Sejusa warns “remember Nairobi talks?” Photo: Bukedde TV screen shot.
For some months now, there have been rumors and whispers of impending talks between opponents of Ugandan dictator Gen. Yoweri Museveni and his illegal and illegitimate regime.
Free Uganda (FU), the pro-democracy freedom struggle group, wonders why these talks are being suggested at this time, when the freedom struggle is reaching its maturity and the regime is not only in disarray, but in rapid free fall.
Free Uganda believes that all this talk about dialogue, with a man who has been numerously proven to be untrustworthy and a serial liar, is unhelpful and extremely diversionary, as it not only confuses the public but also serves to divert attention from the ongoing People Power Defiance and the intensifying liberation effort.
Gen. Museveni has never hidden his passion for political trickery and he is very well-known for pretending to be ready for talks with his opponents whenever he realizes that his dictatorship is on the verge of collapse or defeat at the hands of his opponents.
Even before Museveni came to power in the mid-1980s, Museveni proved his “political trickster” credentials by wooing the post-Obote military government leaders to supposed peace negotiations in Nairobi, only to secretly maneuver his troops into Kampala, leading to the NRA overthrow of the Okello regime.
Museveni has also been known to destroy other possibilities of negotiated settlement of Ugandas wars and civil strife, a good example being the internationally-sponsored Juba Peace Talks with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), when Museveni and his son Muhoozi Kaneirugaba deliberately attacked LRA camps in Garamba National Park, thus wrecking the Juba cessation of hostilities agreement and peace talks.
Once again, today, Museveni is resorting to his “political trickster” game play to survive another day. Sensing that the maturing liberation struggle and the climaxing Defiance Struggles are about to deliver victory to the pro-democracy forces, Museveni is desperately attempting to woo and fool his political opponents into a “suicide game” that can only lead to the weakening and ultimate destruction of the pro-democracy struggle.
Against this background, Free Uganda (FU) would like to alert Ugandans to the urgent need for resilience and steadfastness in this final phase of the freedom struggle.
This is not the time for wavering or raising the white flag. This is the moment for all Ugandan citizens, who wish to see the Motherland freed from over 30 years of dictatorship, corruption and family-centered mis-governance, to focus their attention on how to dislodge the nasty and murderous Museveni gangs now ruling the country sooner rather than later.
As long as Museveni’s hold on power isn’t threatened, anything he does is from the point of containment but not ceding power or control.
So, the job of freedom fighters is to build capacity to that critical mass where Museveni’s coming to table is not a matter of public relations or survival, but exit.
Until then, forget the circus, and ignore all those gimmicks.
The Struggle Continues.
Dr. Vincent Magombe, is Secretary
Free Uganda Leadership Committee and Press Secretary FU.