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Uganda Peoples Congress

UGANDA PEOPLES CONGRESS (Office of the President)

31 December 2004

NEW YEAR MESSAGE
BY
A. MILTON OBOTE

  1. This NEW YEAR comes at a time which in Uganda is being regarded as Transitional Period to multiparty Democracy. I regard the transition which is even being debated in the Uganda one-Party Parliament as bogus.
  2. The Electoral Law, makes the Uganda Parliament a one-Party Parliament. Without the National Resistance Movement (NRM) which introduced the one-Party dictatorship first making a declaration accepting multiparty democracy, the one-Party Parliament whose members are legally and constitutionally all members of the NRM are deceiving the country in pretending to debate Transition to multiparty Democracy. The debate and the transition are bogus.
  3. In the PPOA 2002 there is a provision which the NRM enacted apparently against a Ugandan who is abroad but whose meaning is that the one-Party dictatorship even fears the debating prowess of Ugandans or their being liked by the people. Only one Uganda was in the mind of the NRM when the law was enacted that anyone who is outside Uganda cannot stand for office of Party leader. Today under that law now I understand two Ugandans and one of whom the leader of the NRM even sentenced to death should he step onto Ugandan soil. The second Ugandan fled the country to save his life and Parliament is debating Transition to democracy when dictatorship has a law which does not accept the human rights and freedoms of all citizens.
  4. The political Parties have been undermined by the probability of the NRM threatening the lives of their leaders and forcing the leaders to flee into exile and abandoning their Parties. Two Ugandans and two Parties are already in that position and category. The NRM will increase its efforts between now and 2006.
  5. The people of Uganda have since January 1986 done very well in searching for democracy under a Dictatorship which is financed by democracies which in Uganda are called Donors or partners. They finance over 50 percent of the Recurrent Budget. The Recurrent Budget finances the dictatorship and the 18 years war in the North. Since through their finance the donors or partners have also participated in ruling Uganda dictatorially and in massacres in the North. Let us hope that they will adopt new policies in the coming year.
  6. In the name of our national motto I wish everybody a happy and democratic New Year.

For God and my Country

A. Milton Obote

President, UPC Party