What happened to the fundamental change?

Museveni amends constitution

After 2001 elections, talk of amending the constitution started as whispers with Museveni not knowing how the public would respond. It eventually became clear it was real. Besigye had predicted Museveni’s move much earlier but many in the Movement and parliament ignored his warning. ‘[Salaamu] Musumba recounted how many parliamentarians felt a sense of betrayal and self blame. There were people, she said, who truly believed that this would never happen. This included people like Henry Tumukunde, who was bewildered at the very thought. The ‘Historicals were wondering how the process ever got out of their hands. And how could Besigye have been so right and with such a precision?’ the book reads.

The amendment would have to be passed by the parliament. Francis Ayume was the Speaker of parliament. A proposal to amend the constitution had been brought to him but he advised against it. All obstacles in parliament had to be removed.

‘Ayume was seen as a threat, so he was removed and made Attorney General and replaced with Edward Sekandi…’ the book reads in part.

Ministers Bidandi Ssali, Eriya Kategaya, Miria Matembe, Amanya Mushega and Sarah Nakiyingi who opposed the change of the constitution were dropped from Cabinet. Then Museveni’s cheerleaders started choruses calling for him to rule for life.

At a rally in Sembabule in January 2004, four cabinet ministers and 20 MPs danced for the third term for Museveni. Minister Syda Bbumba took the issue a little further. She said President Julius Nyerere had ruled Tanzania for 41 years, Nelson Mandela of South Africa had retired at 90 years, Kenya’s Arap Moi had left power at 82. Then she declared: ‘I support Museveni to copy from Moi, consider leaders like Omar Bongo of Gabon, who has been in power for over 30 years, Fidel Castro of Cuba and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya who began a revolution and even now nobody wants to remove him from power….’

The constitution was subsequently amended after the executive bribed MPs with Shs5m each.

Khiddu Makubuya changes goal posts

Kizza Besigye’s arrest on treason and rape charges on November 14, 2005 threw his presidential candidature into balance. He was in Luzira prison and was not about to be released. Some people said he could not be nominated in absentia. Others said there was no law stopping his nomination. This was one month away from the elections. The Electoral Commission sought the opinion of the Attorney General, Khiddu Makubuya. He gave it. ‘Anybody aspiring to occupy the office of the president which is the highest office in the land and is the embodiment of a sovereign state should be a person of high integrity…. His [Besigye] conduct is a subject of serious criminal proceedings. Although he is presumed innocent until proved guilty it certainly cannot be said that he is on the same level of innocence as that of other presidential candidates… He is currently a subject of serious charges of treason…His nomination should not proceed….’ Makubuya, a doctor of laws, wrote on December 7, 2005.

His opinion shows that it’s not only Museveni in the NRM who has reneged on his principles or convictions since 1986. Makubuya was a member of the commission set up by Museveni in 1987 to investigate human rights abuses from 1962 to 1986. Makubuya, then an associate professor of law at Makerere University, disagreed with his fellow commissioners on some issues and wrote a minority report. ‘We need to categorise crimes and apply the presumption of innocence peculiarly to specific categories; (a) political crime e.g. treason, sedition, levying war, etc. Since these ordinarily involve contests for power, political expression, and struggle for participation in governance, suspects in respect of such offences need to be entitled to an unqualified presumption of innocence,’ Makubuya wrote in his minority report.

However, on Besigye’s case, he turned his statement on its head and said that the FDC leader’s candidature should be blocked because the treason charge had placed his level of innocence below that of other candidates.

The book details incidents when the military besieged the High Court to re-arrest the treason suspects who had been freed on bail by the judge. The book also captures the various episodes in Besigye’s trial both in the High Court and military court and the protracted struggle by Besigye’s lawyers to stop the arbitrary prosecution by the state.

The book then delves into how the state blocked Besigye’s brother Musasizi Kifefe from getting proper treatment and in time, leading to his eventual death. It places Kifefe’s death at the hands of the state. It does not rule out the poisoning during detention. The author borrows from Museveni’s explanation in 2003 when he was justifying why he had lent his presidential jet to fly his daughter abroad to give birth instead of taking her to local public hospitals.

‘There was a famous General in Nigeria who was infected with an incurable biological agent by ‘doctors’ of the Abacha regime when they came to take his blood for examination. Another General who was in the same prison refused and is alive. The other died a very painful death…’ reads part of Museveni’s letter run in the Monitor on October 5, 2003.

According to Museveni, the book suggests, the possibility of poisoning a vulnerable prisoner like Musasizi in prison is real in Uganda.

The author narrates the various attempts by the family to get a medical report for Musasizi’s bail application in court and how doctors and administrators of Mulago Hospital refused to release it citing fear for their lives.

Towards the end, the book highlights the early struggles from NRM liberals to reform the Movement from within and how the attempts fell flat, leading to the emergency and exodus of the reformists into the opposition.

The book concludes with anecdotes about how the constitutional making process during the Constituent Assembly was manipulated to turn the Movement transitional government into a ‘political system’ in the 1995 constitution.

The book cover too is symbolic. It bears a picture of Museveni in military uniform with an assault rifle, an image of militarism in Uganda’s politics. It is printed against a misty background, a suggestion that the direction Museveni is taking the country is unclear or hazy.

Generally, The Correct Line? Uganda Under Museveni looks like an audit or diagnosis of Museveni’s Sowing the Mustard Seed. Most of the references it uses are derived from Sowing the Mustard Seed. It holds Museveni against his every promise in Sowing the Mustard Seed and concludes that his political accountability has fallen flat.

Critics have pointed at the confiscation of the book as another sign of the growing intolerance of dissenting views by the Museveni regime.

With less than five months to the general elections next year in which Museveni and Besigye are likely to be candidates, human rights advocates are worried about the erosion of basic freedoms of speech, association, and the right to information.