New ‘rebel’ group could be as fake as ghostly PRA
By Bernard Ddumba
4th July 2011: After weeks into the mysterious death of Col. Edison Muzoora, the government finally arraigned some people before the courts of law and charged some with treason and others misprision of treason.
The accused people, who, as we now know, are actually FDC officials from Western Uganda, were accused of belonging Uganda People’s Freedom Front [UPFF]; a new “rebel” group which, if my instincts serve me right, could be as fake as the ghostly People’s Redemption Army [PRA] “rebel” group whose active existence was resoundingly dismissed by both our courts of law and British Foreign Office Minister Chris Mullin.
Britain’s dismissal must be taken very seriously in this context because it clearly shows its sophisticated Mi6 Intelligence Agency [which is more sophisticated than all Uganda’s intelligence agencies put together] had found absolutely no merit in the government’s allegations that there was such a thing as the PRA rebels.
Now let’s go back to this new “rebel” group that is apparently called Uganda People’s Freedom Front that has been linked to the late UPDF Col. Edison Muzoora. As it happens, I have just finished reading a book called Portrait of a Despot written by Ugandan Lawyer and Journalist called Charles Ochen Okwir.
In this book, the author gave us his analysis as to why he thought it was in the government’s interest to manufacture the PRA after the 2001 elections. Read these slightly abridged excerpts [in italics] here below with your minds firmly fixed on what happened in this year’s general elections and you will see why I fear that the late Muzoora’s “UPFF rebels” may be as fake as Mande’s “PRA rebels”. The author says:
“…In late 2002 or early 2003, barely two years after Museveni “won” the 2001 general elections, it was reported in the media that Lieutenant Colonels Samson Mande and Anthony Kyakabale had declared war against Museveni’s government from neighbouring Rwanda.
But it gets even better. Like Museveni before them, Colonels Mande and Kyakabale were no way near the list of those who had given the incumbent a stiff challenge for the office of President of the Republic of Uganda. In fact, none of them had even contested for the Presidency.
Dr. Kizza Besigye, the man who had given Museveni the toughest challenge in the explosive 2001 presidential elections, had, in a remarkable display of civility, honourably decided to take his grievances to the courts of law. He of course never got the redress that he had sought and perhaps deserved; which was the nullification of the election results declared by the beleaguered Ugandan Electoral Commission.
The best he got for his civil efforts was a unanimous concurrence by the Supreme Court Judges that the elections were indeed riddled with serious irregularities, state inspired violence, and that the Electoral Commission had not conducted the elections in accordance with the law. Nothing new there! The Supreme Court Judges merely confirmed what you and I expect from an election organised by a modern despot.
In fact, I think without the absurdity in the law which required the challenger [Dr. Kizza Besigye] to prove that the irregularities had “substantially affected” the outcome of the election, Museveni would not have been handed the mantles of State power by a 3-2 majority decision of the Supreme Court. In other words, Museveni was an undeserving winner. I think the regime knew it too. And because they knew it, they must have concluded that it was only a matter of time before someone does exactly what they did in 1981.
That was of course the time when Museveni & Co decided to wage a “Protest War” against Milton Obote’s government; a government Museveni had accused of doing exactly the same things he is now being accused of doing. The only difference, a significant one worth noting in fact, was that this time round, it was the Supreme Court of Uganda that had found against Museveni “the accused”. The inherent legitimacy of that Court decision surely sets it apart from Museveni’s own unilateral decision of 1981.
So considering all that, I don’t think it’s terribly difficult to see that the regime could have easily concluded that because of its illegitimate victory, it urgently needed to find ways of pre-empting and or discouraging the possibility of politically aggrieved Ugandans taking up arms to fight an illegitimate government; exactly as they had done themselves in 1981. Yes, these are mere theories.
But if they come anywhere near the truth, which I think they do, then it would also be easy to see that to the Museveni regime, the media report of an alleged plot by Colonels Samson Mande and Anthony Kyakabale to wage war against the government was the perfect excuse they needed to start cracking down hard on dissenting voices within and outside the country. In the words of Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem [RIP], the news of an alleged rebellion was “a truly God sent gift” to Museveni.
In the end, Dr. Besigye and many of his political assistants and supporters took the painful decision to flee the country in search of freedom in foreign countries. From just across Uganda’s boarders, to lands beyond the African continent; the political exodus was on! And it was from one these places of exile, the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo {DRC} to be precise, that the BBC World Service programme Focus on Africa broke the news that some 22 Ugandan dissidents had been arrested by Ugandan soldiers based in the DRC.
Museveni’s regime of course quickly concluded that the captured men were rebels belonging to the PRA that was under the command of Colonels Samson Mande and Anthony Kyakabale; the two renegade UPDF officers who had allegedly declared war against the government of Uganda. “A truly God sent gift” indeed!…”.
That is Okwir’s personal analysis but I have to say that I totally agree with him. END. Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
