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New Vision (Kampala)
October 31, 2003 Posted to the web October 31, 2003
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Kampala
If it were not for the mistakes of Obote and Amin, Uganda would today be another Singapore.
About two weeks ago, I addressed the East African Lawyers' Association in the Botanical Garden, Entebbe. The topic was about "Terrorism" and some other points.
I spoke at length about those topics. My speech is being transcribed and it will be published soon. Since I was rushing to go to Soroti, I permitted only a few questions.
One of the questions was about the so-called "Third Term" - meaning limits or otherwise on the Presidential Terms of office. When I came to answer the questions, I touched on this one also.
My response was similar to what I told the delegates of NRM - NEC at Kyankwanzi, last March. At that time, I had told the delegates that who leads would not be important if the Vision of the future is crystallised and well understood by leaders, cadres and the populace.
In that case, whoever is the leader, will implement the Vision. At Entebbe, just as at Kyankwanzi, I wondered why so much energy is spent on who leads rather than on what needs to be done for the future.
Once we clearly understand what needs to be done, then we can better judge who, among us, is better suited to lead us in order to do the needful. I said that the puerile obsession with the "Chair" as some, incongruously, describe leadership, to the exclusion of the more fundamental issue of the Vision, has made me to think more about this whole question.
That was that. Our wonderful "The New Vision" did not report much about my two hours' speech about terrorism. Instead, the screaming headline was: "I may stay in power if pushed - Museveni".
According to The Monitor of October 12, 2003, our dear Okumu Reagan, then, declared that "Museveni will be pushed".
The Monitor quoted Reagan as saying that "Museveni would be taking a big risk if he tried to cling to power". Furthermore, Okumu Reagan says: " It gives the impression that the President will hand over power according to his wishes".
Further still, reagan is quoted as saying, "The Army belongs to the people".
Dear Hon. Reagan Okumu, Who said Museveni will cling to power and will use the Army to do so? Then other anti -NRM leaders are quoted pouring vituperative venom.
I would like to guide the Movement supporters as follows. In 1993 the NRM caused the democratic elections for a Constituent Assembly to debate the Odoki draft Constitution. It is the first time, ever, in the history of Uganda that the people of Uganda wrote a Constitution through democratically elected delegates.
This Constitution was, finally, promulgated in 1995. The electoral exercises of 1996 and 2001 and, indeed, the running of the country for the last eight years have been on the basis of that Constitution.
Neither the NRM nor myself have ever violated an iota of this Constitution in any way, even where the provisions were inconvenient from the point of view of implementing our Vision.
The ones that have been violating the Constitution, with nasty results for some parts of our country, have been the terrorists of Kony, ADF, etc. that are never condemned by the likes of Okumu Reagan.
Instead, all vituperation is reserved for Museveni's "anticipated" violation of the Constitution by "clinging to power".
Why is it that Okumu Reagan, Semwogerere, Dombo, Rwanyarare, Lukwago and their likes do not condemn the bloody violation, not only of our Constitution, but the very basic rights of our people in the North (right of life and the right for one to enjoy the property he has earned through his sweat)?
Instead, the likes of Okumu Reagan pressurise us to "negotiate" with the killers, the violators of the Constitution and the violators of our people's most basic rights.
Okumu Reagan threatens to take up arms against the "anticipated" future violators of the constitution. Why has he not taken up arms against the persistent violators of the Constitution - Kony terrorists?
If one is such a great "defender" of the Constitution, he cannot only defend it against the "anticipated" violators while he is busy apologising for the present persistent violators. Could it be that these Constitution defenders are, in fact, the civilian face of the Constitution violators, of terrorism and of the primitive fascism that Uganda has so much suffered from in the past? Whenever people, eventually, come from the bush, they tell us that there are those, among the political class, that discourage the rebels from coming here.
Now it is my turn to advise, or even warn, those who behave in unprincipled ways and use positions of leadership to apologise for the criminal violation of our Constitution and our people's basic rights.
We have waged a protracted struggle against reactionaries and fascist criminals. We have fought for (and subsequently defended) the right of our people to govern themselves through democratic processes anchored on the principle of one adult one vote by secret ballot, which the previous regimes had denied them.
The killers of the RCs in Acholi, Lango, Teso, Kasese, Bundibugyo, Kabarole and Busia have been enemies of democracy. They have been killing the people's voice. We cannot, therefore, be associated with any decisions that are not democratic. We cannot "cling to power" using the Army or any other undemocratic means.
The NRA and, later on, UPDF are the ones that enabled the setting up of the RC system that, in time, blossomed into the present Presidential, Parliamentary, Local Government system. NRA and UPDF have since defended that people's power against primitive fascists such as Kony, ADF, FOBA, PRA and those who were killing RCs in Busia based in Kenya. UPDF will, therefore, only defend what the people will decide on democratically.
UPDF, under my direct leadership, is right now in the process of exterminating the terrorists of Kony who have caused so much haemorrhage to our people in the North Central Uganda and, more recently, in the North East.
They spurned offers of peace, encouraged, in part, by the urban-based unprincipled politicians. We have patiently built up the capacity of UPDF in spite of the obstructions by the donors.
Our mission of defeating terrorism, encouraged or condoned by unprincipled politicians, will be achieved.
Those that have killed innocent Ugandan will perish like happened to "Cobra" (the killer of the Kichwamba students), Eregu, Joseph Lagira (the kidnapper of the Aboke girls), etc. unless they respond to the Government Amnesty before the end of December 2003.
After that the Amnesty will not apply to the terrorist ringleaders. However, it will continue to apply to the rank and file of those that were press-ganged into terrorism through kidnappings.
Moreover, the UPDF and the patriotic people of Uganda are ready to defeat any new adventures such as those threatened by Okumu Reagan.
Indeed, last March we moved into the Ituri region of Congo and dismantled the PRA gangs of (Kiza Besigye, Mande, Kyakabale, etc) that had been gathered to attack our country from the West again - similar to what happened on the 13th of November 1996, when ADF attacked Mpondwe from Congo.
Our potential today is even greater than at any time. The obstructions by the donors in respect of building our Army is being sorted out.
This under-spending on Defence has, in the past, led adventurers to think that they can attack our country and perpetuate the unconstitutional, anti-democracy activities of the terrorists and opportunists. We have, finally, reached a reasonable modus vivendus with the donors on this issue.
The unprincipled leaders must discontinue issuing threats to the Constitutional re-evaluation exercise. The Constitutional review will go on in all its aspects. Nobody will stop it. All issues will be decided on democratically, as the Constitution and the relevant laws provide.
There may be aspects one likes and others one does not like. However, if it will be decided democratically, so it will be. That is what democracy is all about - the people's will; not the politicians' will.
When the time comes, I will come out (with those who think like me) and advocate for any position we think to be in the interest of the country. Our aim will be to convince the people in their entirety, or the relevant organs, to see our point of view.
If the people accept our point of view and say so in a democratic exercise, so it will be. If they do not agree with our view, so it will be. Therefore, threats and the agitation are futile. They will not be tolerated.
There are one hundred radio stations in Uganda and numerous newspapers. Many of these are being used, all the time, to decampaign the NRM and myself.
Why then riot or issue threats? Simply put your point of view using these channels. The people of the relevant organs will decide. We should have contention of ideas; not contention in hooliganism.
Nevertheless, what I told the lawyers remains valid. What Africa is crying for is a vision, not just leaders taking turns (zaamu, oluwalo, orubu, etc.) at leadership.
The correct vision of the Movement has caused dramatic changes in the society albeit that certain aspects have not yet been addressed. Vision - poverty has been Africa's curse.
Otherwise, Africa is rich in leaders taking turns at leadership. The wonderful paper "Monitor" tried to pontificate on the issue of the absence of vision by their allies, the opposition.
The Monitor writes in the Editorial: "the issue, therefore, is not that the several politicians speaking out do not have a vision, rather it is that millions of Ugandans do not have an opportunity to share or pursue their vision".
In other words, leaders cannot have a vision unless they form political parties.
First of all, nobody stopped any person to form a political party. Indeed, DP and UPC have maintained their offices even under the NRM.
Under POA, even new political parties could be created. Therefore, the right to associate has never been interfered with, at any time, since the advent of the NRM Administration in 1986.
The only times the right of association was proscribed was in the times of Obote I (since 1969), Amin (1971 -1979) and, de facto, during Obote II (1981 - 1985) because, in the latter period, although there was a window dressing opposition (Semwogerere), since opposition elements could be murdered any time ( Sebugwawo, Kabazaire, Kananura, Bitembe, Ddamulira Vitaali, etc), there was great fear to express any one's opinion.
During the NRM time, not only was the freedom of association never interfered with, the ability to express one's opinions and propagate them was enhanced a thousand fold by scores of private radio stations and TV stations not to mention Newspapers, even the evil ones like The Monitor.
The only aspect that was controlled was transforming the parties into mass parties (opening branches).
We stopped the pre-mature opening of these branches of DP, UPC, UPM and CP because (especially for DP and UPC) those parties had been formed on a sectarian basis and had proved not only a failure but also quite a disaster for our country.
Notice the collapse of the regimes (Mutesa regime in 1966; Obote I regime in 1971; Amin regime in 1979; UNLF regimes in 1980 - Lule, Binaisa, Muwanga - Obote II regime in 1985; the Okello regime 1986) with the attendant state inspired mass killings and the destruction of the economy.
Can the young people imagine that between 1973 - 1986 their parents could not get soap, salt, paraffin, clothes, scholastic materials from shops in Uganda? That is when the three triplet words, symbolising total collapse of the formal economy, came into existence: magendo (smuggling), kibanda (illegal foreign currency market - black market), and kusamula (speculation in goods).
Infrastructure collapsed. To travel to Kabale from Kampala took 10 hours because the road was impassable. I could not get tap water in the house I was staying in, in Kololo, for the two years I was in that house. 500,000 people were killed by the Government during Amin's time; 300,000 people were killed by the Obote two regime in Luweero.
That is why the NRM (the first non-sectarian political grouping in the history of Uganda) told the parties to remain in existence but to concentrate on purifying and crystallising their vision; and even propagate whatever ideas they have through the radios and TV; but not to open branches yet.
No such crystallisation of a vision has come forth from these parties. Instead, they either issue forth the old poison of sectarianism; or just concentrate on when NRM will vacate power; when Museveni will vacate power.
NRM or Museveni vacate power so that you do what? You repeat your crimes using State power as happened before (Nile Mansions room 211, Nakasero State Research)? Even today those sectarian groups have been killing Ugandans by encouraging Kony to do so on their behalf.
How much more damage would they do if they had State power like they had before? Vacating power for Museveni is not a problem.
I can even resign today if I saw that my services are not required by the future of Uganda or the strategic future of Africa. NRM vacating power, however, is another proposition.
NRM is the only Ugandan group that has evolved a vision for the country. The NRM also has a correct vision for Uganda as part of Africa. We shall work with all our means to ensure that NRM continues to lead Uganda for a long time as long as it continues to have a superior vision vis avis the other groups.
When I said that the more the anti-Museveni, anti-NRM groups clamour for NRM or Museveni vacating power, the more we shall defend our own specific stand on critical issues, I meant exactly that.
We shall not defend our stand by using UPDF or doing any political manipulation. We shall mobilise the people of Uganda like never before by explaining to them the issues involved
We shall expose the bankruptcy of the anti-NRM and anti-Museveni groups. We shall, democratically defend right and oppose wrong. It is our democratic right to do so. Nobody can stop this. We shall not compromise the fundamental interests of our country's, or Africa's, future just because of opportunists.
However, I need to reject here and now the assertion, indeed the platitude, that one cannot have a vision unless he forms a political party and, more importantly (according to these groups), transforms that party into a mass one by opening branches, never mind the venom of sectarianism they will dispense in the population.
This is all erroneous. You can have a vision and express it without having a party. When Adam Smith wrote his "Wealth of Nations" of 1776, which became the manifesto for capitalism, he had no political party.
When Karl Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, they had no political Party with branches. When Maynard Keynes identified aggregate demand as the Primary stimulus for sustained growth, a factor that lay a basis for the subsequent emergence of the welfare state system in the West whereby the unemployed would be paid unearned money so that they could continue buying and consuming as a way of keeping the factories running, he had no political party.
When Moses went to the Mountain to receive the 10 commandments, he went alone. Bhudda had no Political Party.
Even when parties are formed, they do not have to be mass parties abi-initial. A serious party can start as a study group of a few people that studies and designs solutions for society.
Indeed, when Lenin started his communist party, he made it clear that it was a "vanguard" as opposed to being "a mass" party.
It was a party for those admitted into its ranks on the basis of understanding the Communist ideology. When we wrote the draft for the NRM's Ten Points Programme in 1974 (still operating under FRONASA), we had no mass party with branches, access to radios or newspapers. We were a clandestine organisation partly operating in exile.
Therefore, the obscurantist idea that you cannot evolve a vision unless you first form a mass party must be rejected and exposed for its shallowness.
The idea that it is only when people associate, that ideas, "start to emerge" is nothing but eclectism (collecting scattered and incoherent ideas) and an admission that those clamouring for the "chair" have no "vision" or have a defective vision they fear to commit on paper.
Yes, as part of social and economic investigation, you should, indeed you must, collect data and information from many sources, including the population.
That is, however, not the same as using the pretext of not having mass parties to explain the poverty of vision, characteristic of many political groups in Africa.
Uganda has had the misfortune of having most myopic political groups and players. Obote's Nakivubo Announcements that destroyed the young entrepreneurial class. Idi Amin's idiotic uprooting of the Indian entrepreneurs that sent us back almost thirty years.
I can categorically assert that if it was not for the mistakes of Obote and Amin, Uganda would today be a Singapore. Yet Obote's party is now parading around, once more, as one of the groups that has got "a vision" for Uganda.
However, that vision can only come when they re-open branches in the country premised on sectarianism!! Uganda, under the Movement Vision, is rapidly moving towards becoming not just a Singapore, but, a South Korea in spite of our numerous disadvantages including being far from the Sea.
Our vision, with various emphases according to the demands of the moment, has been to build an integrated, independent and self-sustaining economy (NRM Programme point No.5).
We have now elaborated this further to say that our Vision is to develop a private sector-led, export-oriented economy and to work for Pan-Africanist integration so as to widen opportunities for African enterprise.
The other day, I was looking at the beautiful music of the Ndere troupe. If such a group were in the USA, they would be billionaires today because they would have a wider space to operate in and, therefore, bigger clientele.
However, given the straitjacket of the colonial boundaries, maintained in the neo-colonial era, the African artists never thrive but wither away. Congo musicians, in the brief periods there was peace in Congo, thrived better partly because of the wider space provided by the wide expanses of Congo.
There are seven million people in Kinshasa alone. I notice a number of African musicians - Chaka Chaka, Lucky Dube, Oliver Ngoma, Saida Karoli, Shala Mwana coming to Uganda because of the liberalisation we introduced since the 1980s. They can come in freely, get out whenever they wish and take out their earnings without asking the permission of the Governor of the Central Bank.
If Pan-Africanism was consolidated, not only the artists of Africa, but all the entrepreneurs would thrive.
In The New Vision of October 24 page 23, there was an article with the title: "130 years of jeans". That story shows the great opportunities to business people by the huge USA market - able to transform ideas into big business.
What is the alternative vision of the anti-NRM, anti-Museveni groups other than taking turns (vawo nange ntulewo) in the "chair"? It is not a question of the "chair", it is a question of the "Vision". That is what I told the East African lawyers at Entebbe.
There is a line taken by certain Movement elements (not very different from the sectarian groups). It goes like this:
"The ideas about the Movement vision are all right. However, the problem is the "Chair".
First of all, the question of the vision is not "all right" because the Movement Vision is, in reality, being fought by even those within the Movement. Our private-led strategy is always being fought in Parliament, for instance.
The problems for the Privatisation of UCB started with an MP proposing that any subsequent buyer of that bank had to undertake to maintain all the branches whether they were making money or not.
As a consequence of this proposal, many big potential buyers (such Chase Manhattan Bank of New York) withdrew. That is how, eventually, the Malaysians came in.
Stanbic was about to move away on account of harassment by political leaders. I had to move in very strongly to stop another sabotage.
Uganda Airlines died "democratically", not to be traced over after, on account of not grasping the Movement Vision. I had no alternative but to remove the artificial feeding tube (state subsidies) to the Airline in order to allow it to die (euthanasia - mercy killing).
I did this because I knew that air-travel would be better off, Uganda Airlines or no.
The AGOA law could not pass through Parliament for a long time. Why? The recent attitude towards the strike of the Tri-star girls at Bugolobi by certain political leaders shows that the Movement vision is not well understood.
Many companies in the USA have now placed orders with our factories including the Bugolobi one. At that very moment of breaking the waters (emi - the cow's fore-waters before giving birth) somebody initiates the process of killing the baby to be born by paralysing the process.
If we do not fulfil the orders given to our factories by foreign buyers because of strikes, how will they give us additional orders? If the foreign companies do not give us orders, how will the factories be sustained?
If the factories are not sustained, how will employment be generated? How will export earnings be realised? How will the tax base be widened?
Anybody who encourages strikes among our workers at the very moment we are struggling to break into external markets is worse than Kony (enemy).
We shall defeat Kony, we shall defeat illiteracy, we shall defeat disease, etc. as long as our factories break into the markets and sustain the effort. To interfere with this for any reason is to make yourself the worst enemy of our future prosperity.
If there are any points the workers want to raise about the working conditions at Bugolobi, they should do so in a peaceful manner. Those, however, should be handled in a disciplined way without disruption for our export drive.
Besides, Ugandans need to realise one factor: their work ethics is far below what is required to compete with others for our future's sake. In 1987 we repaired and refurbished the former Apollo Hotel (now Sheraton).
After refurbishing it, I decided to get external managers because I did not trust the capacity of the local ones.
Eventually, I hired Sheraton to manage that hotel for a fee. Soon the new management got conflicts with workers because of the former's strictness.
The new management would not allow the workers to use the Company's telephones to ring friends; they would search the workers as they were leaving work in order to ensure that they did not steal company's property e.g. spoons, etc. There was threat of "strike".
When I heard of that, I told the management to stand firm because that strictness was exactly what we needed to learn from outsiders. I could not listen to the stories of batuyisa nge'ensolo (they treat us like animals) when the managers are stopping the workers from stealing company property.
The Ugandans need the culture of hard work, diligence, strictness and fidelity to their employers. Those who abuse our people's dignity (racist language, demanding sex from female workers, etc.) will be found out and punished. We do not need a strike (which, in effect, means hurting ourselves) for this to be done.
Any way, the question I wanted to pose as I pen off was: "if the vision of the Movement is well understood, how does it come that actions negate the realisation of that Vision?" Deeds speak louder than words. We shall know them by their fruits.
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