1)

"We, in UPC, do not believe in individual merit, we believe in collective merit. We believe in putting heads together and developing. UPC all along has always worked out programmes and projects as a team, this is a how we shall always operate."

2)

"in UPC we must stand on the principles and the constitution of the party. We must also stick to resolutions we have taken."

3)

"I can talk as a doctor. Museveni is suffering from some mental disease where one looks at himself as a paragon."

"You begin talking to yourself and answering yourself. It is a serious matter. He needs to be helped, he is sick."

4)

"Our projects salvaged Museveni when he came to a halt in 1997. He went to our recovery programme, which we had started in 1982, and refined in 1984, which he presented to the World Bank as a development programme.

5)

"our long term vision and targets are much more important than immediate short term interests."

6)

"all political parties are suffering because Museveni is scared of UPC explaining itself and they know we have got the capacity to do this."

********
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: George Okurapa 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 10:18 PM
  Subject: Dr. Rwanyarare talks strategy for 2006


  From The Monitor, February 17, 2004

  Rwanyarare talks strategy for 2006
  By Alex B. Atuhaire
  Feb 17, 2004

        Dr James Rwanyarare, the chairman of the UPC's Presidential Policy Commission talks about the party's strategy for 2006 and beyond.

             
              Chairman Rwanyarare speaks passionately about re-organising he party. 
        What is the UPC specifically focusing on as we move to 2006? 

        The focus for UPC has been the same over the past ten years. It has been to struggle for re-establishment of multiparty politics. We think this is a fundamental matter. Our focus for 2006 is in re-organisation and mobilisation because a lot of things have happened. Even the population patterns have changed. 

        We need really to re-organise the whole structure of the party but that will be tentative because the final arbiter will be at the Delegates' Conference.

        Mobilisation is very important because the last time we freely mobilised was about 18 or 20 years ago when we were still in power. 

        After that, we have been hunted. We need to mobilise extensively and recruit because most of the young generation do not know the good things UPC did. We have got to reach out to them.

        Some of them are stuck because their parents were leaders in UPC or had close contacts with UPC but some find party activities strange.

        For that reason we have put up a special committee headed by Mr Peter Walubiri which will reach out to the whole country. We do not think that we should focus on elections as a whole; we think that we should start a journey and we systematically mark our steps as we move.

        Talk about this committee.

        It is called the National Organising Committee. It is made up of 15 members. Mr Walubiri is chairman and it has MPs like Patrick Mwonda and Dr Okulo Epak. Their job is to become a nucleus for spreading party activities throughout the country.

        Has the party resolved the wrangling between Dr Milton Obote and Ms Cecilia Ogwal?

        This was solved almost a year ago. Yes, there were efforts to reconcile people who felt aggrieved and disobeyed the resolution of not participating in 1996 elections.

        But after that, you know things changed. You know the law changed and we did not have to pay allegiance to NRM and allowed people to go to Parliament. We had a dichotomy problem of the constitution of UPC, which does not allow you to belong to another political party.

        This question of swearing allegiance to NRM and NRA had become a stigma but when that was removed there was nothing wrong. After that, discussions went on and many members who had been hitherto in the Interim Executive Council (IEC) came back to the mother party.

        This was solidified when many of them were appointed on the National Executive Committee recently.

        That's why when Kiyonga was looking for people other than UPC to speak to; he got splinter groups in the CP and DP but not UPC.

        So the IEC was disbanded?

        It stands dissolved now. It was a temporary set back. But one thing it showed was that in UPC we must stand on the principles and the constitution of the party. We must also stick to resolutions we have taken.

        If anything, it has strengthened our party in that our long term vision and targets are much more important than immediate short term interests.

        And where do we place Mrs Cecilia Ogwal?

        Ogwal is a member of UPC; she is also a member of parliament. She has got that platform which we think is vital in our campaign for bringing back multiparty politics in Uganda.

        There have been attempts. I heard that some people including Ogwal have been planning to go to Lusaka to talk with the party president; I don't know whether that has been done.

        But the fact that we have had meetings where Ogwal has participated is enough evidence that we are now together. We have come to know who is our enemy, which is lack of democracy in the country. We have to fight the dictatorship together or perish together.

        President Museveni says you people do not have a vision to lead the country.

        I can talk as a doctor. Museveni is suffering from some mental disease where
        one looks at himself as a paragon. You go on believing in that until you become so introverted able that you imagine that other people do not have a mind.

        You begin talking to yourself and answering yourself. It is a serious matter. He needs to be helped, he is sick.

        It is laughable for him to imagine that he is the only one who has got ideas or that when he is not there, this country will disappear from the globe.
        We do not see any vision Museveni has except rhetoric.

        We, in UPC, do not believe in individual merit, we believe in collective merit. We believe in putting heads together and developing. UPC all along has always worked out programmes and projects as a team, this is a how we shall always operate.

        Our projects salvaged Museveni when he came to a halt in 1997. He went to our recovery programme, which we had started in 1982, and refined in 1984, which he presented to the World Bank as a development programme.

        We have sat down and presented at many press conferences what would be our policies.

        We do not believe that our economy should depend on investors from outside. We believe that investors from inside are more important.

        For example co-operatives and the Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB) were raising massive resources. All these have been destroyed.

        Now the UCB is an exploiting bank whereas it was meant to help Ugandans save money and turn it around into resources. There are many investors in Uganda who have got money but they are not protected against briefcase speculators.

        What's your game plan for 2006?

        We are fighting very hard for multiparty politics. We want to go in and fight hard as apolitical party to win power. But should we fail to win power but still make a big showing, we are willing to go into a coalition with other political forces to form a government.

        That coalition is forming slowly. We are building confidence among ourselves.

        Questions have always been raised about the UPC's credibility while in power. 
        UPC has been in government twice. The second time in 1980 was after a very nasty war, which ousted dictatorship. 

        When we came into power in 1980, there was no fabric of society here. When we were trying to pick up the pieces, Museveni declared war.

        Definitely, if Museveni had not declared war on this country, we would be far off.

        Museveni's group is known to have committed atrocities in Luwero. I know individuals and names of people whom they killed. The first people they killed were leaders of UPC.

        When I was in Luzira in 1986 and '97, there was a major who told us they had orders to kill every UPC leader.

        The question of saying we committed atrocities must be taken in the context of who was fighting whom.

        How do you sell this explanation to the population?

        You see it would be easy to explain this if we had access to the population.
        That is why Museveni cut off UPC. In fact, all political parties are suffering because Museveni is scared of UPC explaining itself and they know we have got the capacity to do this.

        We have got examples and records. We have got about seven files and all these have record who was killed. The day we say here are the facts, Museveni will have no where to hide but he will fight tooth and nail to make sure we do not do this. 

        Dr Obote has been UPC president since 1962, some people are wondering why?

        The person who needs Obote in office as leader of UPC is Museveni.
        He has made him a scapegoat several times and he would like to go on playing that one. Whenever there are elections, Obote will appear somewhere, along the skulls and so on.

        Obote in 1997 said that even if I am not in Uganda, you could hold elections and I would send my hand over report. He told your journalists that he has no intentions to stand for the UPC presidency again. He told that to us and told it to you.

        The change of leadership is held by Museveni and for selfish reasons.

        So who has been groomed to take over the mantle?

        We have got the people in all sorts of generations now. We have got the Obote generation, there is my generation, behind us we have the generations of Peter Walubiri's, Henry Mayega's, Patrick Mwondha's and so on. Then we have even a younger generation of Jacob Oulanyah's and the youth league.

        We have got the external bureaux leaders. We have Ochieno in London, Medi Mwesigye in South Africa, Kaweke in Netherlands, so many.

        We have those who are here; Magonite Jude, [Kyeyune] Ssenyonjo, [Peter] Elamu, Rwakabogo; they are very many. My mission here to build a cadre of young generation who should take over the party.

        Who is the UPC candidate for 2006?

        That will be decided by the Delegate's Conference if there are multiparty politics.

        But we have got many people who have expressed interests in standing as candidates. I have expressed that interest myself. I think Prof. Yona Kanyomozi has. 

        Aggrey Awori to stand, I don't know if Cecilia Ogwal still wants to stand. But all these, we would subject them to the party members to select the best.

        There is no question of anybody imposing himself as UPC candidate.


       


  © 2004 The Monitor Publications



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