UGANDA PEOPLES CONGRESS
(Office of the President)

The Editor, The Monitor

MASSACRE OF CAPTIVES

1. On the occasion of the massacre of 28 captives which the Museveni dictatorship has been holding in Luzira Prison, the dictatorship also announced that I am no longer opposed to it and shall therefore return home soon.
2. I am totally and irreversibly opposed to the Museveni military cum one-Party dictatorship; to Articles 269, 270, 271, and to Articles 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 and 74 of the 1995 Constitution. I am also vehemently opposed to Article 10 of the Constitution where aliens have been made to be citizens of Uganda.
3. Neither myself nor any of my Aides nor any leader of the UPC has ever held any discussions with the Museveni dictatorship regarding anything to do with my return home. I am in exile as a matter of conscience.
4. I am aware that dictator Museveni has openly stated that should I return home, he would immediately cause my murder. He is the only dictator and President who is praised and exalted by the older democracies for murdering and massacring citizens of Uganda and for exporting his innate proclivity and propensity to kill to the Great Lakes Region.
5. When Museveni launched his war, in February 1981 against the people of Uganda, some opinion leaders held that he was against only the UPC government. His insurgency was defeated and he fled to Sweden in 1984. The Okello and Okello Junta invited him in late July 1985 to return to Uganda. Instead, he subjected the Junta to four months of meaningless Talks as a ploy to enable him to raise a new army which overthrew the Junta on 26 January 1986.
6. I am not as gormless as the Okello Junta was to even think of holding any discussion with Museveni or his agents. What agreement has Museveni ever implemented.
1. He never honoured the Accord with the Okello Junta. Instead, he used the period when the Accord was being negotiated to prepare for the overthrow of the Junta.
2. Where is the Federo which Museveni promised the Baganda leaders when he was negotiating an Accord with the Okello Junta.
3. Where is the Broad-based (coalition) government of 1986 under which the leaders of the DP and CP became Cabinet ministers.
4. Where is or what happened to Andrew Kayiira who negotiated an agreement with Museveni under which Kayiira's UFM army was to receive equal treatment with Museveni's army and Kayiira was to be in the government.
5. Captain Jesus Ojirot of the UPA signed an agreement with Museveni under which Ojirot and his army were to be absorbed in Museveni's army. Capt. Ojirot and his army are to be found nowhere in Uganda or in any other country.
6. The UPDA's Captain Angelo Okello, signed an agreement in Gulu Town with Museveni witnessed by Bishops. Neither Capt. Okello nor his army were absorbed in Museveni's army. Capt. Okello died mysteriously in Entebbe within six months of signing the agreement. The consequence was the rise of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
7. Rwanda was invaded in October 1990 by Regiments of Museveni's army. The invaders remained in Northern Rwanda for 3½ years during which period, under Museveni's urgings, President Habyarimana of Rwanda negotiated peace and modalities of a coalition government with Kagame and with Museveni as the promoter. Because the agreement reached was for a multiparty coalition government, President Habyarimana's aircraft was blown up and Kagame conquered the whole of Rwanda in 1994.
8. Two years later in 1996, Museveni, Kagame and Laurent Kabila were allies against Desire Mobutu whose regime was overthrown by the allies in 1997. The older democracies described these dictators and exporters of carnage, namely Museveni and his viceroy Kagame, as the New Breed and fine African leaders.
9. Today and since August 1998, Museveni and Kagame are no longer in agreement with Kabila and are waging a vicious war of conquest in the DRC.
10. Press reports give it that the Rwanda army in the DRC has its Congolese rebel armies and the Uganda army in the DRC also has its separate Congolese rebel armies and that the Rwanda and Uganda armies have often fought each other. If Museveni and Kagame who are of the same ethnic blood can tear up their agreement to work together in the export of carnage and dictatorship, a thoroughbred Uganda, like myself, would be a moron to conclude an agreement with Museveni.
7. There are several other agreements which though Museveni signed, it turned out that he did so without any intention of fulfilling the terms of any of them. The latest such agreements is the one he signed in Libya. On his return home, it was authoritatively stated by a minister and so far not contradicted by Museveni that Uganda will not withdraw its troops now in the DRC until and unless there is security in the Uganda/DRC border. Two matters immediately arise.
8. First, if that is the case, was the Uganda President unaware of it in Tripoli. Second, how can Uganda troops in Kisangani, more than a thousand kilometres, patrol and secure security along the Uganda/DRC border. The answer to both question can only be that Museveni had and has no intention to withdraw his army from the DRC. Museveni will sign any agreement but will also not abide by their terms until, like in the case of Rwanda in 1994, he has caused genocide and conquered the DRC. After all, it is the older democracies who are urging and subsidising Museveni in his wars and export of carnage and dictatorship.
9. Everything allegedly presented by Rugunda to the cabinet and reported by the Monitor is untrue, false and lies. The question is why such untruths, falsehoods and lies were presented to the Cabinet by "the minister of the Presidency" and on the day or the eve of the MURDER OF 28 CAPTIVES. There appears to be a direct connection between Rugunda's alleged presentation that I am now a political eunuch, a Movementist and eager to come home, the MURDER in Luzira of the 28 captives and the MASSACRE in Kisangani.
10. Never under the UPC government in the 1960s or from December 1980 to July 1985 have prisoners convicted to death by the High Court and their relatives and friends been subjected to mental torture as under the Museveni dictatorship. In the 1960s and again from December 1980 to July 1985, I commuted, as President, all death sentences to terms of imprisonment. Under Museveni, citizens arrested on political grounds some thirteen years ago in 1986 have been kept and mentally tortured and MURDERED this week.
11. Take the case of Hajji Musa Seburimbi. He was the victim of a mob attack and torture in Kampala in the early months of 1986 when the Museveni dictatorship was most desperate to conceal the atrocities of the NRA in Luwero District. Can any fair-minded Ugandan believe that the High Court, the Supreme Court and the Committee of Mercy took some thirteen years to convict Hajji Seburimbi, deny his appeals to the Supreme Court and to the Committee for him to be executed this week. Hajji Seburimbi and the other 27 citizens were as CAPTIVES, MURDERED by the Museveni dictatorship.
12. In the same week of the MURDER of the 28 CAPTIVES, there were press reports of the MASSACRE by Rwanda troops of citizens of Uganda (Museveni's army) in Kisangani in the DRC. Whether there is a link between the MURDER in Luzira and the MASSACRE in Kisangani is still to be determined.
13. What the people of Uganda must brace themselves for is that the Luzira MURDERS of this week constitutes only a beginning. More and more MURDERS OF CAPTIVES are to follow.
14. These events, the MURDERS, the MASSACRES and the lies and falsehoods about me supporting dictatorship and carnage, strongly suggest that the Museveni dictatorship is in dire difficulties and as it is its wont, is endeavouring to extricate itself through MURDERS, MASSACRES and DECEPTION.
15. I have said before and I repeat it now. The time has arrived for the people of Uganda to find a General to rid Uganda of carnage and dictatorship. The General must be a determined uprising of the people as a whole against dictatorship.
16. The Monitor report of 29 April gave it that "a senior minister" said that Obote was controversial. My view is that the said minister is a sycophant who under the UPC outfit cannot be a minister, a member of Parliament or leader at any level. The fact is that it is virtually impossible for a leader of a political Party not to be controversial otherwise he or she would not be propounding policies which seek to transform society and therefore, by definition, controversial.
17. It is my very strong opinion that Uganda's middle class and intellectuals are indifferent to the matter of the enjoyment and exercise by the citizen of his/her human rights and freedoms. The middle class may want to benefit from dictatorship but how can the intellectuals be true to themselves and to the consumers of their brains by accepting and praising dictatorship.
18. In thirteen years, since 1986, the people of Uganda have been fed with and made to forget or even denounce the multiparty achievements. They include:-
1. Federo in the 1962 Constitution because the UPC agreed to the inclusion.
2. The first Head of State being a Ugandan citizen because the UPC wanted him to be.
3. The holding in 1964 of the referendum on the issue of the Lost Counties because all Parties namely, Buganda, Bunyoro and the Uganda (UPC) government agreed to it.
4. The governance of Uganda, despite the political crises of 1966, under the provisions of Chapter THREE of the 1962 Constitution upto January 25, 1971.
19. The governance of Uganda under Chapter THREE of the 1962, 1966, 1967 Constitutions provided the country with much progress in education, health, production and respect for human rights and freedoms.
20. On the matter of the human rights and freedoms of the citizen, no person can produce any evidence of a law by which the UPC government amended any provision in Chapter THREE of the 1962 Constitution repeated word for word in the 1966 and 1967 Constitutions where the enjoyment and exercise by the citizen of his/her human rights were guaranteed.
21. Also no person can produce any law which banned the political Parties or their activities after Independence in October 1962 and upto the military coup of January 1971. Furthermore, no person can produce any evidence showing that before the Amin coup of 1971 any political Party went to the High Court with a complaint that its rights and freedoms had been suppressed or were threatened.
22. Today and writing in April 1999, I am both surprised and confounded by Ugandan intellectuals, the middle class, politicians and even journalists and editors of having accepted Museveni's Movement dictatorship as a form of governance which to them must continue.
23. The situation where the intellectuals, politicians, journalists and editors have been suborned and/or wittingly or unwittingly being manipulated to accept and propagate the Museveni military cum one-Party dictatorship, makes the same intellectuals, politicians, journalists and editors collaborators in the entrenchment of dictatorship in Uganda.
24. While each of our intellectuals, middle class in business and in the professions and in journalism etc etc are completing with one another, those of them who agree with Museveni that there must be no competition in politics and therefore that the vote of the citizen must not remove Museveni 's Movement from being the government, effectively support the removal of the voice and the participation of the citizen in the governance of Uganda.
25. Because there has been no competition in politics and elections for over thirteen years, the result has been the emergence of very ugly features of governance. Two of them stand out namely, rampant corruption and the breaking of marriages under the guise of promoting women in politics.
26. There is no way by or through which corruption can be decontaminated from the Movement (one-Party) system of governance except through the multiparty competitive system. Under the Movement system, it is only the integrity of the individual from the President down to the lowest Movementist which stands against corruption whereas under the multiparty competitive system it is the voice and the votes of the people which lock out corruption from governance.
27. The case of Uganda under the Movement is very illustrative. In the matter of the currency conversion of 1987, for instance, a levy of 30 percent of the money then in circulation was imposed allegedly for development. Although the levy was collected, the money has never appeared in any Budget. No minister and no official could have pocketed such a colossal sum of money and got away with it. Since the minister of finance, his officials and the Governor of the Bank of Uganda and his officials knew where the money went, the price of their silence was not only security of their tenures but also invitation for any of them who had opportunity to emulate what had happened.
28. Had there been multiparty competitive system, the case of that 30 percent levy and the other cases of corruption which are now well known such as dams which no human eyes can see, would have been vigorously presented to the people and made election issues. No political Party would want to be voted out of office on account of corruption. The Movement which is a political Party has therefore gone round that sentinel by claiming that it is not a political Party and by so doing, has also given sanctuary to corruption by prohibiting competition.
29. Competition in politics and elections which are now banned under Article 269 of the 1995 Constitution mean, in practice, that the voice of the people of Uganda has also been removed from the governance of their country. That is very clear from the Movement's electoral model. The model excludes the presentation to the electorate as a whole different policies for the governance of Uganda for them to consider and choose. The model prohibits the presentations of the same sets of policies to the electorate in each and every Constituency and therefore disenfranchises the entire electorate to choose which set of policies for the governance of Uganda.
30. According to the report published in the Monitor, the Museveni dictatorship asserts that I have abandoned opposition to the provisions in Article 269 and that I will vote in the referendum and further that I have decided to retire from politics. I have also learnt that Minister Rugunda claims that I have written a letter to the dictatorship in which I set out those assertions. On reading the Monitor, I came to the conclusion that there is a scheme for me to be murdered soon after which the dictatorship will then claim of having concluded peace agreement with me and was waiting for my return home.
31. My conclusion is not far fetched. No regime, not even a dictatorship, knowing that its assertions would be vigorously denied and contradicted would have fabricated what the Monitor reported unless it has a sinister fall-back position such as murder to be carried out soon.. I am not Tito Okello and others who returned to Uganda to crawl before dictator Museveni.
32. I am the elected leader of the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC). Article 6(3) of the Constitution of the UPC prescribes that: "The Annual Delegates Conference shall be the sole body to elect the President of the Party" but Museveni has since 1986, more than 13 years now, not only prohibited the Annual Delegates Conference to meet but also suborned a member to establish a rival UPC outside the provisions of the Constitution of the Party. The UPC has been opposed to Museveni's schemes ever since he launched his war against the people of February 1981, now 18 years. On his part, Museveni has also been vigorously pursuing a policy to remove the UPC from Uganda's body politic. In addition, Museveni's speeches are often full of venom against me. That is not all. The dictatorship has hurt me in a most painful way.
33. In the 1987 my father was killed by Museveni's soldiers who attacked his village. The villagers fled for their lives although some were killed but my father at 89 years and blind decided to sit in the courtyard of his house. The soldiers came to the house, clubbed and cut off my father's vomer. A young boy of 12 years witnessed the dastard deed from up a nearby tree. The Museveni dictatorship issued a statement which stated that the attack had been mounted by the Karamojong cattle rustlers. The place where my father was murdered is in a Peninsula. There was a garrison of Museveni's soldiers at the mouth of the Peninsula. The attackers came in vehicles and there were helicopters hovering during the attack. Furthermore, the attackers retreated with a large number of livestock which the Karamojong could not have driven through the garrison.
34. In March 1993, Museveni's soldiers went for my 89 year old mother. The soldiers ransacked her home and dismantled her borehole. My mother had a heart attack from which she never regained consciousness.
35. During his insurgency in Luwero District Museveni's soldiers murdered a very large number of UPC leaders and members. On becoming President in 1986, the murders of the UPC leaders and members increased with every passing year. I cannot forget nor forgive the murders of my parents and of members of my Party.
36. From February 1981, after Museveni had launched his war against the people of Uganda, I directed minister Chris Rwakasisi, now in Luzira Prison and about to be murdered, to arrange for protection and sustenance to Museveni's parents. Minister Rwakasisi fulfilled the directive most diligently particularly to Museveni's mother who was suffering from some affliction. Museveni, as President, instead went for the murders of my parents and now through a transparently deceptive ploy wants me murdered so as to claim that he and I had no more disagreements but some other persons were against my return home and had to kill me. It is a most reprehensible plot.
37. It seems to me that Museveni's ploy and plot to kill me is to win further support from the older democracies particularly Britain and the USA for his referendum which will make Uganda a fully fledged de jure military cum one-Party dictatorship. I know it as fact that the British government, for instance, want the political Parties to operate normally, that is without the prohibitions in Article 269 of the Constitution, for a full year before the referendum. Anyone who knows Museveni also knows that Museveni will never accept what the British Labour government want him to do before the referendum. To allow the UPC, the DP and the CP to elect their leaders, operate and hold public meetings and condemn the referendum for a whole year before the referendum mean death to Museveni's Movement.
38. To avoid the death, Museveni is clearly busy, as it is his wont, to create a phoney situation which allows the Movement to be the sole political Party after the referendum. He has already produced one proposition designed to ensure that the referendum will make the Movement the sole political Party. The proposal is the Political Organisations Bill (POB). Under the POB when it becomes law, it is most unlikely that any of the existing political Parties will be registered and recognised as existing.
39. The Labour government in Britain and the governments in the other older democracies appear woefully unaware that it is Museveni's scheme for the referendum to be a mere formality in the crowning of the Movement as the sole political Party and therefore for Uganda to be declared military cum one-Party dictatorship free to export the system through wars and carnage to countries near and far.
40. The POB itself is to be enacted outside the provisions of Article 73 of the 1995 Constitution. The Article provides that a law such as the POB can only be enacted after a system of governance has been adopted in a referendum or through "a free and fair elections." without holding any such elections and ahead of the referendum, the POB is to be enacted so as to kill all other Parties and make the Movement to be the sole voice during the referendum.
41. I am totally opposed to the policy of the British Labour government on the referendum and to the referendum. Nothing will make me to support that policy or the referendum. In the UN Declaration of Human Rights Charter and even in Museveni's 1995 Constitution, the human rights and freedoms of every citizen of Uganda are recognised. Those rights and freedoms so recognised, include the right to form and belong to a political Party; the freedom for every citizen to determine the level and nature of how to enjoy and exercise his/her rights and freedoms in accordance with his/her conscience; the freedom to receive and impart ideas from any source without hindrance or restrictions. Why then should the people of Uganda be required to determine in a referendum whether they have or do not have, as individuals, the God given human rights and freedoms clearly stated in the UN Charter and in the domestic Constitution that each of them have such rights and freedoms.
42. Human rights and freedoms are the properties of every individual. They are gifts of God to every human being for him/her to enjoy and exercise according to his/her conscience which is also another gift from God. The level and the nature of the enjoyment and exercise of that gift is to be and can only be determined by the individual and not by the votes of strangers namely, other persons in a referendum.
43. After ruling Uganda for thirteen years alone and only with the backing of his personal army which consumes a colossal amount of the annual budgets and where the Cabinet, Parliament and the Movement itself are mere scarecrows to protect personal rule and corruption, Museveni is still very scared and afraid of multiparty competitive politics, elections and governance. That must mean that he has failed, in thirteen years, to be sure that his Movement can get the majority of votes in free and fair multiparty elections. Other gun-men in Africa who seized power, formed Parties in less years and faced the electorate in multiparty elections.
44. Part of Museveni's stand against the enjoyment and exercise of human rights and freedoms by the people of Uganda and against multiparty politics, elections and governance is because he is the chosen and exalted lackey of the older democracies particularly Britain and the USA. His task, as a lackey, is to entrench dictatorship in Uganda and make Uganda the base to implant dictatorships through carnage in countries near and far and thereby pave the way for the exploitation of the wealth of Africa by the Trans-National Corporations in the older democracies. That is why the older democracies pay him huge annual subventions and help him to demonise the political Parties and their leaders except for those leaders who have become sycophants or who are giving credence and credibility to organs of dictatorship by their membership of such organs as the Parliament.
45. The failure to implant in Uganda the Movement as a credible Party which can be elected to form a government in a free and fair elections, must be worrying governments in the older democracies. Much as the governments in the older democracies want their lackey, Museveni, to continue as dictator, they also know and must be worried or concerned that wars in Uganda for over thirteen years; increasing and debilitating poverty in Uganda; the dilapidated Schools, Colleges, Hospitals, Dispensaries, Clinics and the very high cost of education and medication plus the very high cost of the war in the DRC have, despite their subventions, paved the way for the overthrow of Museveni and his Movement.
46. As a means to forestall that eventuality, it is my most considered view that Museveni decided to fabricate a story, use my status his mutual Bette noir and hope to entrench his dictatorship through the POB and the referendum. It is a most subtle declaration that the campaign to demonise me has failed.
47. What the people of Uganda must know is that I participated in the Independence struggle. The legacy of the Independence struggle is that not only the country but also the citizen must be free. Dictatorship is not freedom.
48. I have no intention whatsoever to return to Uganda when it is under dictatorship.
49. I became a member of a political Party upon conscience. I have no intention whatsoever to retire from politics.
50. My present occupation is divided in two. The first it to work for the overthrow of the dictatorship in Uganda. The second is to get the older democracies to abandon their support for dictatorship in Uganda and the export of it to countries near and far.