Gen. Museveni: L’etat c’est moi
[Commentary: Uganda]
Until early this year, four-star general, David Sejusa, was a close aide to Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and the East African country’s Coordinator of Intelligence Services. The two had a falling out when Gen. Sejusa claimed he had heard of a plot to assassinate top Uganda political and military leaders who were opposed to Gen. Museveni’s plans to have his son, Brigadier Muhoozi, succeed him as president — a so-called “Muhoozi Project.” Gen. Sejusa is currently exiled in London and has recently responded with commentary articles to what he says are smear campaigns by Museveni’s regime in local Uganda media. Previously, he has accused Museveni of ordering the murder of politicians and military officers after a falling out and said he’s in possession of documentation he’d release in time. Museveni, the U.S.-backed Ugandan autocrat, now in power for 27 years, faces increasing domestic political pressure. The following is Gen. Sejusa’s latest commentary:
The question of who is in the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) and on its High Command and other matters of state must be guided by the Constitution of Uganda and other laws that govern the country.
Some of us took a decision not to subject ourselves to the whims of corrupt and decadent individuals, no matter what offices they may hold. That is the difference between us and them.
We demand supremacy of the law and oppose personal rule, of whatever shade. UPDF is not Yoweri Museveni’s army. It’s our army, the people’s army which they built through blood. Our objective is to reclaim it, take it away from the claws of that decadent kleptocracy.
It is us who must send away Mr. Museveni from the high command. He has abused that army. Killed its officers and men and stole all its money to use in [political] campaigns so as to rig elections.
That’s why we have no barracks 30 years after the struggle and our soldiers live in huts. That’s how he has destroyed its structures so that he abuses it by appointing incompetent people whose most outstanding qualification is being his relatives.
Mr. Museveni must answer charges of destruction of the state. It’s a matter of time. So Mr. President, you can posture with those intended actions against me, like dismissals, court martials, treason trials, desertion trials, abuses, lies, curses, etc.; but the people of Uganda who own that UPDF High Command will deal with all the abusers in good time.
So, yes I am a member of UPDF High Command by Law. Unless [Museveni] goes to parliament to change it, he has no power to sack me.
Can Museveni take away my citizenship? No he can’t! And can he remove me from high command? No, he cant. That is his predicament and we are watching.
On being renegade, what is in a name? Remember I was once called a bandit and worse! I just read all those names they call me in papers. They really mean nothing within the actual context of fighting for freedom. The determinants are elsewhere not in name calling.
Thus, on whether I am renegade or whatever, history will be the ultimate judge. But make no mistake, the clock is ticking. Soon, those words will mean nothing. And those posturing with those pieces of sublime phrases and loud sounding nothings will answer to the people.
Those who fight for freedom always have the last laugh. So I don’t care what name they call me — what they say I am doing on the streets of London or not doing, etc., etc! Time will tell who is doing what. We are tested combatants who brought Mr. Museveni to power. Make no mistake, we cannot be wished away.
On the question of leaving Parliament, it goes to the bottom of our struggle against that abuser, Mr. Museveni. He thinks he is the state and the state is him. So when you tell him to stop stealing or killing or breaking the law, it is equated to treason. So we must allow his abrogation of the Constitution to continue and abuse of our people should go on unchallenged? This is unacceptable to the people of Uganda.
It’s that we reject.
If I am to leave Parliament, the law must be followed to the letter. Not to do so would be to allow Mr. Museveni to continue playing God. The BIG DADDY syndrome must be stopped in Uganda. That’s our mission now. So I will not leave Parliament because that dictator wants it so.
Uganda is ours. That Parliament belongs to the people of Uganda and not Mr. Museveni. Mwalimu [Julius] Nyerere once said “Bunge ni nchi” (Parliament is the country). Of course Mr. Museveni doesn’t understand that because for him, everything he couldn’t get in his youth, he thinks he must get now ,no matter the cost to the people of Uganda. The man just has no limits! That insatiable greed for everything must be stopped. That’s our focus.
On issues of whether I am still Coordinator of Intelligence Services; I really pity Mr. Museveni.
He got himself in so much mess that he doesn’t know how to get out. Him and his dim-witted lieutenants attacked and ransacked my offices as if they were [attacking] me! They could not understand that these were government offices not my personal premises! Mr. Museveni is just so much off balance that he just can’t tell a consistent story. So you destroy the offices with armed thugs, then you turn around and say I am still Coordinator, of what, Mr. President? It gets worse each passing day!
So Ugandans should ignore him. That office was destroyed by him. Now he wishes he hadn’t! But it’s too late. He attacked it, then attacked Entebbe International Airport, raided my offices, imprisoned innocent people who are languishing in prison, sent Intelligence [agents] to Parliament at night to break into the Speaker’s office to steal letters which they claimed I was writing to the Speaker.
Whatever the Kampala regime does; it just can’t hold it together.
So I appeal to all the forces fighting for change: Be Resolute — Don’t Blink, For The Time Is Nigh
Gen. David Sejusa
Ugandan.
