictatorship. There is evidence of attempts on the life of some opposition leaders, including on my life, by your government’s security agents.
Mr. President, your prisons and other illegal prison hideouts have had at various times some 20,000 to 100,000 or more political inmates (with high prison deaths some unreported), all mixed up with common criminals, because your government has failed to differentiate and respond constructively to the root causes of the insurgency in the North, East, West, Northwest and to some extent, in Kampala and adjoining areas. And yet your attempts in enforcing your “No Party Democracy”, cutting off multiparty democracy, and the policy of a “scorched earth” response, (which you personally admitted was official policy when being interviewed regarding the atrocities your soldiers were committing in Gulu and Soroti in the height of the insurgency) are directly at the root causes of the insurgency in Uganda. This however does not form any apologesia for the atrocities being committed by some rebel groups
As a result of the insecurity situation in our country, which you and your government are the cause and not the solution and therefore not in a position to “finish off” despite your numerous attempts and promises to do so in the last 18 years, hundreds of thousands of our people are internally displaced people or refugees, housed in unthinkable camps in the North, East and West without sufficient food, hygiene, shelter, security or health where they continue to die from unhygienic conditions, or from crossfire.
Mr. President, when you were a guerrilla, you made a lot of political capital regarding the Public Order Act, which you attacked as being oppressive. 18 years on in power and what have you done with it? You have strengthened it. You have refined it. That is why you could not allow demonstrations to take place in Uganda and when Kampala residents / Makerere University students attempted to demonstrate, you closed all petrol stations, sent helicopter gun ships and foot soldiers to disband peaceful demonstrations and as a result some demonstrators were killed. This is your democracy where you cannot tolerate opposing views!
Your government has also ignored some very important court rulings, or gone to parliament to try and circumvent their rulings including the 2001 Constitutional Court ruling which declared your government illegal.
3. Monopoly and Abuse of State Power
Mr. President, you cannot but accept that the Executive personified by you has monopolized state power with the sole aim and objective of clinging to it. For 10 years from the time you staged a coup d’etat in 1986, you ruled Uganda illegally having organized sham and well rigged largely indirect elections up to 1996, under your “No Party System”, where only your party was allowed to contest, and yet you cannot up to now even produce the voters register of these sham elections. These elections gave us the unrepresentative and laughable rubber stamp parliament, which had some 35% of indirectly elected Members and your personal appointees, including the army, which parliament you yourself denigrated in 1996 when replacing it with the Constituent Assembly…quote “because that Parliament was not representative”).
Mr. President, the Presidency has too much power under the current constitution, and the Presidency is pervasive right to the very bottom of our society.
4. The Army As A tool for Keeping State Power, and for Oppression and
Suppression
The National Resistance Army now called Uganda Peoples Defence Force has not allowed to become a national army, but the NRM army for achieving the NRM objectives of “a revolution, by force, if necessary”, according to the NRM Manifesto itself.
In your NRM Manifesto, you clearly declare the role of the army… “the army to enforce the NRM ideology..”
From the village commander, who is more powerful than the village headman, up to the commander-in-chief, yourself, the army is supreme, and is a tool of oppression, not liberation. The army authority, and not the civil authority, is supreme. Despite the catalogue of atrocities and abuse committed by the army in conflict areas for which your soldiers go scot-free many a time, or are merely transferred, the legally incompetent kangaroo courts run by your military officers with no recourse to a higher neutral authority, except to the same army high command (the Executive) chaired by you, are a show to placate world opinion, and this has been a subject of our and many human rights organizations’ intense criticism.
Since 1986 when this army moved into Kampala behind a big banner of human rights, discipline, professionalism, respect for the civilian and civil authority etc, in sharp contrast to the “rag tag armies” you claim you dislodged, can you explain what has gone wrong with your exemplary army?
Mr. President, during the 2001 elections, you were asking the electorate to vote you in for one more term of five years so that you could “professionalize the army, make it more competent, non partisan, non corrupt etc”. That is after 18 years you are accepting failure and are saying your army is anything but good enough!
But how can this army become professional when you have abused it as a personal army? Can you make an army professional when for long periods you were both President and Minister of Defence, and your brother was its head for such a long time, and when you jump promote your own son from 2nd Lt. to Major, and corruptly appoint him Commander of the Presidential Protection Unit, (which is now at least battalion strength, with the heaviest weaponry) which unit has taken on proportions of an army within an army and has increasingly assumed more national security proportions beyond securing the Presidency. The PPU is now the reserve army to protect you and your hold on power. The two senior officers cited above are not the only close relatives of yours in the army hierarchy, not to mention those in the numerous security organs.
Mr. President, how can you turn this army around after you sent it 2000 kms inside another sovereign country, Congo DR, looking for Ugandan rebels that were attacking you inside your national borders? What was your army doing in Congo DR fighting with another third party foreign troops on foreign soil? What harm was done to this army which has been accused by the UN and HR organizations again and again, of HR atrocities, genocide, rape and gang rape, murder, looting, and pillaging of Congo assets and natural resources? How can you Mr. President make in your own words, “a corrupt, partisan, non professional” personalized and propertied army professional?
Your army’s destruction of the Ituri tribes of Congo DR thru’ the creation of militias on both sides, first the Hema (PUSIC and UPC factions), then the Lendu whom your army had previously fought, is yet another testimony of the harrowing tale of genocide as witness the HR bodies and the UN monitoring groups reports.
And yet the other question is: What is the army doing in parliament, and whose interests does it represent in parliament that cannot be represented in the normal manner? You claim the army is a special interest group, so how many special interest groups are there? The handicapped, the police, the widows, the doctors, teachers, gravediggers? Which group is the special special group? Where does the army high command fit into vis-a-vis parliament? Your NRM manifesto clearly spells out that the army is there…“to enforce the NRM’s programmes”, and not the State’s programmes, unless of course the Movement is the State, as is the case indeed.
You cannot deny that thousands of child soldiers were ever present in your army, which was in one particular case, the subject of heated and mostly embarrassing disclosure and discussions between you and the UN, especially when you were caught red handed training more child soldiers from Congo DR. We know that you started recruiting child soldiers into your army right from the beginning of your guerilla war, and this was a central policy. It is true though that you demobilized some of these child soldiers, some of whom grew of age, but then went right ahead to recruit some more. You accuse the rebels in the North of doing the same vice you yourself have done.
The UN indictments on the Uganda army’s conduct and your owning up that you need yet more time to sort out the mess in your army speaks volumes.
5. NRM Foreign Policy
Mr. President, your foreign policy especially regarding our neighbours has been deeply regrettable. We have quarreled with all our neighbours. First it was Tanzania in 1987, then with Kenya 1987-93, Rwanda 1993-94; 2001-03, Congo DR 1987-2004, Sudan up to the present.
Under international deception, fraud, and cheating, (excepting the UN peace missions) the Uganda army has been sent across international borders to Rwanda, Congo DR and Sudan. There was a threat to send the army to Kenya and Rwanda on more than one occasion. And although it can be said that a lot of groundwork has been done to normalize the situation with these neighbours, especially under the auspices of the East African Community, and with Rwanda with the help of the British (thank you very much), we still do not believe that Uganda’s foreign policy is founded on mutual respect for other countries sovereignty and respect for international law.
Uganda appointed herself the exporter of revolution in the Great Lakes region. Lest it be forgotten, Lt. Gen. Museveni personally boasted of how Hitler was a great man.
We believe that Lt. Gen Museveni is the main cause of the instability in the great lakes region. The Rwanda crisis of 1993 leading to the genocide was originated in Kampala by soldiers serving in the Uganda Army, some of whom were even Ministers and nominated Members of Parliament of Uganda. The Congo DR crisis leading to the invasion of that country in1998 was fomented in Kampala. The fall of Bagaza leading to the Burundi crisis now was fomented in Kampala. After the fall of Bagaza in Burundi, you chuckled while in Lanarca Greece that quote “I was never sure that multiparty democracy could work in Burundi” unquote. And the coup plotters who toppled Bagaza ran for sanctuary in Kampala where it has been impossible to extradite them up to now.
Mr. President, your foreign policy has been characterized by loyalty and appeasement of “super friends”, especially at the AU / UN. floors. You could argue that this is pragmatic political expediency for Uganda, real politik, but at what cost is it to international law and order? Does pragmatism mean damning posterity?
6. Chiefdoms
The issue of how to handle the demands for the reinstatement of Chiefdoms, and what powers to accord them vis-à-vis the central government has not been handled with good faith.
The central issue is what system of government do Ugandans want. Is it a federal system? Is it a quasi-federal system? How representative are these demands, and what segment of Ugandans prefer a republican system?
Tied to this is the other important issue of whether there is need to rethink the location of the Capital and seat of government from its current location. You cannot separate these two issues.
Your government’s handling of the Chiefdom issue was predicated upon the premise of appeasement and part payment for some, and utter betrayal for others. For the other acephalus parts of the country, a system basically superfluous bordering on irrelevancy was put in place which does not in any way echo the real politik of these groups, but simply lulls them into having “something of their own”, just so that they can be in concord with the rest of the country with centuries old dedicated chiefdom systems.
The issue of how Uganda is to be governed has to be a matter which Ugandans have to agree together as a whole, and not an issue to be dished out separately to various groups in piecemeal. A referendum on the issue is one way to look into this demand.
7. Karamoja (Gun Control, Cattle Rustling and Destabilization)
There is no doubt that Karamoja area demands serious political think-through to make the area peaceful and bring it to pace-match the rest of the country.
Your government’s attempts to disarm Karamoja have not been successful. Your government has collected some 10,000 guns or so from Karamojong, who still remain with at least 100,000 guns! These are the guns Karamojong use to terrorise neibouring districts of Katakwi, Soroti, Bugishu, Sebei, Lira, Apach and Western Kenya.
In the first place, how did so many guns get into the hands of Karamojong?
It is known, and we have evidence that some of your army commanders distributed guns to Karamojong using army helicopters in the 1980s, so that they could go and destabilize the neighbouring tribes.
It is also a fact that during the 1980s, your government exported a lot of beef carcasses to Libya thru’ Entebbe airport. These were cattle that had been rustled from Teso and other areas by soldiers and your kinsmen supporters who had been milkmen in Teso, and therefore had intimate knowledge of the area. These cattle were moved to Kampala by rail. This is why the rebels destroyed the rail line to the north. Your moribund attempt to restock Teso was in itself admission of the injustice done to this region.
The centuries old cultural linkages between Karamojong and Teso, for example, have been destroyed by the introduction of a political dimension to it. And the issue was aggravated by the deliberate dragging in of other districts into the spoil, such as Sebei, Bugishu, Lira and Apach.
8. Divestiture
A lot can be said about the way and manner national assets were divested.
The privatization exercise your government embarked on was not transparent, and was totally immersed in corruption and fraud. There will therefore be need to have an independent inquiry into the entire privatization process, and we demand restitution, nothing less.
The cardinal point of objection to make here is that your undemocratically elected and therefore unrepresentative i.e. illegal government had no mandate to dispose off the peoples’ assets without their express consent, definitely not thru’ the equally unrepresentative parliament which had no mandate either.
Nonetheless, N.O.D. believes privatization and liberalization of the economy is the right way forward.
9. The War in the North
The war in the North of the County has indeed become protracted for many reasons. A lot of innocent blood continues to be unnecessarily spilt 18 years on.
N.O.D. believes the government’s handling of the war has not been sincere.
It appears government has an interest in seeing the war drag on for political expediency and so as to justify its continued relevancy as a buffer between good and chaos. Government’s previously attempted amnesties are half hearted, and in some cases, simply insincere bordering on deceit, betrayal and arrogance.
The Human Rights abuses taking place in the war zone must be placed squarely before the government and rebel forces, and both parties need the peoples’ general amnesty together. Government does not have the moral or legal authority to dish out an amnesty to the rebels when it too has wronged and let down the people of the North time and again.
N.O.D. also believes some corrupt army commanders are using the war to profiteer
10. Governance Issues
(i) Illegitimacy
(ii) Corruption
(iii) Nepotism / Patronage
(iv) Press freedom
(v) Electoral malpractices
11. (i) Illegitimacy of Government
The central issue of an illegitimate de facto government of NRM was the corner stone of our objection when NRM usurped government in January 1986, suspended the Constitution, and proceeded to promulgate decrees to shut down political activity except only thru themselves. NRM ruled without any express consent of the people for a bloody 10 years before they succumbed to elections – (even though under their own rules of only their own One Party).
And although the elections of 1996 were heavily rigged there was some relief that however late, insignificant, minimal, non binding or illegal, NRM had at last “redeemed” themselves. At this point N.O.D. wrote to President Museveni asking him to fully open up and follow the political process thru’ with the re-introduction of multiparty dispensation. For N.O.D The 2001 Constitutional Court ruling declaring your government illegal should have been delivered in 1986
But the Movement has continued to operate as a government department, fully funded by the State, even though the Movement was declared a political organization by a competent court of law. Why Mr. President has the Movement Act not been amended to separate the organs of the Movement political system from the State? And where do you have the independence of parliament from the Movement parliamentary caucus when the Movement is the only political party in parliament?
Above all Mr. President, in light of the Constitutional Court ruling declaring your government illegal, why have you continued in government totally ignoring this landmark historic ruling?
The recent June 2004 Constitutional Court ruling nullifying the 2000 Referendum on political parties (the referendum you pinned your “legitimacy” on) underscores our objection to your government. Once parliament removes your draconian Political Parties and Organizations Act (2002) Sections 18 and 19 which impeded other alternative political parties activities and which anchored your dream for “One Party Political System”, Uganda should once more move towards true competitive democracy.
To the contrary, Mr. President, you are busy scheming to amend the constitution you yourself promulgated in the recent decade (with a lot of self praise and “we did it”) so that you can remove the two term clause on the presidential term to allow you to stand yet again, after loudly deceiving the whole world that you were for retirement. In your case however, it is not even the two terms we should be talking about. You will have been there for 20 long and bloody years.
11. (ii) Corruption
If Transparency International is correct, then Uganda is indeed in the very short list of the most corrupt countries in the world, and you Mr. President must take direct blame for it, though not entirely. Way back in the late 1990s, you Mr. President boasted that you quote “would rather work with a corrupt minister, than with a lazy one” unquote.
Is it therefore any wonder that we find ourselves in this unenviable position? Is it any wonder that all the numerous corruption scandals that have so far surfaced have remained unpunished, especially those involving your brother and other corrupt relatives? (e.g. your brother/UCB, your brother/helicopters, your daughter-in-law/presidential jet, state house slush fund, defence budget/you, Congo DR gold diamonds and timber/you and your army, departed Asians’ property / First lady, Karamoja gold / you and other well placed British nationals, and many many more. How many corrupt leaders have been made to defend themselves or been jailed to date?
When will you amend and strengthen the archaic Prevention of Corruption (1970) Act?
11. (iii) Nepotism / Patronage
This is a chronic virus which has destroyed our civil service, and especially some agencies of government for example, the Foreign Service, Uganda Revenue Authority, the Intelligence Services etc. In some cases Mr. President, the lingua franca is in fact not the official English language. Can you Mr. President say that after your arbitrary appointments to the civil service, that the Uganda civil service can be termed professional anymore?
11. (iv) Non Transparency
Despite such accurate reports from the Auditor General, or the Government Ombudsman, certain aspects of government are not transparent, especially the uncensored expenditure at State House, Defence, the Presidency and Intelligence operations. Classified State expenditure must be audited by the AG. The Electoral Commission is so corrupt that it actually represents the NRM cadre platform, even after you “fired” some of its officials behind a load of rigging and fraud after the disputed 2001 election results which the High Court of Uganda ruled were not free of malpractice though “not to the extent of overturning the overall result”, in an action brought about by Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye Chairman of the Reform Agenda.
11. (v) Press Freeedom
The freedom of the press, with all the press bills recently introduced, especially on the war reporting, is not assured. But yes as long as you don’t touch the Presidency. What has happened to the Monitor when it tried to report accurately on the war? Where are some of its editors? Did they leave the country peacefully and willingly? Where is Chewe and his “Confidential”? Why do some of the foreign journalists hang out with the president or with the military delegation only to pick up their stories from the only source – the army spokesman? Who and what sort of people own all the four radio stations in Kampala?
If Mr. President your political vision of a “No Party Democracy” for Uganda was the correct approach to our political problems of the past, and if the people of Uganda had accepted this system, you would not now be fighting to instill or to “sew” it after some 20 odd years of “enforcement” according to your own manifesto. You would Mr. President have been extremely willing to level the playing field and truly test your popularity and that of your “No Party System” by allowing free and fair democratic elections under a multi-party dispensation. You would be content to retire after these 20 long years by 2006, satisfied that you have sewed the “mustard seed” and that the mustard seed has indeed germinated.
But to the contrary, Mr. President, you not only don’t want to retire- you instead want to manipulate the Constitution you enacted only recently amid self praise to allow you more time and a chance to continue. You still want more time to “professionalize” your army, this after being its head ever since its formation, including the bush years. After nearly 20 years, you still want more time to eradicate poverty, corruption, ignorance, nepotism, tribalism, patronage etc. And you haven’t reigned in the “parochial and troublesome old political parties” either!
The true reason Mr. President you wanted more time is because after nearly 20 years at the helm, you have failed to attain your political objectives. This is the simple and plain truth.
The Way Forward:
N.O.D believes that Uganda’s political process is in deadlock and cannot move forward unless drastic surgical measures are taken to break the impasse.
Therefore, NOD has the minimum demands that we consider as the bottom line; to push the political process forward, and return Uganda to sanity and into the family of true democratic Nations.
First and foremost, NOD is calling for a peaceful resolution of all our problems through dialogue and negotiations, and joins the other seven political parties and organizations that constitute the main pro-democracy platform in reiterating this call again and again.
This is in accord with our cherished values of Peace and Love; which as stated earlier, are the strongest weapons known to mankind. Violence and Force which your government has preferred as official policy, Mr. President, are the weakest forces known to mankind, and are only employed from a position of weakness due to cowardice from the truth.
Since N.O.D. sincerely believes that the NRM government is not in a position to oversee the transition to multiparty democracy because it is an interested party which has been opposed to this very noble idea, and one that has not earned the trust of many going by its well known record; therefore:
To restore our country and come out of the abyss and cycle of violence and despondency, NOD calls for a ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE
which will be:-
1. A SOVEREIGN AND BINDING NATIONAL CONFERENCE
of all armed and unarmed opposition groups registered or not including civil society and the church to be held in a neutral country under a neutral Chairmanship or Mediator with the government of Uganda.
The objectives of the Sovereign and Binding National Conference should be:-
? To declare an immediate stand down of hostilities.
? Declare a total non conditional General Amnesty for all combatants government and non government
