Opondo has seen the point about the Movement

SIR— Mr Ofwono-Opondo’s most recent column “The Movement is not for historicals alone” in The New Vision of June 20, deserves commendation. He has at long last seen the cancer that may destroy the Movement. Some Ugandan politicians, including myself, have been victims of this lack of vision for the country by a few historical members of the Movement. They assume that the political history of Uganda started in the 1980s thereby making the Movement take a semblance of the communist party of the former Soviet Union which had a few members out of a population of millions. Using such words as “political creepers” to describe people who are embracing the Movement is not a good choice of words. Society is dynamic, so are political organisations. A political organisation that fails to conform to this law is doomed to fail. We should not ostracise new members in the Movement. We are building democracy for posterity, and one of the pillars of true democracy is dynamic political institutions. It would be a political disaster to make people believe that people who overthrew their oppressors in recent decades did it for themselves. Uganda has had a turbulent political history since independence in 1962. Let us not try to open up the wounds of the past but rather bind and heal those that still exist. This way, we shall have laid the foundation for a truly democratic and vibrant Uganda.

S.K. Ssekamwa
Kooki, Rakai