[Ugnet] Museveni Will Use Army in '06

Former Army Commander Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu has warned that President Yoweri Museveni will be tempted to use the army to win the 2006 elections.

Muntu, the National Mobilisation Coordinator of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), accused the president of having used the army to win the 2001 elections.

He was speaking at the launching of the FDC branch in Bugiri district on Monday.

He said Museveni will be impelled to use the army with much more ferocity in 2006 because he has not gained new support after the 2001 elections.

Muntu said Museveni's honest supporters should advise him against clinging onto power.

"Since 2001, what I know and what I am sure you also know is that Museveni has not added any support, instead he has lost," Muntu said.

"The fear he had in 2001 caused him to use the army, which we built with blood, to involve them in elections. [So] what is he likely to do in 2006?" Muntu asked.

Muntu, Uganda's longest serving army commander (1990-1998), retired from the army in August last year.

He said although Museveni had a chance of winning the 2001 election fairly, fear drove him to use the army to influence voters.

"How can you fight for 40 years that Museveni has been fighting to liberate this country and again use the army to beat people because you want them to vote you to stay in power?" Muntu asked.

Museveni faced stiff challenge from Col. Dr Kizza Besigye in 2001.

Besigye petitioned court alleging electoral malpractices, including violence occasioned by the army.

The Supreme Court unanimously agreed there were gross election irregularities but three of the five judges held that the malpractices did not affect the final result in a substantial manner.

An investigation by a parliamentary select committee also condemned the army for interfering in the elections.

The committee blamed Maj. Kakooza Mutale and his paramilitary group, Kalangala Action Plan (Kap), and other serving army officers for interfering in the electoral process.

"We are tired; for 40 years the country has been fighting. War is not like a party," Muntu said at the FDC launching.

"We are begging the President, 'please step aside,' but he has refused to answer. We have been asking him to pronounce himself on whether he will stand, he has refused to answer. We have asked him to clarify on the role of the army in the transition process, he has refused to answer. We have asked him to explain if there will be a level playing field, he has refused to answer. What kind of arrogance is this? These are legitimate questions," he said.

Museveni's last constitutional term expires in 2006, but the government is pushing for an amendment of the Constitution to remove the two five-year term limits on the presidency.

The FDC Vice Chairman, Prof. Morris Latigo, said at the FDC function that Museveni has for the last 19 years "presided over a government of deceit" that has led the population into an abyss of poverty singing lullabies of economic progress.

"They have been singing the song: 'we can sleep' while things were going wrong," he said.

"They have been acting like a rat which blows air on your foot as it eats it away while you sleep. By the time you wake up you find your leg hurting," he said.

Latigo said the signs of a failed economy are evident in police stations where officers share former mortuary houses and pit latrines as residences and in military barracks where soldiers sleep in grass thatched houses (mama ingia pole pole).

The FDC spokesman, Mr Wafula Oguttu, said Museveni has expired and should quit power in 2006.

Other speakers included East African MP Wandera Ogalo, MPs Abdu Katuntu (Bugweri), Ms Alice Alaso (Soroti Woman), Ms Salaam Musumba (Bugabula), Mr Wilfred Kajeke (Youth), Mr Nandala Mafabi (Budadiri West), Mr Christopher Kibanzanga (Busongora South) and Mr Martin Wandera (Workers).

Muntu warned Resident District Commissioners, district internal security officers and other government functionaries to stop intimidating the opposition.

"There are RDCs who are good. There some DISOs and local leaders who are good and there are bad ones. Those RDCs, DISOs and police threatening and intimidating people should go slowly," Muntu said.

Bugiri is the eighth FDC district office to be opened in the country in the recent past.

[Ugnet] Museveni Will Use Army in '06 - Muntu

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