First, she has the misfortune of being the sister of Mbarara Municipality MP Winnie Byanyima. Winnie in turn has the misfortune of being the wife of the exiled Dr Kizza Besigye, the retired army colonel who dared President Yoweri Museveni during the 2001 presidential elections.
The grapevine has many stories why Museveni is so bitter and hard on the Besigyes, especially Winnie. But that is a story for next time.
The authorities say that they blocked Edith from crossing into Rwanda because in addition to being Winnie�s sister, she was also travelling with Besigye�s son, Anselm.
The Internal Affairs minister Ndugu Ruhakana Rugunda and the Police said that Edith had no �custodial authority� to travel with her nephew.
In the end, the Police harassed and dragged Edith, Anselm & Co. back to Mbarara. Edith was charged the following day before being released on police bond. Winnie who is out of the country attending a conference in India reacted angrily.
�I cannot understand how far the security agencies are determined to go to harass us,� she wrote in an e-mail message.
I interviewed Winnie a few weeks ago and had asked her whether she was scared of continued harassment and arrest.
Winnie told me that she was ready for anything because it would be just another �occupational hazard�.
That is quite a brave way to cope with her political nightmares given that she has been in and out of court seven times since the presidential elections in March 2001.
State security agents have also tried to frame Winnie by compromising her drivers.
The first driver was so infuriated by the State House officials involved that he fled into exile.
The next driver was also offered money to mobilise information to support false allegations against Winnie.
The poor fellow was not so clever and the intelligence officials ended up throwing him into jail. He wrote a letter to Winnie from his cell, confessing everything that state agents had asked him to do.
A third driver firmly declined to be used by the state agents.
Such has been Winnie�s life ever since she decided to support her husband Besigye�s presidential bid against Museveni in 2001.
To many Ugandans possessed of blind support for the Movement � and especially for Museveni the man � Winnie and Besigye are paying the heavy but well-deserved price of �treachery�.
I disagree.
I particularly find the latest action against the Byanyima and Besigye families morally and politically repulsive.
Why would someone said to be as �intelligent� as Museveni sink so low?
Why is Museveni harassing a three-year boy like Anselm whatever his parents may have done to annoy the President?
What kind of person shall Anselm become when he grows up, after suffering such political torture and harassment at a most tender age?
Let�s suppose Anselm were Museveni�s son. Is that how the President would have loved to see his three-year old child treated by state agents of another government?
What if Anselm became president one day? Is that the kind of treatment the president would love to see His Excellency Anselm Besigye Kyamufumba mete out on Kaguta Museveni�s great grand children?
A critic in London captured the absurdity of an all-powerful Museveni setting himself firmly against Anselm with this bold headline for his organisation�s press release: �A Three-Year-Old Opposition Leader Arrested!�
Back in 2000, a State House friend persuaded me to continue supporting President Museveni so that the man from Rwakitura could depart �peacefully� in 2006 without dragging the entire country down with him. I went along.
Unfortunately, every single action since the presidential elections in March 2006 seems like a betrayal of the trust so many Ugandans vested in Museveni.
Once, I would stubbornly refuse to believe some of the things the grapevine brought out about the President. Now I can believe almost anything.
Even before the latest one between little Anselm and Lt. Gen. Museveni, the grapevine was spreading that talk about another bizarre scene involving the President and his childhood friend Eriya Kategaya, the former deputy prime minister who was sacked in May 2003.
Both Museveni and Kategaya were reportedly somewhere in Ankole to attend a pre-wedding ceremony of former Attorney General Bart Katureebe�s daughter.
Kategaya arrived first and sat next to Mbarara�s Archbishop Bakyenga. Several dignitaries received Museveni at the entrance as he arrived.
The President walked toward his seat shaking hands with some of the other guests who had kept their places. Museveni was reportedly about to shake hands with Archbishop Bakyenga when he saw Kategaya.
He abruptly turned and walked away without acknowledging Kategaya and the archbishop.
An embarrassed master of ceremonies later whispered to the archbishop, begging him to go over and greet the President.
Bakyenga flatly refused � apparently to protest the President�s conduct.
The grapevine may have �sexed up� this story. Still, I find it so troubling that the President could treat Kategaya with so much hatred and disdain.
Those who have known them for much longer tell us that as young boys, the two were so close that they sometimes even shared girlfriends!
So why would Museveni humiliate and treat once very close and trusted allies such as Kategaya, Besigye and Winnie so ruthlessly?
The easy answer is that the President genuinely feels betrayed by his buddies who have become so �treacherous� to the extent of telling him to respect the Constitution and leave power in 2006. That is a simple one.
What should however really worry Ugandans more is the message behind Museveni�s humiliation and ruthless treatment of those who were once so close to him.
He is really harassing all of us � indirectly telling us to learn from what is happening to the Winnies and Kategayas of this world.
The President is saying; is any of you closer to me than Kategaya or Winnie was? If I can do this to them for crossing my path, how about the rest of you � good-for-nothings?
It is a more sophisticated way of doing what former President Idi Amin used to do to his imagined enemies who were lucky to remain alive.
Amin would reportedly let you see the mutilated body of your murdered colleague or order a firing squad in public � not so much to humiliate the dead and dying, but to put those still living on notice.
Such �shock and awe� approaches instil deathly fear and force most Ugandans to remain silent in the face of gross human rights abuses and other political crimes.
Today few Ugandans would wish to be in the Byanyimas� shoes. None would wish to see their children suffer little Anselm�s fate. In order to �protect� themselves, their families and businesses many Ugandans are now choosing complete silence and political anonymity instead of coming forward to tell their �beloved� king that he is naked.
The opportunistic ones cope by sycophantically mortgaging whatever remains of their conscience and principles to the powers that be.
That is why while Museveni initially wanted just one more �bonus� five-year term after 2006, there is now a chorus for him to remain president for life.
Whatever the case, never forget that all power belongs to the people. Soon Ugandans could borrow a leaf from our brothers and sisters in Equatoria Guinea who have recently exercised that �people�s power� to the extent of declaring President Teodoro Obiang Nguema a �God� who has �all power over men and things�!
lThe author may be reached on cellphone 077-200574 or e-mail:
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