By Richard M. Kavuma
July 2, 2003
Lira Municipality Member of Parliament Cecilia Ogwal, a member of Uganda People’s Congress, was once known as Uganda’s Iron Lady. Lately, however, she has not been given to saying much in public. Richard M. Kavuma asked Ms Ogwal about… the silence, and about her party’s strategy as Uganda moves toward multiparty politics — and more: -
What is behind the silence? I think what the parties have done is very good; to give Ugandans a chance to see the Movement for what it is. Because whatever we have said, people have not taken us seriously. That is why I have deliberately kept quiet over the last one year. So when is the UPC going to register? Registering the party is not a big deal for us. The issue is how we can shape the political landscape for the good of all Uganans, not registration of parties. But the law requires you to register in order, for instance, to hold a political rally. You see we don’t need to register for UPC to exist. There are Members of Parliament who can stand up and say ‘I m a member of UPC’. Did they have to wait for the party to be registered to be elected? I want to make this clear; registration of UPC is not an issue. On the issue of your party’s leadership, how long is Dr Milton Obote going to run UPC from exile? I think those who keep saying that parties are disorganised or that they are undemocratic have not followed political developments in this country. You know that right from 1986, when the Movement came to power, political parties have been banned. Now, how did you expect us to organise our leadership right from the grassroots up to the national level when political parties are banned? But is Dr Obote willing to relinquish leadership? Dr Obote is a democrat. He claims he is a democrat and I think he is a democrat. He was elected to be the party president in 1980. He never imposed himself as Museveni has imposed himself on the Movement. I don’t remember a time when Museveni was elected as a leader of the Movement contesting against other people. Nobody can blame Dr Obote for continuing to run the party from exile. Actually it is the Movement, through its oppression, which has assisted Obote to remain at the leadership of UPC. You are talking of competing for power, what would UPC offer this country? I think the whole country knows us by our pragmatism. The country knows UPC’s ability to deliver as a party. Looking at the country, torn apart after 20 years, UPC has a big challenge to unite the country in its diversity of political beliefs and ideologies. We have a challenge to work out policies that will be pro-people, a policy that takes care of the poor; a policy that has a human face. Not a policy that only looks at the World Bank and doesn’t care whether the World Bank is wrong. UPC abolished federo but you now say you support Buganda’s demand for it. Are you trying to bait the Baganda? I think what one can say is that politics is very dynamic. What was prevalent in 1960s is not prevalent today. I know that there were reasons that led to the abolition of the monarchy but that did not abolish federalism. We have agreed that mistakes do happen and probably mistakes did happen the 1960s. The way forward is to come up with a compromise that would take care of all interests. Looking at the 1962 Constitution, there were a lot of favours from the central government to Buganda. What we came up with in the Constituent Assembly was a model that would acceptable to all. Federalism in itself as a political system is not only good for those who promote monarchism but good for all. Not just decentralisation? Federalism devolves power to the district to the region, and entrenches that power. It is not like decentralisation, which leaves that devolution shaky – where it can be tampered with by the central government. So I support the federal approach to decentralisation. We proposed that if we create federal regions in Uganda, they should enjoy equal treatment from the centre. We promoted that nationalistic model of federalism and in fact it was the Baganda themselves – the representative of Buganda in the CA — who rejected it. In fact I was very distressed at the manner in which the Movement manipulated the Baganda members into the CA to shoot down that arrangement. Why would the Movement not want federo in Buganda? You know very well that dictatorships hate power centres because they fear any kind of opposition. One of these power centres is the political parties and the first thing the Movement did was to ban parties. Any dictatorship would fear Buganda because of its big population, its being the centre of our economic activity and because of its long history. Any dictatorship would not want Buganda to be semi-independent of the central government. How soon do you see UPC recapturing state power? You see that is a process. We don’t believe in military take-overs. We can only capture power through a democratic process. What we are waiting for is the undemocratic provisions to be removed from the various laws and this will free the hand of UPC. Then we can mobilise our members, restructure our party and go to the people of Uganda with an alternative policy. I know from my experience and from the knowledge we have of the country, there is no way that any other party will have a policy framework that will be better than ours. President Museveni accuses your party of having messed up the country. In eastern Uganda, the government has failed to protect the people. Cattle-rustling has robbed the people of their animal populations. In the west, the government failed to protect the people from ADF. There is the Kanungu horror and the Kichwamba horror. The way tribalism is entrenched is deeper than we have ever experienced in this country. All these are negative forces that run against the NRM. How will they fight against them? They would say that UPC committed horrendous atrocities in Luwero. So whatever happened in Luwero, it is Museveni who is responsible: because he was the one recruiting and the method of recruiting we now know. If you don’t kill, you cannot recruit. That is the method of recruiting for any guerrilla movement. Museveni cannot deceive the people of Luwero anymore. The people of Luwero know who killed them. They know who is responsible for the skulls that were displayed there. Is that enough to win over Ugandans to your side? That is not all. We haven’t talked about poverty. Really, even in Buganda where there have been no war, why is poverty so deep? Tell me, why? It means there is something fundamentally faulty with the economic policy of the government. And do you think a Muganda who knows the value of economic power would vote this government back to power after he has suffered poverty for over 20 years? But the party is divided between your faction and the Uganda House. I want to make this very clear: The party as a party has never been divided into factions. The fact is that there were disagreements between some individuals in the leadership on the way to run the party. The main issue of contention was, ‘do we or do we not remain active’ despite the oppressive politics of the Movement. As far as I am concerned, I believe that politics is a game. You are either at it practically or you are out of it. You are at it, you have a following; you are out of it you have no following. Society requires leadership at every time. You can’t say, ‘you people remain there without a leader till I come back’. If you are not there people will always find somebody else to rally behind. Society does not accept a vacuum. That is why some of us believed leaving a vacuum would kill the party. I strongly believe that if some of us did not persevere and challenge the Movement at that early stage, it was going to be extremely difficult to break their heart (of the Movement). And that’s why I am a very happy person. I am very happy that I was part of that force that broke the ice. We were very calculative in the way we did our politics. But also, I ought to tell you that President Obote now approves of participation not only in the parliamentary elections but also in the Local Council elections. Once now Dr Obote and the other leaders have agreed that participation is good for the party, I don’t see any other issue of contention. What do you make of the debate on the third term? For me I saw what the Movement wanted right from the start. A political organisation cannot claim to be democratic when its foundation is based on militarism. The Movement came to power by the barrel of the gun to entrench dictatorship. Did you ever believe that at some stage there would be democracy promoted by the same Movement? I told people before the 2001 elections through the FM radio that I saw Museveni coming to stand for the third term under this Constitution. The same excuse he gave in 1989 for extending his rule is the same he is giving now: “Wait for the Constitutional review process.” I want Ugandans to know that the Constitutional Review Commission was formed before the 2001 elections just to work for the next agenda, and that agenda is the third term. Are you saying the third term is a done deal? Ugandans can prevent it if they are serious, if they do not surrender to manipulation intrigue and political buyouts. That is the challenge for us all Ugandans. For my party and me, we shall not stop exerting pressure to expose the anti-democratic practices in the Movement. How long have you been in politics? I have been active in active politics for about 13 years now. What do you do outside parliamentary duties? I give more attention to my family and I am also involved in Christian activities such as fellowship and helping out. I am also involved in some businesses. I had Lira Millers but that has now been disposed of. People used to say it was government sponsored. Let those journalists now explain how it then collapsed. It is said you were a chief supplier of government If I had big contracts with government Lira Millers would not have collapsed. But also what people should know is that anyone in business is a taxpayer. No taxpayer is barred from trading freely and that includes accessing government contracts. Nobody can set up a business and put a tag “multiparty only”. |
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
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