PRESS STATEMENT

MUSEVENI'S RECORD AND LEGACY: DRIVING

UGANDA TO CATASTROPHY:

1. On 13^thMarch, 2001 UPC issued a position statement on the 12^th March, 2001 Presidential Elections. In that statement UPC -
1. Reiteratedits long standing opposition to movement type politics, governance and elections under which all other political parties, organisations and groups other than the Movement are constitutionally debarred from participation. Since 1986 UPC members, organs and leaders have been made mere spectators of the political activities of their nation. The observations we make here are in that vein.
2. Condemned the:
3. Deliberate delay in the preparation and display of the voters register which was in the end stuffed with thousands of ghost voters who replaced thousand of genuine voters that were disenfranchised.
4. The use of ungazzeted polling station on polling day.
5. The rampant and wanton intimidation, abduction, killing and deliberate and ferocious installation of a sense of fear in the minds of the citizens perpetuated by the armed supporters of Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Museveni's record of killings is recorded in the districts of Luwero triangle where he supervised the murder of most UPC leaders, chiefs and supporters and hid them in mass graves. He later commissioned Capt. Zizinga to exhume their skulls and parade them as victims of the UNLA. He has recently stated his intention to continue displaying the skulls in Luwero perhaps to permanently remind Ugandans and the world of his exploits.
6. The floating of illegal ballot papers through theft and illegal distribution of pre-ticked ballot papers. These were subsequently stuffed in ballot boxes by Museveni's supporters.
7. The multiple voting by many Museveni supporters and most especially in military establishments where voting went on throughout the night unmonitored by opposition agents.
3. Concluded that the entire Presidential electoral process was flawed, that it was not a free and fair electoral process and that its results reflected only the will of the Movement faction led by Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and totally ignored the will of the entire citizens of Uganda.
2. The UPC has since the issue of the 13^thMarch statement received more graphic and shocking details on the magnitude of the electoral theft by the Museveni faction of the Movement. Clearly this was not an election but a grand political fraud.
3. The UPC position has been vindicated by the unanimous findings of the Supreme Court in the Kiiza Besigye election petition. The five Supreme Court Justices unequivocally held that:
4. The electoral commission violated the law in conducting elections in ungazzetted polling stations.
5. The electoral commission failed in its duty in not supplying copies of the register to the Petitioner. Obviously, there was no register to print and issue to candidates' agents.
6. In some parts of the country the elections were not free and fair. Unless these parts no longer form part of Uganda, the UPC position is that elections can only be free and fair if they satisfy the same standard for the entire country.
7. The voting process in army polling stations was not transparent. No body except perhaps the perpetuators of the electoral fraud will ever know what took place in those polling stations and yet votes from these stations formed part of the final national tally.
8. There was evidence of cheating in a significant member of polling stations. Although the majority of the court, for reasons that we anxiously await, declined to annul the elections results, it is clear that a cheat was returned as an elected President of Uganda! UPC cannot and will never accept a person proven as a cheat by the most superior court in the land to assume the moral authority to lead a nation that aspires to be counted among the civilized and democratic world.
4. The final report of the NEMGROUP-U has also documented a long litany of acts of intimidation and rigging that are surprisingly called "malpractices and irregularities".In our view conduct that violates the law is criminal and deserves punishment.
5. Owing to the failure of the Supreme Court to annul the fraudulent electoral process this nation has been plunged into a political crisis. We have an "elected President" who emerged winner through a flawed rigged and cheated process. He is illegitimate and will lead an illegitimate government for five years. He will be holding power without the will of the people. We are left with a situation where the sovereignty of the people has been compromised.
6. The actions of Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni after these elections have compounded the political crisis.
1. Instead of opening up political space to his opponents, who are growing in number every other day, the Lt. General has withheld his consent to the Political Organisations Bill and sent it back to Parliament. The highly restrictive bill had opened up a little political space for political parties to operate at district level. Now the Lt. General wants them to be restricted to operate at their headquarters. After 15 years in power Museveni is still so scared of facing organised political opposition.
2. While continuing to tighten the grips on the political opposition he has finally transformed the Movement into an openly declared political party. In the forthcoming parliamentary elections there will be primaries to select Movement candidates in each constituency to contest against alleged multipartists. Clearly the Constitution principle of individual merit has been thrown to the winds. Instead the Movement has matured into a political party that will compete against itself in the forthcoming elections. Uganda has now been turned into a one party state contrary to the spirit of article 75 of the Constitution.
3. By appointing a serving UPDF officer to head the Police force, the roles of the Police and of the Army that are constitutionally different and separate have been fused. The President as Commander in Chief will, on a day to day basis, now be in position to direct Major General Wamala Katumba on how the Police Force should be administered. The Police Force, as a Constitutional organ of government, has now been made a department of the Army. This is not a coincidence but part of the strategy to miltarise the country further and to lay ground for further repression especially of the political opposition. The appointment was followed by the sacking of several senior police officers. Initially the world was made to believe that the sacking was in implementation of the Sebutinde report. We are now told that the real reason is because the police did not support Museveni in the Presidential elections and that he has now caught up with them and that by 2006 the police will be able to vote properly (see front page of New Vision of Monday, May 7, 2001). Clearly Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni wants to create a personal police force loyal to himself. His ambitious programme also envisages the creation of his own Movement judiciary after he is done with the police force. Clearly by 2006 when be bids for a third term in office all hitherto nominally independent state organs will be under his firm control. In short the state of Uganda will have become personal property.
4. Already there are growing signs of the growth of intolerance to people holding rival political positions. Arrests of opposition leaders on fake charges; sacking of those opposed or perceived to be opposed to government have increased and repression at the village levels have all been reported to be on the increase.
5. Instead of sorting out the political mess that he has created in Uganda, he has resorted to misinformation. He has again tried to drag UPC and its leader Milton Obote in his problems. On the occasion of opening the Workers House Museveni was at it again. He claimed that UPC took workers money to build Uganda House. Of course Museveni knows the truth that:
1. UPC is not a body corporate and does not own Uganda House. In the Consent Judgment signed by Museveni's government and MOF, the owner of the house is clearly stated to be MOF.
2. UPC has never borrowed or taken money from NSSF.
3. It was UPC government's programme to build the Worker's House. On 15^th March, 1970 Dr. Apollo Milton Obote laid a foundation stone in the basement of the Workers House.
4. It was UPC which after the decay caused by Idi Amin revived the NSSF by enactment of an enabling law (Act No. 8 of 1985) and the revival of the mobilisation of workers savings. It is the savings accumulated since 1985 that saw the completion of the Workers House.
5. Museveni should carry his own lubengo.
7. It is now very clear that the people of this country have been pushed to the wall. All lawful and peaceful avenues to challenge the illegitimate actions of the monolithic regime as UPC has always advocated have now been closed and all indications are that as a last resort survival strategy the people of Uganda may resort to violent and illegal actions to restore Uganda to constitutional order and to stop further political disintegration. Since UPC is debarred from organising at the grassroot level, it is not in a position to dissuade or deter any persons who may be driven to take the violent or illegal path.
8. To avert this impending costly and painful resort to violence, UPC calls upon:
1. (a) All citizens of Uganda and the world who cherish a peaceful and democratic Uganda to condemn the undemocratic developments that have taken place in Uganda and those that continue to unfold. Every one should join the clarion call to a return to the democratic path that was abandoned by the NRM government decades ago. Citizens stand up to be counted.
2. All political parties, organisations and civil organisations to join hands to avert this looming catastrophy by openly opposing the unfolding imposition of one party rule.
3. The government of Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to:
1. Immediately open up political space by allowing political parties to freely organise from the village lever right up to their headquarters.
2. Immediately enter into principled round table dialogue with all political parties and stakeholders of Uganda with a view of chatting a path out of the political mess in which the country has been dragged. We call for the convening of the national conference by an impartial authority to redirect the political path of the country.
3. Immediately cease all acts of political arrests, repression, persecution and sackings.
4. Immediately stop the miltirisation and personalisation of the Uganda Police force and state organs.
5. Immediately withdraw the army from internal policing and from the Democratic Republic of Congo where the UPDF and persons close to Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni have been accused of plundering that country's wealth.

   Museveni was described in the UN experts' report as a godfather.

6. Disband the Constitutional Review Commission and the Electoral Commission pending the outcome of the national conference.
9. UPC earnestly hopes that its desperate call for urgent remedial action will be respondent to by the government of Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the International Community and all citizens of Uganda to clearly avert the catastrophy that is likely to engulf this country.

FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY.

JAMES RWANYARARE

CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENTIAL POLICY COMMISION

UGANDA PEOPLES CONGRESS

9^thMay, 2001