I’m not in talks with Museveni – Besigye

SOURCE: THE DAILY MONITOR, 4 JANUARY 2012

Forum for Democratic Change president Kizza Besigye says he is not aware of any planned meeting with President Museveni. 

FDC Party president Kizza Besigye has distanced himself from the on-going press reports that he is due to meet President Museveni for direct talks even though he concedes there is need for a meaningful dialogue between the government and the entire opposition.

“There are no negotiations going on between me and Museveni or my party and Museveni. We shall continue with our agenda until there is a credible process of national dialogue and as I have said (before) there is absolutely none at the moment,” Dr. Besigye said in an exclusive interview with Daily Monitor at his home yesterday.

A highly placed government source, however, told this newspaper last evening that the two leaders who have been working through Mr Conrad Nkutu, an FDC behind-the-scenes strategist and Mr Andrew Mwenda, the proprietor of The Independent magazine currently engaged in “talks about the talks” have covered substantial ground on the preliminaries.

According to the source, who preferred anonymity for fear of jeopardising the talks the agenda has been agreed upon except for “a few sticking issues”.

It is understood that both Mr Nkutu and Mwenda approached both parties and Mr Museveni asked for a framework for discussion from the FDC leader.

“The key objective is democratic, electoral and constitutional reforms for a multi-party system to function,” the source said. “The key desirable outcome is, we should have an environment whereby when elections are held; the legitimacy of the victory should be acceptable to the parties who lose without hostilities like it is now and the winner should treat the others responsibly,” the source added.

If eventually the two leaders get to meet face-to-face, it will be the first time in more than ten years. Dr Besigye fell out with President Museveni more than a decade ago after the former authored a dossier critical of the NRM government. Since then, Dr Besigye has stood against Museveni in three subsequent presidential elections but lost.That one condition
According to the source, Dr Besigye set out one conditionality; that president Museveni releases all political prisoners who were arrested during last year’s walk-to-work demonstrations and the Kayunga riots of 2009. To this conditionality, according to the source, the President has agreed.

Besigye went to the Supreme Court to challenge Museveni’s 2001 and 2006 victories. In both cases, the Court ruled that although there had been rigging, Besigye failed to provide sufficient evidence that the rigging was significant enough to alter the final result. Besigye vowed after the February 2011 not to return to the Court and promised he would “appeal to the people of Uganda.”

Since the February presidential elections, the two leaders have been at each other with hostilities hitting their peak between April and May 2011. Besigye has been the protagonist in the walk-to-work demonstrations.
Yesterday, Dr Besigye blamed President Museveni for the collapse of earlier dialogue initiatives accusing the government of not taking them seriously.

After the 2011 general elections, the Inter-religious Council of Uganda engaged the political parties represented in parliament to initiate a national dialogue.

“We gave the Inter-religious Council of Uganda our views to take to the authorities and we were told that they are going to present our views to the government side and tell us the outcome and that was in April last year but until now we have never heard from them since then” he said.

Dr Besigye said the refusal by government to honour their demands of last year simply confirmed to them that the government side is indeed not interested in dialogue but perhaps interested in posturing and taking a group picture to show the public that something is going on.

“In our country we have never had a democratic transition, there was war led by Mr Museveni that didn’t give a transition chance, the 1995 process was corrupted, it collapsed by undermining all state institutions that would endeavor democratic processes in the country. We have had a corrupt patrimony regime that has intensified the social and political crisis” he said.

When contacted for detailed comment because he is directly involved in the preliminary talks, Mr Nkutu declined to comment but referred the Daily Monitor to the FDC spokesperson.