Sejusa meets Museveni today — mission accomplished?
[Africa: Black Star Editorial]
A man is only as good as his own words; or, is he?
Case in point is the Ugandan general, David Sejusa, a.k.a. David Tinyefuza, who fled to London in 2013 and vowed that he would team up with pro-democracy forces to end the dictatorial regime of Gen. Yoweri Museveni, who had been his boss, and many skeptics whispered continued to be his boss even when he was in “exile.”
Today, the Ugandan ruler, Gen. Museveni disclosed that he personally and secretly handled the return to Uganda from the United Kingdom of Gen. Sejusa.
The revelation came after a meeting between the two at Uganda’s State House. Gen. Sejusa, a soldier in active service, was the coordinator of Intelligence Services before he “fled” Uganda in April 2013.
Was Gen. Sejusa the real deal?
From London he boldly declared that he would work tirelessly to end Gen. Museveni’s 29 years dictatorship.
“General Tinyefuza has been in London, but at some stage I came to learn that he wanted to come back. I sent three young people…to contact Gen Tinyefuza if he wanted to come back regardless of what [had] happened,” Gen. Museveni said, according to a statement issued by Uganda’s State House. “I would see how to ensure his safe entry and sort out all the confusion arising from his stay in London.”
Yet there was no confusion in the many declarations made by Gen. Sejusa while in London. His words and condemnation of Gen. Museveni and his regime were quite explicit and unambiguous.
Sejusa said the reason why he had fled to London in the first place was because he had learned that there was a regime plot to kill off political and military leaders, including himself, who were perceived as opposing Gen. Museveni’s plans to groom his son Brigadier Muhoozi Kaenerugaba to succeed him as president; the so called “Muhoozi Project.”
His bellicose outbursts, including revelations about the Ugandan regime’s secret poisoning scheme for eliminating political and military opponents, and detailing how Gen. Museveni stole the 2006 elections from Dr. Kizza Besigye, then leader of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party cast him as a de facto reformist.
Sejusa said in a remarkable speech in London, “Kizza Besigye won by the way in 2006 – I can as well give you another testimony. In 2006 Besigye won by maybe 69 per cent. Mr. Museveni as an incumbent got something like 50-something (59% which was the ‘stolen’ figure officially awarded to Museveni). By the time an African incumbent gets 50-something you know he has already lost. So it’s not even in debate. “
He continued, referring to his role in Gen. Museveni’s election theft, “But how was it stolen? We organized another electoral commission of intelligence at Basiima House and all results from the electoral commission would pass through our electoral commission and it is our results that we would push through to the [official] electoral commission. How can you win in that type of situation? Yes. I must say it all now because I am a new man.”
Basiima House was the intelligence headquarters where Sejusa then worked.
When he was still known as Gen. David Tinyefuza, he commanded Gen. Museveni’s genocidal offensive in the northern part of Uganda against Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) where civilians were not spared in the scorched earth operations. He asked for forgiveness for any wrongs he may have committed during the war and said the priority should remain on first removing Gen. Museveni and then addressing issues of accountability.
Gen. Sejusa in his London speech also deplored Gen. Museveni’s role in the violence that marred the Kenyan elections of 2008 and noted that Uganda was liable to Congo for $10 billion, as a result of the International Court of Justice ruling in 2005 that Uganda had launched a war of aggression against Congo.
“Mr. Museveni should go to the ICC like Taylor,” Gen. Sejusa said, referring to former Liberian president Charles Taylor, now serving a 50 year sentence for fueling the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.
In his remarkable speech, Sejusa said Gen. Museveni had ruined Uganda by operating it like a family business: “To the extent of bringing in his family, his wife, and his children – some things which are so decadent I don’t know in which century they belong, maybe the 12th? I don’t know and you don’t know. And how in this 21st century can somebody bring his wife to be a minister and then his son to [command the army]?”
Seperately, in one of his writings, Gen. Sejusa accused Gen. Museveni of ordering the killing of former associates: Sam Magara, a fellow guerrilla commander when they were still conducting an insurgency before seizing power in 1986; Dr. Andrew Kayiira, leader of another guerrilla movement who struck a temporary alliance with Museveni; and, Gen. James Kazini, Museveni’s military chief of staff.
Some in opposition, and ordinary Ugandans, both within and outside the country, rallied to work with Gen. Sejusa, believing he wanted to atone for his long support of Museveni and to now work to reclaim Uganda from brutal dictatorship and steer it back to a democratic trajectory.
Still doubts remained, with allegations that Gen. Sejusa continued to collect a check from the regime and those at the frontline began to question why he insisted on drafting as allies fighters and LRA commanders who were wanted for crimes.
Now Gen. Sejusa has returned to Uganda, without notifying his erstwhile colleagues. For his incendiary statements, it was expected Sejusa in breach of military doctrine would be arrested, and tried for treason as the government initially echoed. Yet he was received by Uganda’s domestic spy chief Ronnie Balya.
Was this intended to be read as “Thank you, job well done”?
There is precedent after all.
A similar ploy involved Gen. Museveni’s brother Gen. Salim Saleh in the 1990s, who claimed at the time he wanted to overthrow Museveni and led then army commander Maj. Gen. James Kazini into a trap. Kazini faced a protracted humiliating trial and was later brutally killed in the house of a mistress under mysterious circumstances. Soldiers and ex-servicemen who played accomplice were incarcerated to Luzira prison while many died in strange circumstances.
Equally, Okwir Rabwoni, a brother to the late spymaster Noble Mayombo, was once publically attacked by state security agents and “fled” to London for a time. Skeptics believed he too similarly spied on the Ugandan Diaspora community after which he returned home to a calmning stay.
So was Gen. Sejusa’s London “exile” continuation of the Museveni Project of targeting and infiltrating opposition forces?
Will opposition politicians and activists be arrested or persecuted thanks to information, real or concocted, that Gen. Sejusa may have obtained during his London “exile”?
Even if he were to be hauled to prison, would that still be part of the game to hoodwink the Ugandan public by master manipulator Gen. Museveni — a decoy to incriminate other individuals who in turn will be the real jailbirds ahead of the 2016 presidential vote?
Gen. Museveni continues along the path to his goal, expressed during his 1981-1986 insurgency, to rule Uganda for at least 50 years.
The lesson for genuine and determined opposition forces that want to end tyranny is that any internal schisms within Gen. Museveni’s government, even if fed by rancorous outburst by disenchanted top officials, is at the very best a boobytrap.
