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TRUTH OR DARE: Winnie Byanyima denies rebel links
By Emmy Allio and Hamis Kaheru
MBARARA Municipality MP Winnie Byanyima has taken her quarrels with President Yoweri Museveni and the Movement government to British legislators, whom she urged to ensure that aid to Uganda is cut.
However she denied that she has been soliciting support in the UK for James Opoka and Joseph Kony’s terrorists.
In London last weekend, Byanyima met several politicians from the House of Lords and House of Commons to lobby for support against some government policies.
“I expressed our concern about President Museveni’s increased military expenditure and taking away resources from other priority areas,” she said.
Security sources claim that on the morning of Sunday, November 24, Byanyima addressed two private meetings of key Reform Agenda and LRA sympathisers at Ryan Hotel in King’s Cross, London and she reportedly told them that James Opoka joined LRA with 39 Reform Agenda members.
Winnie, who is the Reform Agenda third vice-chairperson and wife of exiled former presidential candidate Col. Kizza Besigye, is also reported to have said that Opoka is now based in Pader, in the company of LRA commander Cosmas Adyebo.
Security sources said Winnie told the Ryan Hotel meeting that Museveni’s government would be toppled by July next year by armed rebellion. She is reported to have said that Reform Agenda is raising sh3bn for the operation.
Byanyima, however, denied the reports that she told the gathering that Opoka joined LRA rebels with 39 supporters and that they were in Pader from where she communicates with them on a satellite phone.
“I did not mention Opoka or Pader anywhere in my address. Supposing I knew where he was, would I be mad to go in a public meeting and say where he is?” she said.
She also denied saying that President Museveni’s regime would be defeated by July 2003, and that their army was ready but needed sh3bn which they were struggling to raise.
“That is crazy. I never talked about war.
I was not looking for money and I never asked for money. I only talked about Museveni failing to defeat Kony,” she said.
President Yoweri Museveni and the UPDF mid this year revealed that Opoka, Besigye’s personal aide in the failed 2001 presidential bid, had joined the LRA, the terrorist group responsible for death and mayhem in northern Uganda for the last 16 years.
Last month, The New Vision published a UPDF-supplied photograph showing Opoka with LRA fighters in the bush.
Despite the army’s evidence, Byanyima, Besigye and other Reform Agenda officials have hitherto denied any knowledge of Opoka’s LRA link and said the UPDF was framing him.
External Security Organisation (ESO) Director General, David Pulkol, told the Sunday Vision that he was not surprised by Byanyima’s disclosures on Opoka.
“We knew facts would speak for themselves, despite the attempts to conceal and deny,” he said.
Byanyima told Sunday Vision that among those she met in London was Tony Bauldy, a Conservative Party MP and chairman of the international development committee of the House of Commons.
She told the press at her new home in Kololo that Bauldy said Uganda received £86m in British aid last year, making it the second biggest recipient after India.
“From the discussions I got the impression that the British do not want to see their money spent on other issues except fighting poverty. They also don’t want to see that their money goes to other issues and all we raise locally goes to war,” she said.
Byanyima said the MPs asked for more information on military spending and the recent re-allocation in the budget so that they could raise it with Secretary for International Development, Claire Short.
“I am now compiling the information to send it quickly, together with information on unending insurgencies in the country and the government’s strategy of fighting as opposed to other ways of resolving conflicts,” she said.
She said the MPs also asked for in
formation about growing government repression, violation of human and political rights, the Political Organisation Act, Anti-terrorism Act and using military courts to try civilians.
“The MPs are still asking about the death of a student, (Jimmy) Higenyi, who was killed near Uganda House, and one Mamenero who died in CMI custody. They say they want to understand the picture more,” she said.
Security sources say Byanyima’s private meeting at Ryan Hotel was attended by about 100 Ugandans, among them Peter Otai (a deputy defence minister in the Obote II regime), Dr. Henry Obonyo (a minister in the Tito Okello regime), Major Okwiri Rabwoni (the London-based Besigye aide), Ronald Lutaya (UK DP chairman), Sam Akaki, and Alfred Banya (a self-styled human rights activist and a councillor for the ruling Labour Party in a London ward).
Also present were Joseph Pinytek Ocen, (the UPC London chairman), Dr. Christopher Twesigye and George Eron (a white man from a group known as Friends of Uganda).
Byanyima flew to London by British Airways on November 15 and returned November 26, 2002 by another BA flight. After London, Byanyima reportedly flew to Brussels on her crusade to have aid to Uganda blocked.
Shortly after the secret meeting in Ryan hotel in central London, Byanyima addressed a wider audience of some 100 Ugandans, also at Ryan Hotel, during which she appealed to Ugandans in the diaspora to support Reform Agenda in forcefully removing Museveni.
Charging that corruption, arbitrary arrests and killings bedevilled the country, Byanyima reportedly said the situation was so hopeless that she was considering quitting politics.
Otai, who was introduced as a member of the Forum for Democracy, told the meeting that he was proud to share a platform with Byanyima. He asked Byanyima to continue supplying groups like his with “accurate” information about Uganda.
Rwaboni attacked Museveni, saying the President was responsible for “stupid wars” in Congo, Rwanda, and Su
dan. He claimed he fled the country because he did not want to “fight another war with Kagame.”
Banya, the chief organiser who was elected a labour councillor early this year, had invited two Labour MPs but they did not turn up.
Eron, who said he had worked hard to tame the Ebola epidemic in northern Uganda, turned the tables when he said that what is going on in Uganda is positive.
He juxtaposed Museveni with ex-leaders, saying that unlike them, he is not primitive, which explains his good terms with the West.
He praised him for performing well on the constitution, democracy, and his relations with the press since 1986.
Dr. Obonyo blamed what he termed as the current problems in Uganda on the Tanzanian government under the late Julius Nyerere, which he said messed up the peace accord in Nairobi in 1985.
Published on: Sunday, 1st December, 2002 |
