DP Starts Anti-3rd Term Campaign
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New Vision (Kampala)February 13, 2004
Posted to the web February 14, 2004
Henry Mukasa
Kampala THE Democratic Party (DP) has named an 11-man committee to lead a national anti-third term campaign and vowed it will not be cowed by the police and security agencies.The team, dubbed as the 'DP steering committee for mobilisation of masses', was announced at the party headquarters yesterday.
The committee chairman, Ssebuliba Mutumba (Kawempe South), said the key issues in the campaign would be the cabinet proposal to lift the third term limit, the Supreme Court ruling that annulled the Constitutional Amendment Act and its implications, deepening poverty and the nagging war in northern Uganda.He said opening the term limits was against what is in the preamble of the Constitution.
Mutumba dispelled fear that the group would fall silent once confronted by Police, which has crushed pluralists rallies in the past."Our undying will to victory as a party, and in line with aspirations of Ugandans, forms the solid foundation on which we have anchored our focus. To create a Uganda that is good for us and for those yet unborn is our sole guiding principle," Mutumba added.
The committee vice-chairman, Kasiano Wadri (Terego), warned that the time to fold arms while injustices are committed and human rights eroded had ended. He said the committee was determined to interface with the grassroots people."There's no way we are going to die while lying down. We have to go and meet our people whether we shall stop bullets or teargas," Wadri said.
He said the team, composed of mainly MPs, would cling on its parliamentary immunity and reach out to the people."If you have not heard it in the past, here it now," Wadri said when challenged why the MPs had not used their offices before.
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
