Uganda: Opposition Calls to Take Arms Against Museveni

By Staff Writer

Opposition political party’s leaders Monday June 16 resolved to play down calls by a section of Ugandan citizens to take up arms and oust the incumbent President, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni from power. 

Museveni who has been in power since January 1986 after a coup against Milton Obote has been criticized by opposition, the public and the international community for his high handedness in recent years against human rights crusades.

Speaking on behalf of other Opposition leaders and members of the free and fair elections campaign at a joint press conference held in Najjanakumbi, Kampala Uganda Peoples Congress President Olara Otunnu said the group had received a barrage of requests to get arms and take on the government.

“In our campaign, people kept asking us, ‘please forget about elections, forget about discussions and democracy, and give us guns, because that’s what Museveni understands,” Mr Otunnu said.

“We understand the frustration of the people and we know what has brought them this far, but we have concluded that this programme is about causing a peaceful democratic change; not through the gun,” he added.

Otunnu said after a two-day consultative meeting held in Mukono at the weekend, they had agreed that this was not an option to take.

Democratic Party president Nobert Mao said using the gun had not delivered Uganda from bad leadership and that it was time to give peace a chance.

Former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) leader Kizza Besigye has previously spoken against the move warning that it will not return power to the people but a transfer of power from one guard to another.

Since independence, coup d’ etats and uprisings has donned the African states, some surviving the brand while others plunging into states of anarchy such as Republic of Somalia, Libya, Egypt, DR Congo and CAR Congo.