Participation in an election is a civic duty which Ugandans gracefully fulfilled under very difficult circumstances.
Ugandans have increasingly been denied the opportunity to enjoy this right since independence in 1962 and repeatedly in 1980, 1996, 2006 and 2011.
During the 2016 elections Government officials such as the Secretary General of NRM issued threats to prevent voters from freely participating in the elections. On, February 1, 2016 a shocking report was published in the Monitor Newspaper in which the Secretary General of NRM, Justine Lumumba, declared: “When President Museveni, the chief fighter, is still seated on the throne, whatever they are planning, tell them the government of NRM is not going anywhere! Don’t send your children to bring chaos in Kampala and cause confusion during elections, disrupt peace in the country, government will handle you…. you will be shot … The state will kill your children if they come to disorganize and destabilize the peace and security in Kampala and Wakiso
It is the NRM leadership, headed by President Museveni and the Secretary General of NRM, Justine Lumumba, who are destabilizing peace and security in Uganda by using the armed forces to shoot and intimidate innocent Ugandans.
Nevertheless, the resolve and courage of Ugandans to peacefully participate in an electoral process on February 18, 2016 in spite such threats and provocation deserves to be admired. It is a sign that Ugandans have politically matured enough to encounter any obstacles standing in their way to exercise their inherent human rights protected by the constitution and international law.
During the elections the President himself in a public acknowledgement and outrageous reaffirmation of the Secretary General’s threats himself confirmed as he was voting in his constituency: “There will be no violence. If anybody tries to do any violence, we shall get [and] put him in the deep freezer and he cools down until the blood pressure comes down. So, please, since you always say nonsense, at least say this: that the old man [Museveni] has said there will be no violence,” he said. In not so subtle a threatening political language with which Ugandans have become familiar and take seriously because of its certain grave consequences Museveni added: “They [security agencies] are ready; the whole army and police force are mobilized [to see] who will bring violence.”[2]
This is a revealing statement from a President of a country who should act as a father to the nation. He is not concerned about criminals who are terrorizing the innocent citizens with iron bars in the suburbs of Kampala city. Instead Museveni’s primary concern on voting day was to intimidate and scare voters with his armed politicized forces. Museveni’s statement reveals the true character a dictator who uses threats to intimidate those opposed to his ruthless policies. Dictators generally project an image of a brave invincible person but the fact that they need to resort to threats against their political opponents means that they are actually politically weak and psychologically timid characters.
That explains why social media was closed down on election-day in Uganda. Free communication of messages in social media is regarded by a dictator as “a bomb” that can explode and expose the dictator’s “wickedness.” Obviously, that is true in a democratic political system! It further explains the history of ruthless suppression of the media and illegal arrest of journalists under NRM regime to silence them in contravention of Article 29 of the constitution.
It is very, very unfortunate that a trip to the polling station for some unlucky Ugandans on February 18, 2016 turned out to be a one-way trip to the grave. Democracy cannot exist under those circumstances.
The elections of February 18, 2018 could therefore not have been free and fair as the constitution mandates. The rights which the Ugandans exercise and must freely enjoy are inherent and not granted by the state. A leader who violates those rights automatically forfeits the moral authority to be a leader. Therefore the attempt by the officials of the NRM regime to deprive Ugandans of their rights will not be tolerated and will not be accepted and will be resisted in every possible form as long as we are alive.
It is very unfortunate that a Head of State, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, can declare in public that he has authority under the Constitution to violate the human rights of Ugandans by putting them in “a freezer” and keep them there until they are dead. This unfortunate threat to the life and security of Ugandans exercising their human rights cannot be tolerated and should be condemned by the international community.
We are glad to note and appreciate the fact that the international observers of the elections have reached a preliminary but unanimous conclusion that the elections held on February 18, 2016 were not free and fair. These observers include the respected European Union and the British Commonwealth Secretariat. The leader of the Commonwealth Observer Group was the former President of Nigeria, General Olusegun Obasanjo.
It is important for us to note that the results of the elections that took place in Uganda on February 18, 2016 were not desirable in the least but, unfortunately, for those knowledgeable with corruption in Uganda, the results of the election announced by the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, were not unexpected. We have been bruised by the battle of this year’s electoral process but we shall not give up hope to win the war in the long run. We are more determined today to fight on today than we were yesterday. The bruises, wounds and all the setbacks we have encountered and sustained so far have made us more determined to pursue the course of justice in order to rectify the mistakes of the past, to confront the enemy of liberty on new fronts with better and appropriate weapons and greater capacity to sustain the war for political freedom until victory is achieved.
We may appear weak and exhausted today but we shall recover and be stronger, more determined and wiser tomorrow. This struggle will continue because we know the enemy is wrong and weak, philosophically bankrupt and morally devoid of any values that are essential to sustain democracy, build a strong united nation or protect the human rights of all citizens of Uganda. In the long run we cannot fail. Dictatorship shall be defeated.
The record of the regime in Uganda from the past is very clear. Museveni and NRM have never pretended to believe in liberty; they have never attempted to protect the human rights of all Ugandans. The “movement” system was, in fact, designed to suppress individual liberty and political freedom throughout the country. Museveni as a leader may be vicious, cunning and shrewd but he is not politically Almighty as he wants us to erroneously believe. We have seen dictators in Uganda before and they are all gone. We know that Museveni is not endowed with infinite courage, honesty, wisdom, grace, kindness and mercy which are the desirable qualities of a good leader. He may be brutal and vicious like all dictators in the history of Uganda but as a human being and leader he can and will eventually be defeated because in the long run justice prevails over injustice, freedom triumphs over oppression.
An Electoral “victory” built on corruption and deception is not sustainable in the long run. It is like a festering sore that needs drastic surgical treatment to heal it. We believe that those who stand for justice and democracy cannot be defeated in the long run by the illegal manipulation and the rigging of an electoral process. Experience from the dark history of Uganda has taught us that if a leader needs to use threats in order to achieve his political objectives or prevail over his opponents is sufficient evidence that he is not supported by the people or pursuing justice and democracy and therefore his policies cannot endure in the long run.
We are particularly concerned with the results of February 18, 2016 elections because, unlike in the past, the elections of February 18, 2016, flagrantly violated Articles 59 and 61 of the Constitution. Article 59 of the Constitution declares a right to vote for any Ugandan above 18 years old. It also stipulates that citizens have a duty to register in order to vote. The state represented by the Electoral Commission is required to take the necessary steps to “ensure that all citizens qualified to vote, register and exercise their right to vote.” The Constitution was violated because the voters’ registry was not created in accordance with the principles laid down under the law and the Article 59 of the Constitution.
Transparency requires that Article 59 be complied with. You cannot put people’s names on the registry of voters without their knowledge or consent. Free and voluntary participation in an election requires a valid registration of voters. Since the registration of voters during the last election was compiled from data stored in the Ministry of Internal affairs and some of the names at the time the registry was created were below 18 years old when the data was compiled, the process of creating a voters’ registry fatally violated Article 59 of the Constitution. The voters’ registry created in that manner cannot be repaired. Therefore the entire electoral process was not in conformity with the Article 61 of the Constitution of Uganda which requires that an election must be free and fair. The constitution is the supreme law of Uganda. An election based on an invalid or void voters’ registry cannot facilitate a free and fair election. Therefore, on this basis alone, the Supreme Court should nullify the election in its entirety because it is null and void ab initio. Any law, executive or administrative action inconsistent with the constitution is null and void.
We should remember that as long as Ugandans can be intimidated into subservience to accept rigged electoral results produced by a corrupted process which has no integrity they will continue to suffer and bear the brunt of dictatorship. Democracy is not guaranteed by gratuity granted to a people by the corrupt leadership in power. On the contrary democracy is demanded and secured by the people as a right. People have an inherent right to fight for their human rights. Article 20 of the constitution of Uganda declares that human rights are “inherent.” They are not granted by the state.
Leaders overstaying in power do so because of fear of being prosecuted for the crimes they perpetrate while abusing their office. This condition is the main cause for dictators to hang on power indefinitely. But, obviously, such a tactic is not a viable long term solution. Excuses Museveni has given that he wants to “give” East Africans a federation before he retires from politics amount to political fraud because it is deception. Moreover, it is the same Museveni who is on record consistently opposing federalism in Uganda; why should Museveni desire federalism for East Africans more than he loves it for Ugandans unless he wants to use the East African federation to hang on to power for life! East Africans do not need a specific leader in the form of a corrupt Museveni in order to establish federalism. East Africans are smart enough to do that for themselves without the aid of a greedy corrupt dictator. Worst of all an incorrigible dictator like Museveni cannot tell people when or how to get federalism in Uganda or East Africa because Museveni has no rational political philosophy.
The people have a right both under domestic and international law to demand a free, fair and democratic electoral process which has integrity and serves their needs rather than the political appetite of a dictator like Museveni. Leaders who intimidate, torture or murder citizens demanding the enjoyment of their “inherent” human rights like Lumumba, [Gen. Kale] Kayihura, [Gen.] Katumba Wamala and Museveni belong to the Hague under the safe custodianship of the International Criminal Court. The rule of law must prevail and protect the integrity of the electoral process. Dictatorship must be brought to an end by all means possible necessary for self-defense. This is the law of history and inevitable social change. People have a right to democracy under international law.
Museveni took up arms in 1981 supposedly to “restore” democracy to Uganda after a rigged election. When Museveni argued from the bush in an article entitled “The Right of the People to Rebel Against Tyranny” (Uganda Resistance News, vol. 1, No.1, March/April 1981.) that people have “a right to rebel” against tyranny he was deceiving the people in Uganda and the whole world in order to justify and rationalize his politics of engaging in the so-called “liberation war” designed primarily to grab political power for life. Now we know the truth. Museveni had no intention of democratizing Uganda. He has an insatiable appetite for and a pathological addiction to political power.
For example, Museveni has never allowed internal democracy within NRM as a political party even though Article 71 of constitution of Uganda provides that “the internal organization of a political party shall conform to the democratic principles enshrined in this constitution.” Museveni has violated this constitutional provision since he came to power. No person has ever been permitted to contest for the position of the leader of NRM. Museveni has turned NRM into a personal political enclave from which he wields dictatorial power. His colleagues in the bush have gradually discovered this truth one by one. Dr. Kizza Besigye was the first one in 1999. The latest convert seems to be Amama Mbabazi who, apparently, lacks credibility since he continues to regard himself as a “staunch” member of NRM—a political party dominated by one individual and without a political philosophy or ideology and internal democracy.
Ugandans should remember that the same right to rebel against tyranny Museveni cited in 1981 to deceive Ugandans about his political ambitions still exists for all Ugandans today, notwithstanding Lumumba’s threats or Museveni’s philosophical bankruptcy! Ugandans have a right to invoke that right to fight the suppression of liberty and the rigging of elections.
The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights warns that “it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the law.” That is all we demand in Uganda—nothing more and nothing less. Sooner than later dictatorship will be vanquished and Uganda will be free. No individual can prevent history from taking its natural course.
In conclusion I would like to extend the gratitude of all members of my organization, FADDU, and all the oppressed people of Uganda, who are suffering from a scorching thirst for democracy, to our friends and allies: The United States, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations, all members of the European Union and those few members of the African Union who are successfully laying the foundation for democracy in their countries.
On all of you we rely for guidance and good example. With your support we expect to prevail over the dictatorship that is suffocating the human rights of the citizens of Uganda.
Thank you very much for your support. Those of you listening to this broadcast thank you for patiently lending us your ears.
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