Dear Mr Henry Ochieng,
You have been consistent in always having something to pick against 'Baganda/Buganda'.
Why have you never based your analysis on issues rather than tribal origin?
Your missives are thinly disguised hate mongering, as every ethnic group has its share of the narrow-mined.
It is dishonest to lump all Baganda into one interest group. Our history is full of tragedies from demonising one ethnic group against others. And you, Henry Ochieng, know this.
You are only selfishly advancing the interests of your 'tumbo'. - Fishing in troubled waters, as they say!!
Narrow tribal hatred ill-serves the interests of all wananchi. It is a pity to see you so consumed by petty hate.
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Our options in 2006; watch for the fear factor This & That: By Henry Ochieng May 29, 2004
The search for credibility should be the opposition’s mantra if they truly believe that there can be more than a change of guard — not just the suspicious “this is not a mere change of guards …” on which we were fed in January 1986.
Retrospection after the March 2001 contested presidential election results reveals that lead challenger, retired army colonel Dr Kizza Besigye imploded. To some, he lost substantial support because at one point the man began to sound intemperate and almost hysterical.
Did Col. Besigye run out of control?
Before things went off the wheels, there was, and still is, a number of voters who are/were not afraid to try out something new. But these voters are also pretty picky about the available options. So, the moment Dr Besigye began to sound like something out of a doomsday movie, doubts poured in over his suitability for the role of pretender to the throne.
Dr Besigye’s beginning was near perfect, buoyed by the goodwill that comes being an underdog. He came across as someone who was being persecuted for speaking the truth about a Movement organisation that had been run off the rails by speculators.
Things, however, got out of hand when the talk of national revival was replaced by a loud, vindictive-sounding message.
It appeared that between him and the Presidency was a personal war of vengeance against incumbent Yoweri Museveni.
His sympathisers, many of whom form part of today’s neo—opposition, worried that the conciliatory tone that would have appealed to the moderates and fence-sitters was lost in the howls of retribution (someone in the Reform Agenda clearly took the symbolism of the hammer too literally).
They were afraid that immediately Museveni was ushered out of State House a countrywide dragnet for former regime enthusiasts would get underway.
For them, an inquisition had only one insinuation for mother Uganda that was trying to walk away from a past where political opponents were bludgeoned into non-existence. Remember post-1971?
Having deposed Dr Milton Obote, the deceased buffoon Idi Amin started seeing enemies in every dark alley. To deal with the apparitions, the dictator let his army of tribes-men loose on the nation in an orgy of killing that brought a swift and painful end to the lives of mostly Luo speaking Ugandans.
When the Tanzanian army backed Ugandan exiles in 1979 and rid us of that lunacy, there are credible reports that ‘liberator’ troops commanded by Luo speaking officers committed some of the worst crimes against humanity in the sub-region from which Amin hailed.
Although, we cannot say for certain that the cerebral Dr Besigye would be a party to actual extra-judicial elimination of former regime elements, it was enough that he had them running scared. They were scared because either by commission or association a large number of the nouveau riche in post 1986 Uganda were accomplices in the crimes the colonel was implicating the Museveni Presidency in.
It did not help when he began to obliquely associate himself with an alleged section of the army that was waiting in the wings to eject Museveni – if he insisted on hanging around. This talk militarised the argument so much so that many politicians in Kampala feared that the country was being set up for faction-driven anarchy.
Today, what goes for the opposition has again flirted with something they say is disenchantment with Museveni within the armed forces.
Not only is this an ill-advised recourse that rears the ugly head of a weaponised election campaign, it also narrows down the conversation to just army matters.
The other point is that again it drowns out the issues by focusing the conversation on the individual. Look around and you will make the fascinating discovery that 60% of the people who constitute today’s active opposition are former insiders. As such they are sitting ducks for regime marksmen who have since happily lumped them together as a bunch of disgruntled opportunists.
The best riposte in the circumstances appears to lie in reverting to the original Besigye plan: counter attack on the issues.
As 2000 came to a close, Besigye was running away with it via his robust campaign against institutionalised corruption in the army that had ruined any chances of routing the crazy rebel Lord’s Resistance Army in the north; the rot in State House controlled finances and how nepotism was crippling government.
Talking to the men who were under fire, one gets the sense that there was near panic in their ranks because they could not deny the facts of the colonel’s accusations. He had struck a chord with the population that had for long only spoken about these things in whispers.
He also offered alternative policy positions in things like tax reform, an exhaustive overhaul of the 1995 Constitution, a dampening of the unbridled enthusiasm for privatisation and trade liberalisation that was exposing the country to international capitalist pirates and peace talks with the rebels, among others.
In two words, he was a credible progressive. The honourable Augustine Rugunda, MP Ruhama, is the perfect articulate gentleman. He has the right political history having done his bit in exile (1970s) and we are not aware that he is the beneficiary of ill-gotten gains.
If these were the only parameters necessary to determine an alternative choice to Museveni (who may yet decide to leave quietly after his last term expires in May 2006), we would say he is a credible man.
Unfortunately, we live in an African country where ethnicity still factors in national politics. So, Ruzindana’s profile would be mortally hampered because he is a son the same soil as this President.
Ruzindana’s organisation, Pafo (Parliamentary Advocacy Forum) have just hinted that being aware of this corollary the candidate they will offer us in 2006 will thus either be from the East or Buganda.
Our voter demographics make Buganda an interesting proposition as it easily accounts for almost one third of eligible voters. It is clearly the swing zone.
But will the rest of the country be comfortable with a Buganda candidate in times like this when parochial Ganda nationalism is getting strident?
Historical distortions, partly encouraged by the British colonialists, left this sub-region better placed in development terms than the rest of the country. Now, Buganda wants more meat for its King through the adoption of hat much-maligned federalist state system. Chances then are that a Ganda candidate could face all sorts of scurrilous attacks loaded with bigotry.
Again, the question of credibility arises. And this is why it is safer, at this point, to refrain from indulging in talk about the chances of the Uganda People’s Congress or Democratic Party — the cacophony of internal bickering from those quarters is ear splitting.
With the north and east out of the running because of historical contradictions, the balance that will have to be struck for the choice of an alternative is intriguing. You will need a candidate capable of inspiring confidence, able to resist insular manipulation, without unhealthy political baggage and who will not frighten regime moderates.
Fear is a dangerous thing.
077 501 436 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
© 2004 The Monitor Publications
Mitayo Potosi
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