What are Museveni's next moves? --- A special report

The persistent reports of the arrest of Lt. General Edward Katumba Wamala point to the national mood.

Most Ugandans want to believe the rumours because they tie in with what they know and the way they are beginning to view Museveni.

Katumba Wamala is regarded as an honest, likeable and admired general after the way he won public respect when he was the Inspector General of Police.

Most of the police force does not (to put it mildly) like the new Inspector General, Major-General Edward Kale Kaihura.

In fact, during the demonstrations by Makerere University students last year in November, a number of tear gas canisters landed near Kaihura and inside sources in the police said that riot policemen were firing at Kaihura but pretending that these were stray canisters.

Katumba Wamala has then become an army officer in the same group as Colonel Fred Bogere, and the High Court Judge John Bosco Katutsi, who are men who work by their conscience.

Radio Katwe now assesses where all this points for Uganda's future.

Museveni is panicking and is resorting to instinct, which in his case is indiscriminate violence. Baganda are seeing (or want to believe) that their own tribesman Katumba Wamala is being persecuted because he will not tow Museveni's line that refuses to accept the idea of Besigye as president.

It is too late now for the army to stage a coup against itself so that elections can be postponed.

All moves to remove the leading challenger, Dr. Kizza Besigye from the presidential race are now out of question. The NRM must now face a race it dreaded for many years, a multiparty contest.

Let us jump past the casting of ballots on February 23.

Let us imagine that the day went relatively peacefully but the real crisis begins that night or on Friday February 24 when the public starts hearing reports of early results at polling centers around the country are suggesting a Besigye win over Museveni.

Let us assume that large crowds gather in at least ten Ugandan towns, as we saw on November 14, 2005 with Besigyefs arrest or on January 2, 2006 with his release. Museveni orders the army in. Soldiers fire into the crowds, which take a number of casualties but refuse to disperse.

We can grade the scenarios in three groups.

Group A is if there is a 70 to 100 percent chance of suppressing the demonstrations successfully and the state gets back on top of the situation, chances are high that almost all the army's officers from the rank of Colonel to General will back the action, even if many will have their private misgivings.

The international and local media plus diplomats will condemn the use of force, call for calm.

Scenario B. If the crowds put up a fight and the chances of the army taking charge of the situation drop to between 50 and 70 percent, there will be more voiced concerns by the top layer of the army, more calls for restraint and keeping casualties to a minimum.

The protests by the media will be louder and the story will rise higher in foreign news broadcasts.

Scenario C. If a situation happen that the crowds remain bold and continue to demonstrate and the chances of the army ending the protests drop below 50 percent, most of the officer corps from Major General down to Captain will begin refusing to take Museveni's orders.

It will leave the very top layer of the army to hold out, plus lower ranking officers with family ties to Museveni.

In this worst case scenario, that will mean the following officers can be counted on: General Salim Saleh, General Aronda Nyakirima, General David Tinyefuza, General Elly Tumwine, Brigader Noble Mayombo, Lt. Colonel Moses Rwakitarate, and Major Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

Mayombo has been doing Museveni's dirty work from the bush days when he was one of the executioners of the National Resistance Army, while Rwakitarate is the commanding officer of the airforce base at Entebbe and is in charge of the security of the presidential jet and helicopter, as well as being related to Janet Museveni.

Kainerugaba is of course Museveni's son and political heir-apparent.

In a situation where the army has intervened to suppress the crowds but is failing (the below 50 percent scenario), most officers would become themselves, guilt would weigh heavy, they would drop the pretense at loyalty to Museveni, think of their families, their fellow countrymen, and the nation.

This would leave only those who cannot survive or be free or prosper or have any identity outside that of an NRM in power.

This reduces that number to General Saleh, Major Kainerugaba, and possibly General Tumwine.

If it came to a situation where one had to fight to the death, it would leave only General Saleh and Museveni.

This means that to bring down the Museveni regime by mass action and protests, all that it takes is a minimum of six continuous days to break the will of the army.

Faced with all this resistance, can Museveni give up power?

Radio Katwe can confidently predict that Museveni will not accept to give up power and Ugandans must prepare for him at his worst.

To believe Radio Katwe on this, you must know about many things that took place in Uganda many years ago.

Those who have a long memory or who are above 40 years in age like some of us, know that in 1979 during the Uganda liberation war, two towns in southern Uganda, Masaka and Mbarara were bombarded by the Tanzanian army and up to this day they have not fully recovered.

What many do not know is that it is not the Tanzanian army, the TPDF, which destroyed the two towns. The man who masterminded the destruction was none other than Supreme Commissar Yoweri Museveni. (His title during the 1979 war was Supreme Commissar.)

What happened was that Museveni ordered his FRONASA men to lay dynamite around several promonent buildings in Mbarara and Masaka and they were blown up.

The people of Masaka and Mbarara should ask themselves how the Tanzanians who have never mutinied, who have never overthrown their government, who were being welcomed with open arms by huge crowds glad to see Idi Amin go, could have blown up their towns.

Museveni never at any single time that February 1979 condemned the Tanzanians for destroying his beloved homeland whose freedom he was fighting for.

Museveni had studied in Mbarara and he was supposed to be from Ankole. Have you asked yourself why this Liberator did not condemn the Tanzanians over their "hedious crime"?

Museveni also sent Tanzanian soldiers to his former school, Ntare School, to have it destroyed but the locals begged the Tanzanians not to do it. Museveni had claimed that there were remnants of Amin's solders hiding at Ntare's compound.

You go and read his book "Sowing The Mustard Seed" and look for any page where Museveni the great Liberator in any way says anything about the destruction of Masaka and Mbarara towns.

If you find any page or paragraph, please send Radio Katwe a message.

Why was Museveni totally silent about something so tragic as this bombing of two Ugandan towns? Why?

In 1990, Museveni created "ghost soldiers" in the army and then along with his half-brother Salim Saleh, they began to siphon off Ministry of Defence Money to personal accounts.

Most people assumed that the story of ghost soldiers began in 1999 or 2000.

When the army began to investigate the "ghosts", many middle-level officers in the accounts department were killed on orders of Museveni to hide his hand in the ghost soldiers.

The problem was the records were kept in the NRA's then headquarters, Republic House.

What Museveni did was order the burning down of Republic House and the fire was blamed on an accident.

The officer who carried out Museveni's orders was Lt. Colonel Ahmed Kashillingi.

All this is common knowledge within the army, but they can't dare talk about it in public. Brigadier Henry Tumukunde has been insisting on being tried over his alleged role in the creation of the ghost soldiers, but the army which was so willing to prosecute Besigye cannot come out and nail Tumukunde.

This is because State House will not allow Tumukunde to speak on that subject, since the author of the ghosts was Museveni himself.

Let us think more about this man Museveni.

Why do you think that in the last few months, Ugandans have been hearing about every week of a fire burning down this school or that school, this market or that market, this shopping centre or that shopping centre? Why are people not asking themselves these questions?

Are Ugandans all that careless that they end up causing accidents to their property --- every week, everywhere? If so, why are all these fires and news reports of burnings and fires taking place now?

Who do you think was behind the burning of those 45,000 huts in Acholi two or three weeks ago which the Ugandan press reported about? Was that careless Ugandans again?

Okay if so, why was it that Museveni was on hand, with 45,000 shs. already counted and ready top be handed out to the unfortunate Acholi families, so that his campaign team could make him look like a caring leader?

If you don't know Museveni, you will go on for years imagining all sorts of things, yet the maniac is destroying Uganda.

That is the real character of Museveni. He is an anarchist to the core of his mind and heart and he can do anything.

That is the Museveni whom many sincere people in the NRM and who say they support him, is in his real, animal colours.

Tomorrow on Election Day we shall give you another inside look at the history of Museveni's mental illness and how it will play a crucial role in the dialobical madness Uganda is about to witness.