How Museveni reacted to Besigye’s first presidential bid

In February 1998, President Yoweri Museveni appointed Brig. Joram Mugume as the deputy commander of Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF).

The President also transferred Col. Dr Kizza Besigye from being the UPDF chief of logistics and engineering to an adviser of minister of state for defence, who was Steven Kavuma.

Upon taking office, Mugume instructed the Inspector General of Military Equipment, Lt. Col. Eric Mukasa, to issue Besigye with a modern star pistol. On January 11, 1999, Mukasa gave Besigye a star pistol, with registration number 29023670.

Ten months after receiving the aforesaid pistol, Besigye issued a 14-page strongly-worded document, describing Museveni’s led Movement government as “dishonest, opportunistic and undemocratic”. His document was titled, “An insider’s view of how the NRM lost the broad base.”

Within a few hours, Maj. Gen. Salim Saleh, the overseer of the ministry of defence, obtained a copy of Besigye’s document. And after perusing it, he telephoned Besigye and criticised him for raising such controversial issues in public. However, Besigye dismissed Saleh’s stance. In fact, Besigye said: “Maj. Gen. Saleh did not raise any matter substantial to the issues I was raising.”

With other dynamics at play, Besigye was retired from the army on October 20, 2000. He was handed the discharge certificate by Brig. Steven Kashaka, the chief of personnel and administration.

After a while, Besigye publicly declared that he would contest for presidency in the 2001election.

A few days after, he addressed the press at Crest House in Kampala and criticised his former boss (Museveni), saying: “Since we came to power in 1986, I have advocated for a government that is progressively democratic, accountable, equitable and transparent. I have not been alone in this pursuit. Unfortunately, our effort was met with arrogant intransigence, which turned into open hostility. President Museveni was central in these discussions and downplayed the importance of the concerns of comrades, promised and failed to take action or avoided the discussions.

The regular and frank internal debates ceased several years ago and Museveni’s personal views had become the official views of the Movement. As a result, there has been growing despondency, apathy and resignation.”

Museveni’s statement

At the beginning of November 2000, Museveni reacted to Besigye’s presidential bid declaration and below was the first part of his statement.

“It is very good news to hear that one other Ugandan, Col (rtd) Besigye, intends to stand as a presidential candidate, in addition to others who have already expressed their intention to contest. This is one of the proofs that there is full democracy in Uganda as defined by the people of Uganda.

In the 1996 presidential elections, we had open and transparent competition among three aspirants for the presidency. I don’t have to talk about parliamentary and local government elections or elections to the CA (Constituent Assembly).

Yet again, however, Colonel Besigye has gone about his intentions in an indisciplined and disruptive way. He has, without consulting any organ of the Movement, launched himself as a Movement candidate, although it is well-known that he is in close collaboration with multipartyists.

By unilaterally declaring himself a candidate, he creates a problem for the Movement.

For the time being, therefore, I will only comment on this aspect of Col. Besigye’s disruptive indiscipline while running political or state organs. He tried to do the same, you remember while still in the army. The army leadership reacted firmly although I was, eventually, persuaded by my supporters from Rukungiri to take a soft line on Col. Besigye after he regretted the manner of his communication.

Here again, in the matter of his candidature, Col. Besigye creates a minor problem for the Movement.

Assuming Col. Besigye is really serious in seeing his candidature through to the end as a Movement candidate on “individual merit”, the Movement will now have two options: either to adopt Col.

Besigye as a sole candidate, having imposed himself on the Movement following clandestine, conspiratorial consultations with some unknown personalities that include “leading Movement persons”, or field other Movement candidates, then the impact will be to divide the Movement vote.

Why didn’t Col. Besigye and his “leading Movement personalities” extend those consultations to include everybody, so that the Movement moves as a solid body with either Besigye or anybody else that would be more “appropriate” than the incumbent? In the 1996 presidential elections, the fact that I was the historical leader of the Resistance notwithstanding, I formed a manifesto committee and a national task force that included all the segments of the Movement leadership and the membership of NRM. Had these consultations concluded that I was not “appropriate” to represent the interests of the Movement, I would not have imposed myself on the country. Yet at the time, we were not as clearly structured as now.

We now have NEC; we have the national conference, etc. Why wouldn’t a democratically-minded Col. Besigye think of consulting these before creating problems for the Movement? This is either indiscipline or intrigue on the part of Col. Besigye and these “leading Movement personalities” that have been clandestinely conclaving on such important issues, including the future leadership of the country.

We have a very long experience in dealing with intrigues. Of course, I have been hearing about such “consultations” or, more appropriately, “conspiracies” of Col. Besigye and his colleagues.

As my style of leadership is always, I never take premature actions. I always allow the problem to mature. The problem of Col. Besigye and his “leading Movement personalities” is beginning to mature. We shall now be able to deal with it decisively and transparently because it is now transparent.

Previously, it was unclear and murky to, especially, the public. As of now, I would like to end my preliminary comments on the Besigye candidature here.

If Col. Besigye and his “leading Movement personalities” are seriously intent on imposing their candidature on the Movement or dividing our vote if the other segments of the Movement cannot accept their candidature, we will have ample time to examine, with you, the Movement supporters, the “appropriateness” of Besigye being a presidential candidate for the Movement.

Furthermore, I will be able to respond to the charges of Besigye against me of promoting “cronyism, sectarianism, discrimination, nepotism, etc...” once I get the details of Col. Besigye’s accusations.

However, I read in one of the newspapers that Col. Besigye said I forgave an army officer who had got a bribe of $800,000.

I presume he was talking about Major. Gen. Salim Saleh. This is a lie. In fact, it was Maj. Gen. Saleh, who, eventually, reported to me, without prompting from anyone, the attempt to bribe him.

He had been tempted to accept the bribe, but his conscience turned him against it and he told me. On the contrary, it was Col. Besigye, who, either negligently or for other reasons, signed the document accepting those defective helicopters. It was Col. Besigye, not Maj. Gen. Saleh, who accepted those defective helicopters in Belarus.

The probe committee chaired by Col. Aronda (Nyakairima) was, apparently, told by Col. Besigye, that he accepted the defective helicopters on the recommendations of his technical team that went with him to Belarus. However, I would like to inform the public that those helicopters were so derelict that even somebody who was not an aircraft engineer could see that they were not even overhauled.

Surely, Col. Besigye could see the worn-out tyres. Of all the actors in that helicopter scandal, it was Col. Besigye who played the biggest part. The matter is being handled by others, including Hon. Miria Matembe.

In respect of wrong-doing in the army, I would like to inform the public that AIDS so debilitated the leadership of UPDF that we had to be soft with wrong-doing, otherwise we risked having hardly any leadership at one time. Instead, we have been concentrating on rebuilding the leadership of the army through getting more graduates out of the officer cadet schools and other command courses. This is rebuilding the army leadership.”

The writer’s book, President Idi Amin: A narrative of his rule (1971- 1979), costs sh100,000 at Uganda Bookshop, Kampala.