Western diplomats forced Museveni to drop Besigye court martial

As soon as the presidential election was over and after the High Court declared that the FDC party president Colonel Kizza Besigye was not guilty of raping Joanita Kyakuwa, the head of the military court martial, General Elly Tumwine, started making hardline noises.

Tumwine angrily dismissed the constitutional court ruling that Besigye could not be tried concurrently in the High Court and Army Court Martial and ordered Besigye to report to Makindye Military Police barracks where the court martial sits. Besigye refused.

President Yoweri Museveni was the driving force behind the idea of trying Besigye being tried in both courts and the contempt the army generals were showing for he High Court was derived from Museveni's own contempt of civilian courts (or any institution where he does not have absolute control for that matter).

But last week, the army abruptly dropped its insistence that Besigye had to appear before the Court Martial. The reason for this will give us an inside look at how Museveni is starting to lose his grip on power and how donor pressure is biting him hard.

What happened was that last week, around Tuesday, a number of European ambassadors, diplomats, and the American embassy charge d'affairs went to State House at Nakasero as a group to hold talks with the President.

That morning, sources at some of the western embassies have told Radio Katwe, these diplomats as usual checked through the reports on Radio Katwe.com. They agreed on a common position which was to pressure Museveni to drop the ridiculous idea of a dual trial venue for Besigye.

At State House, the meeting (which was frosty and tense, according to sources who attended it) quickly came to the issue of the Besigye trial before the Army Court Martial.

The man whom former President Milton Obote once called a "consummate liar" immediately told the diplomats that he was not aware of a process underway to try Besigye before both the High Court and the Court Martial.

According to Museveni, there were just rumours being reported by the Ugandan media.

Of course, this "consummate liar" who knows no shame did not tell the western diplomats what they knew, that the media were not generating those "rumors" but were actually quoting General Tumwine and the army spokesman Major Felix Kulaigiyes' public statements on that issue.

The diplomats listened calmly but the times had now changed; Museveni's habit of taking them for a ride all these years and they are fooled, had now reached its end.

(One cannot be totally sure but, could it be that thanks to the regular intelligence briefings availed to the public by Radio Katwe.com, the western diplomatic community which previously had an optimistic view of Museveni, are beginning to take a second, harder look? Could it be that some are coming to the shocking realization that they have been backing a very cunning but dodgy character for more than 20 years?)

Next, the diplomats asked for a commitment. They asked Museveni to make it categorical to them if Besigye was going to be tried by the Army Court Martial and if so, to put it in writing to them.

Museveni, looking uneasy and cornered, said Besigye would not be tried in the Court Martial.

The diplomats then asked Museveni to issue a written statement on this. Museveni called in his Principal Private Secretary, Mrs. Amelia Kyambadde, and asked her to draft a statement and have it printed out.

The tough-talking diplomats went a step further: they knew Museveni's cunning mind and this time the pressure from the West on Museveni demanded that these games stop.

The diplomats insisted that this statement to them by Museveni be issued also as a press release and issued to the Ugandan and foreign media and the statement bears the same words and comments in both versions, the one to the diplomats and the one to the media.

That was when seething with resentment and humiliation, Museveni realized that he had been cornered and the statement was issued.

The "Red Pepper" newspaper in Kampala made a slight error in its report on the statement from State House, when it claimed that Museveni had come under pressure from the Commonwealth.

It was actually the American and European Union governments which seem to have begun getting tired of the intrigueand games at State House.

When it reported the story, the government paper, the "New Vision" made it a small story as a way of downplaying Museveni's humiliating back down.

That is the inside story, true to the last paragraph and comma, that State House could not refute even if they tried.