Tuesday, February 28, 2006

How Museveni Rigged The Polls

Although it was long known that Museveni would rig the 2006 elections, nobody guessed the extent of the exercise's brutality. It is, however, already evident that Museveni shall not enjoy any smooth ride. To signify the death of democracy, Kizza Besigye attended a funeral service as a first post election function. Already unrest is reported around the country. Over 400 prisoners including treason suspects have escaped from Arua with another 100 from Lango. Several bombs have exploded around Kampala injuring scores of people including soldiers. A previously unknown group calling itself "KINNO KITWALA OMUNAKKU" has claimed responsibility. Some people suspect it could be the work of the CMI wishing to incriminate Musevenis' political opponents. Already, the police chief General Kale Kaihura has said that all acts of violence shall be blamed on FDC leader Dr Kizza Besigye.

Fears of a national revolt are growing by the hour. Within one hour of the Electoral Commission announcement of Museveni's fake victory, the British High Commissioner to Uganda held a meeting with FDC presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye to request him not to support any uprising. This was apparently in support of British interests but not in support of Uganda's democracy.

The largest foreign investor South Africa is understood to have arranged for Zambian former President Kaunda to strike a deal between Museveni and Besigye. According to security sources, Museveni would immediately drop all outstanding criminal charges including treason against Besigye, provide him with a properly funded office of the leader of opposition, in return for Besigye to concede electoral defeat. By the time of writing this piece, the initiative had not taken off as Dr Besigye had rejected the electoral results pending the verification of signed tallies from districts and other concerns for various electoral irregularities. Many of such irregularities were however, so fundamental that not even Dr Besigye and the FDC would resolve them without breach of their commitment to democratic rule. Museveni so massively rigged the elections that little could be harnessed to render them valid.

Arbitrary deployment of 12,000 Sudanese SPLA mercenaries to brutalise the electorate, removal of 1.4million names from the electoral register, using of underage children to vote for Museveni, arresting and chasing away of FDC election agents, and above all falsifying tallies of election results by Museveni's government officials. There were other acts like jamming of independent broadcasting equipment to muzzle the publicity of genuine results and threats of arrest by the police to media houses, bribery of FDC and other agents to falsify electoral results in favour of Museveni. Some of these acts were not visible to the foreign election observers from the EU, Commonwealth, or even the local observers. The US govt spokesman said the electoral irregularities warranted immediate investigation upon whose outcome the US would issue a statement. Museveni's Key allies and national enemies who deserve to pay for their acts of treason:
Robert Kabushenga, Director of CMI, Media Centre
Dr Kiggundu, Chairman, Electoral Commission
Kale Kaihura, Inspector General of Police
Kutesa, Director of Police CID branch

ROBERT KABUSHENGA decreed the manner and content of electoral results to the Chairman, Electoral Commission. His brief was to stream the flow of electoral results to the public in a manner that would show that Museveni was the clear and unstoppable winner. This would accordingly be achievable by announcing results of the Museveni strong areas that would not attract public or opposition street protests. In case of such protests, police chief KALE KAIHURA's "special constables" commissioned by Museveni at his final rally in Kampala, would swing into immediate action using the 12,000 strong force comprising hired Sudanese SPLA "Anyanya" soldiers. CID chief Kutesa visited the MONITOR and other media houses to warn them against publishing any election results. Kutesa has been gravely tainted for her dubious role in "facilitating" for Museveni's fake witnesses against Dr Kizza Besigye's concocted rape charges. Her work does not include supervising election returns. Just before the elections, Museveni created a new division in the CID of election offences. Kutesa as Director of CID is known to report directly to the President bypassing her boss the Inspector General of Police and even her line minister of internal affairs under whose docket police falls.

Election rigging was nationwide, crude and naked. Besides the Anyanya troops that were disguised as "newly trained special constables", several acts were reported. For instance
In Mityana, FDC polling agents were chased from duty.
In Nakasongola airfield, school children were brought to vote for Museveni.
In Kibale, electoral officers transported ballot boxes filled with ticked Museveni ballot papers long before
voting time.
In Hoima, soldiers went on rampage beating up suspected FDC supporters.
In Wakiso at a place called Bukasa, soldiers chased several agents of opposition parties particularly the
FDC from carrying out their work.
In Sironko district, the results already announced to confirm the victory of FDC candidate Miss Wadada
against NRM candidate minister Beatrice Wabudeya were later arbitrarily reversed in favour of NRM
candidate minister Wabudeya in presence of riot squad that fired several shots to disperse protesters.
This was the pattern across the country although different methods were employed.

WESTERN UGANDA JUDAH ISACARIOTS!

Although, Museveni rigged the elections, other factors also may have proved deadly. The so called "heavyweight" NRM defectors from Western Uganda proved more of a liability than an asset to FDC and Kizza Besigye's presidential candidature. The electorate in Western Uganda were excited that Museveni's closest allies had abandoned him and would provide them with a new leadership under FDC. However, this was not to be for Amanya Mushega, Eriya Kategaya, Maria Matembe and Matthew Rukikaire later refused to officially join FDC or even to pledge support to Kizza Besigye. Their ally in Buganda the political chameleon called Bidandi Ssali even formed a new party that failed to inspire even his own children. From the "Judah Iscariot" group, only Kaijuka offered some support to Kizza Besigye and the FDC. The failed parliamentary bid by Maria Matembe was thus supposedly welcome by many in FDC. It was fitting that Matembe harvested what she sowed. Bidandi Ssali has already embarked on his opportunistic mission by calling on the opposition parties to accept the rigged electoral results and begin planning for the 2011 elections!

The NRM defectors who would have certainly swung the pendulum against Museveni, instead abandoned the electorate to Museveni. None of them deserves to be forgiven. Tribute should be paid to John Kazoora of Kashari and Augustine Ruzindana for their patriotism and selflessness alongside others like Chaapa Karuhanga, Jack Sabiiti and Garuga Musinguzi.

It has now been established that Salim Saleh fed false rumour to Andrew Mwenda of Monitor newspaper to the effect that FDC bosses Mugisha Muntu and Garuga Musinguzi had planned to oust Besigye while he remained on prison remand. This information was circulated widely in Western Uganda to project the FDC leadership as incoherent.

Noticeably another man called Pulkol formerly of ESO also played dirty games in holding secret meetings with Museveni while professing loyalty to the opposition. It was widely believed that Pulkol played a large part in rigging the Karamojong vote for Museveni. Earlier there was a faked shooting incident involving the presidential motorcade and mysterious attackers. This incidence enabled NRM to prevent Besigye from campaigning in Karamoja. However, Pulkol's betrayal of Besigye was overplayed against that of Kategaya, Matembe and Mushega. This was wrong especially when Pulkol was of a different party and his role was largely insignificant. He had also all along been known as a mole in his opposition politics.

The FDC electoral victory in Bugisu, Teso, Lango, Acholi and West Nile should also serve as a rude reminder of the small roles that had been assigned to them as opposed to the heavyweights from Western Uganda who delivered very little. Perhaps there are lessons to be learnt.

NEW DISTRICTS: These played their role as teacakes for those who vote with their stomachs as opposed to their consciences. The leaders of these so called "gombololas" otherwise also called districts galvanised their electorate to vote "wisely" for Museveni against their wishes and interests. This was certainly a serious component of electoral rigging. The pattern of voting establishes the occurrence of this crime that has to be punished.

BUSOGA: The NRM Salim Saleh newspaper called the RED PEPPER published false stories of how Salaamu Musumba had swindled UGS 245million. When these newspapers were circulated freely to the electorate and FDC agents to dupe them that Salaamu had refused to give them any money because she was selfish. When Salim Saleh bribed them into defecting, they believed he had saved them. The same tricks were applied around Busoga, Tororo and Bugisu.

FDC MEDIA STRATEGY: proved totally wanting. FDC should have utilised Wafula Ogutu's skills into publishing a newspaper for the election period. The various media and communication skills of certain volunteers were rendered redundant in preference for the self-aggrandizement of a couple of website co-ordinators who preferred to be hero-worshipped at the expense of electoral campaigning. Spokesman duties were mismatched with skills and capacity. FDC outwitted the NRM and Museveni only in the area of legal techniques where the right people did the right duties. The MONITOR newspaper had all along published faked electoral surveys of a Museveni victory. Such surveys as the Monitor was repeatedly warned, risked being used to legitimatise Museveni's rigged election results as being consistent with "independent" Monitor polls especially so as they were already widely quoted by foreign media bodies. Many of these Agakhan waged employees act as if they were the sources of cleverness. Many have close ties with Salim Saleh and group. Agakhan's is only interested in protecting the rights of Indians in Uganda to milk the economy dry.

THE WAY FORWARD

Uganda has rejected Museveni who has destroyed the economy, social values, political participation, security of the person, rule of law, constitutional freedoms of rule of law, separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary.

National resistance against his rule must continue unceasingly. Gallant volunteers should come forward to do for their country what others before them have done. Everyone will be expected to volunteer their skills, resources, contacts, prayers, support and all forms of positive inputs that shall enhance the goals of liberation of our people. We expect there to be instituted a reward system for national heroes either during or after their lifetime. The fate of Uganda is in the hands of its people. It has not been sealed by the temporary setback by Museveni rigging that was expected. Indeed a non-rigged election would have most surprised Museveni's supporters. Museveni had after all stated clearly that he would not hand over power. We are therefore duty bound to continue struggling for our people.

The people of Buganda, Eastern and Northern Uganda should be commended for the cleverly managed polls. They were not guided by petty nationality interests. Baganda could have voted for DP or CP but opted to vote FDC. The Bagisu, Teso, Langi and Acholi could have voted for UPC but opted to support FDC. They should be commended. The Western axis could have voted for FDC but opted to rally behind NRM and Museveni mainly following the betrayal of the FDC by the Judas Iscariot gangsters of Kategaya, Matembe and Mushega. May they find their peace. There is a growing feeling within Uganda that the West might have blown its golden opportunity of providing a nationally popular president under Dr Kizza Besigye. It remains to be seen whether another chance would creep in easily.

I support Radio Katwe's mission to compile facts that have impacted on our country's negative history particularly linked to the Museveni factor. We wish to know facts connected to events like the electoral rigging in 2006 and 2001, the murders of key people like Dr Kayiira, Dr Kiyingi etc.

In struggling for a new national status, Buganda's aspiration shall play a crucial role. I believe that if Buganda wishes formed part of Uganda's national agenda, they would be sustainable and acceptable to the rest of Uganda as national achievement and not sectarian achievements. Buganda's desires cannot and should never have been attempted to emerge as decisions of a single person such as Museveni. Uganda has suffered a shock but not a surprise with the rigged elections. For every cloud, there is a silver lining. Let us not be unduly subdued by Museveni temporary victory. The people shall triumph. The struggle continues.

Smart Musolin

Entebbe (Uganda)

Radio Katwe commentary on just ended election

On Saturday, February 25, 2006, the Electoral Commission headed by Badru Kiggundu announced the official results of the 2006 general election.

Incumbent President Yoweri Museevni of the NRM was declared the winner of the presidential race, with 59.28 percent of the vote, while his main challenger Kizza Besigye of the FDC was said to have won 37.36 percent of the vote.

Some of the international observers in Uganda to watch the voting process said it had been free and fair. If Chancellor Angela Merkel had been thrown in prison, spent much of her time in court on trumped up malicious charges, while Schroeder financed his campaign from state coffers, the Germany security agencies beat up, harassed and even killed her supproters , our conflicted Western "patrons" would have still found the process free and fair. Right?

So fine. Lets get on with our lives.

We shall not labour too much to argue the details of how an overall result can be announced on the basis of less than 10 percent of all results publicly announced; we shall not bother too much with the three months leading up to the election when in broad daylight anybody could see the state harassing Besigye in order to burden his chances in the race.

We shall overlook the voices of the many Southern Sudanese who were ferried to army barracks in several parts of Uganda to vote for Museveni and in the excitement of finding themselves taking part in any election in their lives, excitedly began to narrate this new experience to their surprised Ugandan friends and so betrayed Museveni's secret scheme.

We shall behave as if we did not witness the massive rigging in western Uganda in which the state removed its gloves and came all-out to make sure that it fixed an advantage for Museveni.

To organize, then you yourself lose an election is a concept that does not exist in Ugandas' political history. Vote rigging and electoral malpractice were predicted and expected by political commentators of all stripes. We would be a little insincere if we suddenly began to grumble now.

Fast forward to the next plan of action.

When Radio Katwe.com started operations in January, we were not looking for it to be used as a propaganda tool against President Museveni to prevent him from winning the election. That would have been too petty and short-sighted. We recognize clearly that though Museveni the man is a major contributor to them, Ugandas problems are far deeper and more complex than that.

We know Museveni better than most people. His strategies , thinking and methods and therefore have no illusions that he was going to voluntarily relinquish power through a fair election now, in 2011 or any time in the foreseeable future. Infact we are a bit miffed that our forecast before the election had even begun of a 63% "win" for Museveni against 30% for Besigye was a bit off.

We were more concerned with the overall picture of how to break the cycle of unending suffering and self-inflicted backwardness engendered by one-man rule and dictatorship in Uganda. This will conceivably take generations.

The last general election in Uganda's history to be received as free and fair was the 1962 election that prepared the way for independence.

Every major election since then, from 1980 to 1996, 2001, and now 2006, has been highly contentious and contested so loudly that the question of foul play could not easily be dismissed.

On the evening of Friday February 24, 2006, around 7:00 p.m. Ugandan time, Radio Katwe published a news flash saying that the website of the Ugandan newspaper, the Daily Monitor was being blocked and the state had sent a CID officer and the head of the Broadcasting Council to the Monitor headquarters at Namuwongo to quietly put pressure on the company to stop announcing the results of the election at its Tally Centre.

A number of visitors to the Radio Katwe.com website read the story of the Daily Monitor and KFM radio blockade and angrily accused Radio Katwe of publishing hateful propaganda against the Museveni regime and many used the most obscene language imaginable.

Many people started to believe that Radio Katwe was a tool of the FDC against Museveni when they saw this story.

But many others who have noticed the effort under difficult conditions by Radio Katwe to bring the truth to Ugandans, believed us. That Friday, traffic to Radio Katwe.com broke the previous record of 140,000 and ended the day at above 170,000 as people all over the world trying to find the truth of what was happening in Uganda logged on to our website.

On Sunday February 26, many could not believe their eyes when they read a story in the Monitor's Sunday print edition and website confirming more than 24 hours later what Radio Katwe had first broken to the world.

"The government has jammed the signal of 93.3 KFM, a sister media outlet of Daily/Sunday Monitor, for independently relaying results from Thursday's elections," the Sunday Monitor story reported.

"Monitor Publications Ltd (MPL), owners of KFM and publishers of Daily/Sunday Monitor, independently tallied results at their Namuwongo offices and relayed them on KFM and the paper's website.

The results showed a much closer race between President Museveni and key challenger Kizza Besigye of FDC compared to those being released by the Electoral Commission. The government consequently blocked the website (http://www.monitor.co.ug) and jammed the KFM signal" MPL Managing Director Conrad Nkutu said. Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda told him on Friday that the security agencies had indeed jammed KFM and blocked the website but that all would be fine quickly. "He promised yesterday [Saturday] that the blocking and jamming would be reversed but only the website is unblocked" Mr Nkutu said.

That is the official Daily Monitor version of the story first published by Radio Katwe.com

As a result of the Sunday Monitor confirming more than 24 hours later what Radio Katwe had first announced and which many people thought was the "usual lies" of the website, Radio Katwe has taken another step in being recognized by Ugandans as the medium that will play a crucial role in the trying and difficult years ahead. Of course some of the governments nefarious plans are abandoned because they are exposed before hand. So a superficial person will think that Radio Katwe was not accurate at first. But that is a good thing. It is our intention to expose and cause as many plans as possible to fail.

We would like to announce that the traffic to the Radio Katwe website between February 1 to February 21, 2006 totaled 1,014,000 hits.

One million is a lot of visits for a website that has just started and which the Internet search engines cannot even pick up yet. Moreover, it has been blocked by the government in the country with its main audience, Uganda.

At the current average of about 120,000 visitors a day, Radio Katwe.com is not very far behind the number of hits that the New Visions' (198,000) or Daily Monitors' (200,000) daily averages.

Some cynical readers rightly questioned us over how we could have achieved such huge numbers of visitors when the website is blocked in Uganda and anyway Uganda does not even have a high Internet connectivity.

Though our main audience is in Uganda, like any website, we can be accessed by anybody from all over the world. So taking the potential number of visitors worldwide, we are infact still a small voice.

As we have said before, we cannot claim that all the news stories and reports we publish are 100 percent or even 80 percent correct all the time.

Even the New Vsision, Daily Monitor or BBC and New York Times with decades of experience occasionally get a number of stories or details in the stories wrong and issue apologies. Worse, beholden as they are to powerful business and or political interests, compromise and deliberate, outright misinformation are all too common.

Radio Katwe is in a complicated position because it is dealing with top-secret information and revelations that most Ugandans are hearing for the first time in their lives. Many readers of Radio Katwe.com wish to see the truth of Uganda's history come out.

Many of them send in tips on gossip, news, allegations, facts, and events they have heard about. Radio Katwe has to piece them together.

Since the contributors are writing anonymously, it is impossible to call up or email anybody to get confirmation or more details. But it is our solemn responsibility to correct, issue apologies or retract our stories as soon as we get credible information that is contrary to what has been published. If you the reader knows "truth" contrary to what we have here, the more mature thing to do is take the time to send it in, instead of just crying foul.

But judging by the flood of emails, files, tips and contributions we are getting from the public, most Ugandans are quite unhappy about the state of affairs but are too afraid to take an open stand. They have decided to find their voice in Radio Katwe. We are obliged to disguise some of the information in our reports so as to protect whistle blowers in security agencies, but we will always tell Ugandans what they need to hear.

Thankfully, the Museveni regime does not control the Internet and so cannot do much about all its secrets being exposed to the Ugandan public and Diaspora. The best they can do, and which we hope for, is to stop stealing our money, stop harassing, torturing and killing Ugandans.

Other than that, there is a limit to what the state can do in this age of the Internet.This should give hope to patriotic Ugandans who love their country and wish for a democratic era to begin.

Their ever growing insecurity as evidenced by the huge security detail which guards him and his family and their property from physical harm, is only an outward sign of the pressure they feel to keep a tight lid on the top-level and sensitive secrets away from the public eye.

Radio Katwe is not the cause of the severe shortage in the emperors wardrobe, we are only pointing out that he is naked.

From now on, Museveni will address rallies or the nation well knowing that a lot of them now see him a new light. That they know a little bit of him as he really is. We expect extreme efforts to be made to hide signs of his various illnesses, which are of course a concern for all of us.

The days of giving Ugandans a false image of moral uprightness and "revolutionary" vision are now over because people are logging on to Radio Katwe and reading up what takes place behind doors (and between sheets) in Musevenis regime. And he cant stop it. A government cannot be run in total secrecy and for every Radio Katwe that he shuts down, 10 will take its place.

Let us watch and see as Ugandans are treated to their full history, not these exaggerations whereby the "pious" First Family is above reproach in the public eye but the rest of the Ugandan public is open to scrutiny. They can grab you from the street or your home and do as their sick minds wish with impunity.

Turning to the election, we have a number of comments to make.

While we deplore the cheating and naked use of the state machinery to intimidate, even kill voters and rig the results, we cannot say that everything is the fault of the NRM government, party, and Museveni. Whereas the orders come from him, Museveni does not personally go down to the Electoral Commission and fudgue the figures. Thousands of Ugandans cooperate in making his harmful schemes work.

You have to understand Museveni's reactions and why he had to do everything legal and illegal to "win" this election.

That Besigye took Museveni's beloved Winnie Byanyima and Museveni has never recovered from that as some claim is only a minor, insignificant factor. The real deal is that Besigye in 2001 took away the bulk of Museveni's support in the country and did even more damage in 2005 and 2006.

Besigye is the man who conclusively and comprehensively shattered the myth of Museveni as a great man, a democrat, an invincible liberator. Besigye helped us to see Museveni's weaknesses better.

Now Besigye in 2006 threatened to take Museveni's most cherished thing, power, and the results we saw published by Daily Monitor and announced by KFM showed that Besigye won the 2006 election.

Putting morals aside, what was Museveni to do politically except rig, use violence, and make sure that the results were overturned?

What would you do if a man came and took your wife, the market share of your company until you were faced with bankruptcy, and finally he threatened to take your job?

You would be a special human not to resort to Museveni's desperate measures. So in some sick way, Museveni's desperate moves are logical. He is entitled to defend himself, and we wish to emphasize that he succeeds because thousands of Ugandans cooperate and agree to be used by him. The apparent triumph of evil over good is testimony to the weakness of civil society and moral depravity which Uganda as a whole has sunk to.

What of the other candidates?

Let us look at them one by one:

Abed Bwanika

The candidate who performed the best in the election, as far as Radio Katwe is concerned, was the independent Abed Bwanika.

He had no party organization behind him to guard against rigging of his votes and most people heard about him for the first time in 2005 at the time of nominations.

He did well during the candidates' debate at the Sheraton Hotel and there is nothing to criticize him over. He did his best and he did well.

If Uganda was not a mad country, completely corrupted and rotten from the core, the best president for the country would be Abed Bwanika or somebody like Mohammed Kibirige Mayanja of Jeema.

Being the corrupt and unprincipled country that we are, we did not even give much time to the message and the principled character of Bwanika.

Kizza Besigye

Besigye was the hero of the campaign and you could say that he is the new hero of Uganda.

Many people will never forget Besigye for the rest of their lives. He displayed courage and a determination that won many hearts and put him in the ranks of Uganda's greatest heroes.

What more does he need?

Someone could argue that it is good that Besigye was not declared the winner of the election. Had he been announced the winner, he would have immediately made the transition from national hero to practical politician and president.

He would have had to start dealing with the huge mess of 20 years left behind by Museveni.

He would have to meet such high expectations to restore regular electricity, deal with the traffic jams and dirty streets, rescue institutions at or near collapse, he would have had to start showing the Acholi population that the war would end in three months and they would leave the inhuman, concentration camps.

Nobody can tackle such deep problems and not lose popularity and become like President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya who is now on some counts a victim of the high expectations he raised.

So it serves Besigye's place in history to remain the leader of the opposition, addressing journalists at his home, appearing in court after the election as the victim of the repressive Museveni regime, each time gaining, not losing support.

Radio Katwe faults Besigye over some areas. The way he came out and condemned the legacy of the NRM was not convincing enough.

He made it seem as if the NRA/NRM was once a great and noble revolution but because of being in power for too long, it started to lose direction and so it was time for change. We feel this is an inadequate, even misleading assesment.

Radio Katwe is more direct.

The information we are getting from Ugandans on this website and other sources shows us that the NRM was driven by hopeless, evil idealogies like Marxism right from its inception and it has rained hell and death and brought too much Machiavellian cynicism to Ugandan society.

Besigye in his public statements does not seem to see that fundamental evil side to the NRM machine and therefore Radio Katwe says that Ugandans were going to be disappointed after some time. Without a deep appreciation of the bankruptcy and fatal flaws inherent in his former political convictions (in NRM), Besigye was not going to bring fundamental change to Uganda. With a significant NRM opposition presence in government, the best we would have got is an NRM-Lite, NRM without the barefaced theft, lying, torture and general degeneracy.

Besigye was the Minister of State for Internal Affairs in the early years of the NRM government.

The murder of Andrew Kayiira is a wound in Uganda's heart that cannot go away and Besigye is said to have been given the file handling Kayiira's murder by Museveni in 1987.

In the campaigns, Besigye did not touch on this sensitive subject much and you cannot move forward in Uganda's healing if Kayiira's death is not explained to the full. Besigye it seems does not understand how much pain the murder of Kayiira still brings to Ugandans of good will.

Some of the draconian military laws and the culture of UPDF impunity that imprisoned and is now persecuting Besigye were created or approved by Besigye himself as minister of state or National Political Commissar. Just like Generals Tumwine of the GCM and Tinyefuza will one day be victims of the very monster they now preside over.

He avoided that subject during his campaigns. Other FDC heavyweights like Major-General Mugisha Muntu, Anne Mugisha, Major Ruranga Rubaramira, Major John Kazoora and others had once been part of the NRM's heart.

They could not therefore campaign for change of leadership in Uganda and talk only about the corruption and how Museveni had run out of ideas, but not disassociate themselves with the darkest deeds of the NRM regime, and here we were expecting a 100% turn around and fresh start?

Things rarely work that way!

In November 2005, Winnie Byanyima, Besigye's wife, warned that the state might try to kill Besigye by spray poison guns at Luzira prison.

Many people wondered that if Byanyima knew about this plot, how long had it been NRM state practice, and which other people in the past had been murdered by such poison?

Byanyima did not give us details and Besigye did not help clear the air for us over the suspected prison poisoning of former Vice President Paulo Muwanga and poison injection killings of Captain Robert Namiti and others.

Federo? Yes he promised it this time for Buganda as FDC candidate, but we all know that he didnt think much of federo when he was still part of the system.

Winnie Byanyima warned Museveni two weeks before the election that she would spill the beans and reveal his secrets and moral failings if he did not leave Besigye alone. That Museveni, usually arrogant and self confident to the point of being belligerent immediately came to heel and stopped his personal attacks on Besigye should give us reason to pause and ponder the darkness and size of his skeleton closet. Radio Katwe only scratches the surface.

But Byanyima did not really help Uganda. If Museveni has dirty secrets, as Radio Katwe has perhaps ineptly shown, but Byanyima will only reveal them if Museveni continues to harass Besigye her husband, is the fact that over 800,000 of our brothers and sisters in the North continue to be harassed, killed and live like animals for well over a decade because of a callous Museveni government NOT good enough reason for those dark secsrets to be exposed?

Therefore, Radio Katwe states that Besigye represented the Ugandan wish for the end of the Museveni regime, but we need more concrete proof that he has fundamentally turned his back from the NRM kind of manipulation and evil.

John Sebaana Kizito

The next best person to have been president after Bwanika would have been Sebaana Kizito because of the DP belief in parliamentary democracy and the years the party has spent courageously documenting human rights abuses from 1971 to 2006.

This is where we blame Kizito. He conducted a campaign that promised roads, schools, health centres, jobs, and such things. As good as they are, that is not the core pain of Ugandans.

What we need urgently is a fair state where fear, extrajudicial killings, safe houses and the use of the intelligence system to intimidate us end. We can live without electricity for most of the day and night, as we have shown.

But we cannot live in peace without freedom and with so much fear.

DP has a long history and documentation on the NRM and NRA's human rights atrocities and if he had made his campaign theme that, he would have been getting the kind of attention that Radio Katwe.com is getting.

Sebaana Kizito failed to take up the historic mantle of human rights watching and reporting that is the DP legacy, that is why he ended up making almost no impression.

Besides, what kind of party is the DP in this day and age not to embrace mass information and organisation tools like email and the Internet? When even the incompetent NRM party was able to set up a website?

Miria Obote

Mrs. Obote lost the election and Radio Katwe thinks she deserved it. In fact we think she deserved to lose more than all the other candidates (except of course Yoweri Kayibanda Museveni.)

The UPC ruled Uganda two times and it built many of the best institutions, schools, systems and what have you that Uganda has enjoyed since independence. Miria Obote knows Museveni's history and she knows what really happened in Luwero Triangle.

She knows what Museveni did to his first wife Hope. She knows all this. But instead of taking that moral high ground and speaking out from that history, she also went down like Sebaana Kizito to promise good but relatively insignificant things like roads, schools, and so on, when so much evil has been done for 20 years in Uganda and the same evil master did terrible things in Luwero from 1981 to 1985.

Candidate Miria Obote failed to understand that the 2006 presidential race was a moral crusade and not one about bread and butter issues. There are probably fewer Ugandans dying of hunger and disease now, but we still continue to suffer and bleed at heart. Why?

Even with the practical things, most of the people voting in the Ugandan election were born or nursed in hospitals built under the UPC governments of 1962-1971 and 1980-1985.

But Miria Obote was unable to articulate such basic reasons why UPC should be voted to power again.

Yoweri Museveni

The president failed in the 2006 presidential election and the best evidence of his failure of his previous terms as president was to be declared the winner of an election he did not actually win. It shows that for 20 years he has failed to create democracy or independent institutions. But this is not failure in the ordinary sense of trying but not succeeding, but a deliberate well thought out policy.

He showed a deep, long range cunning by taking control of the media before hand with the appointment of Gen. Noble Mayombos to New Vision, Kabushengas Media Council and planting his men in the Electoral Commission to control the flow of information. But He also showed how vulnerable, misguided and cowardly he can be by blocking Radio Katwe.com and the Monitor radio and website.

If after 20 years of total monopoly on power, you can be declared the winner and instead of massive celebrations all over Uganda by the imaginary "60%" who voted for you, people quietly go home, close their doors, enter their beds and sleep, you have good reason to be a worried man. Shame on you! And on all who while knowing these lies, continue to tolerate and sing the false praises. No wonder the Europeans almost instinctively hold us to a "different", lower standard.

Museveni thought he was a clever "revolutionary" guerrilla who could carry out secret killings and the world would never know. They thought their cover as God-fearing people would never be blown - and we do wish they would really turn to God, Allah in private as well as the fake show they put on in public. But now thanks to Radio Katwe.com and its 120,000-a-day audience, the real history of Museveni, his family, and his regime is being read and understood by shocked Ugandans.

Boda boda boys and housegirls are now hearing the truth from their relatives who regularly visit Radio Katwe.com.

To us that is the real meaning of Universal Primary Education! It is not pretty, but at least we are getting universally educated about some of our basic political history.

The winner in this are the people of Uganda.

Museveni rigs his way to a firth term --- what Ugandans must do

Radio Katwe is looking for help from patriotic Ugandans frustrated at being taken for granted by dictatorial regimes and leaders.

To do this, we must break the will of the Museveni regime so that he does not even complete his five stolen years until 2011.
(election results not yet announced as of writing. -Ed)

We are looking to understand Museveni totally, his history, his working methods, his scandals, his most sensitive military and intelligence secrets and operations, and the men and women who prop up his strange regime.

We are compiling information about the mysteries and incidents listed below. Please continue to send us whatever bits of information and clues you have to add to our growing pool:

  • The assassination of UFM leader Andrew Kayiira. Who masterminded the murder? Where was it planned and who coordinated the assault? Who actually pulled the trigger? What does the Scotland Yard report investigating his murder say? Who were the men who were sent on the mission to kill Dr. Kayiira? We need insider details on this murder for the public to know. This murder must be understood once and for all by Ugandans.

  • The 1988 Uganda Airlines crash in Rome. What is the truth behind it? Was it really an accident or was the Museveni government involved? Did Flight Captain Stephen Walusimbi lose control of the plane or was it sabotaged? What is the background of a man called Juma Ssali who died on board? Is it true he is the man who used to wok with Museveni and Salim Saleh to forge Museveni's signature and steal money from the Ugandan treasury?

  • The Uganda Airlines Boeing 707 plane seized in Yugoslavia in 1991. Do we know anything about this incident? Where were the arms on the plan going and where were they coming from? Did Amama Mbabazi play any role in it as ESO director? What was Museveni's interest in those arms?

  • The murder of businessman Edward Mugalu. Why did Museveni order it? What had Mugalu done? Where did it take place and who carried it out?

  • The shooting down of the plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi's Cyprien Ntaryamira in 1994. What do we know about this? How did Brigadier Jim Muhwezi come into the picture? When did Museveni come up with the plan to have the plane shot down? Is it really true that the man who fired the missile that downed the plane was ESO assassin Humphrey Babukika? Was RPA commander Major-General Paul Kagame involved or not?

  • The assassination of RPF founding commander Fred Rwigyema in 1990. What details do we know? How were Peter Baingana and Chris Bunyenyezi involved? Where does Museveni feature in this incident? Why did Museveni bring Rwigyema's body to be kept at Mulago hospital?

  • The murder of Kampala lawyer Robinah Kiyingi in 2005. Why did Museveni order her murder (if it is he who ordered it?) What did she know? What happened to the laptop computer that she had? Is it true she was shot dead by the Urban Hit Squad?

  • Safe houses in Uganda. Where are these safe houses located in Uganda? What takes place inside there? Can we have the names of the Military Intelligence and ISO men who conduct the interrogation and torture of political prisoners? Who does the torturing in those safe houses? Can we have all their names, including those who were transferred to other duties?

  • What are the secrets of General Salim Saleh? What is his history? Who is his real father? Which people has he killed, as far back as the bush days and FRONASA? Can we have more background into his smuggling of narcotics from East Asia? Why is he close to his aide Captain Juma Seiko? When did their relationship begin? What dirty things do they do together?

  • What happened to the four Airbus planes that Uganda was supposed to have bought in 1990 or 1991? Where did Museveni put the money? Who ordered the murder of Uganda Airlines General Manager Chris Mboijana in London in 1990? How exactly did he die? Who carried out the murder?

  • The death of human rights advocate and DP supporter Anthony Sekweyama. Was it really an accident? If not, what really happened? Why, if at all, did the NRM government have him killed?

  • The John Garang mystery. What really happened to that helicopter? Who tampered with the altimeter of the helicopter at Entebbe airforce base? Why did the NRM government put a ban on publication of the photographs of the wreckage? What brought Garang to Uganda to meet Museveni? What did they discuss? Why did Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi refuse to escort Garang back to Juba? Why did Vice President Gilbert Bukenya receive Garang at Entebbe Airport but not see him off again when he was going back to Sudan?

  • Murder of Mulago doctors in 1979. Who was or who were the gunmen carrying out Museveni's orders to kill Mulago doctors and other prominent Ugandans in 1970 and 1980 in Kampala? Who shot dead the UNLA officer, Lt. Colonel John Ruhinda at Makerere University? What was Museveni doing in the area shortly after Ruhinda's murder?

  • Paulo Muwanga's death in 1991. What details do we know about the death of the former vice president Paulo Muwanga? Was he ill? Was he poisoned? What about Capt. Robert Namiti? Was he also killed by a poison injection? If these reports are true, who were the doctors or medical people carrying out these poison injection murders?

  • NRA robbery of UCB Kabale in 1984. The Manager of Uganda Commercial Bank in Kabale in 1984 was Janet Kahirimbanyi and she organised with the NRA rebels to robb the bank branch of over 400 million shs. Where is she today? Who carried out the raid? Where did the money go?

  • Major-General Jim Muhwezi. What is the story and background of this sly man? We know he was in Idi Amin's State Research Bureau, but in what section was he? What did he do? He was director general of intelligence from 1986 to 1996. What top secret and deadly missions did he order or execute? Can we get detailed information on him?

The answers to these questions will give Ugandans a better idea of their history. Please begin sending your tips in.

Govt moves to close Daily Monitor, stop Besigye win

The NRM government has been taken by complete shock by the strong performance of the FDC presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye in the just ended general election and has begun putting some damage control to the situation.

This is how events have unfolded.

The lead story in the New Vision, which is a government-owned paper, was "Museveni leading."

The headline was intended to prepare the ground for the official announcement of a Museveni "win."

The chairman of the Electoral Commission, Badru Kiggundu, got instructions from State House to start announcing provisional results, but to start with results from places where Museveni had won, in particular western Uganda.

Those are the results which put Museveni at 59 percent at first, then they began to climb into the 60s percent, something which Radio Katwe had predicted the day before the election was going to happen.

Radio Katwe said there was a secret plan by Museveni and his half-brother General Salim Saleh reached in a meeting with Kiggundu, to announce a 63 percent win, and give Besigye 30 percent.

Many people who tried to follow the results by visiting the Daily Monitor website on Friday February 24, 2006, found that they could not get through to it.

By mid afternoon, the website had been blocked by the government. The results being broadcast by KFM were also being posted on the Daily Monitor website, so it had to be cut off.

In the morning, the Daily Monitor got instructions to the effect that it should stop saying its was giving out results from its "Tallying Centre", but instead call it a "Relaying Centre."

In the afternoon of February 24, the Managing Director of Monitor Publications Limited, Conrad Nkutu, received a phone call from Godfrey Mutabazi, the chairman of the Broadcasting Council.

Mutabazi said he wished to visit the Monitor offices at Namuwongo to discuss the broadcasting of results by Monitor-affiliated station, KFM. Mutabazi came with the CID officer in charge of election malpractice, Elly Owomnya.

After Mutabazi had made his phone call, Nkutu received a call from the director of the CID, Elizabeth Kuteesa.

The CID and the Broadcasting Council had received instructions from State House to find any fault or loophole in the Monitor and FM which would lead them to both be shut down. That is why they were visiting the company's offices to meet Nkutu.

As many people now know, the Daily Monitor has been publishing and with KFM, broadcasting the real results as they were coming from polling stations all over Uganda.

These results, sources tell Radio Katwe, took Museveni by complete shock He was stunned into silence and panic at how well Besigye was doing.

The results were showing the two rivals neck and neck, despite the massive rigging that took place in western Uganda.

Museveni decided to act before the situation got out of hand. Already, the foreign observers, western embassies and the international media were starting to refer to the Monitor result tally almost in official terms, because they reflected what was on the ground.

The latest reports are that the NRM is planning as many "spontaneous celebrations" as possible in Kampala.

This is so that by the time results are officially announced and certified on Saturday afternoon, February 25, Ugandans have resigned themselves to a landslide Museveni victory and Ugandans will even have started to believe that maybe he genuinely won.

Radio Katwe cannot yet predict what is going to happen to the Daily Monitor, but it warns the public to prepare for the possibility of the Daily Monitor and KFM being shut down, something which could happen by next week.

It is also possible that by night time in Kampala on Friday, the KFM radio will have been ordered to stop broadcasting its tallied results and maybe even hand the data over to the CID.

We shall update you on this story as we get more details.

Friday lunch, Museveni, Besigye race still too close to call

By lunchtime on Friday February 24, Ugandan time, there was still a deadlock between President Yoweri Museveni and his main challenger Colonel Kizza Besigye.

The results between the two men continues to swing back and forth between them, but in the range of 46 to 49 percent.

It is more than 16 hours since President Museveni registered any total standing above the 50 percent mark.

What is important to note is that most of the areas in western Uganda where there has been heavy and open rigging for Museveni have had their results announced by the Daily Monitor and KFM radio.

These include Mbarara, Ntungamo, Kinkizi, Kabarole, Masindi, and others. With these heavily rigged areas still failing to secure Museveni the break above the 50 percent mark, indicates that there is going to be a very close finish, with Besigye and Museveni tying around 47 percent each.

As results began coming in and the NRM saw the strong showing by Colonel Besigye, General David Tinyefuza suggested that the army steps in and overthrows the government in order to abort a Besigye victory.

Sources say President Museveni restrained Tinyefuza, saying "Wait."

The Electoral Commission, after being silent since polls closed on Thursday, began announcing provisional results on Friday.

However, Daily Monitor Political Editor Andrew Mwenda complained to the Presidential Press Secretary, Francis Onapito Ekomoloit on phone that the Electoral Commission was trying to influence public sentiment by releasing the results selectively to favour Museveni.

The Electoral Commission, in the results it was announcing before and around lunchtime Friday, did not mention a single Kampala result where Besigye has beaten Museveni.

Kampala remains an empty city with few vehicles on the roads and most of the shops along William Street, Luwum Street, and Wilson Road closed.

Meanwhile, news coming in to Radio Katwe says that the western diplomats and observers in Uganda have come out determined that there will be no rigging.

According to sources in Kampala, the western diplomats and observers brought in fax machines that were programmed to go past the Uganda telecommunications system and end up either at their embassies or out of the country.

That is how the NRM has found itself unable to control the information flow and that is why the Electoral Commission has been delaying in relaying results.

Sources at the FDC headquarters in Najjanankumbi along Entebbe Road say that the Electoral Commission is deliberately announcing inflated figures in order to break the spirit of the FDC and prepare the country psychologically for a large Museveni rig.

The Electoral Commission in its morning report said Museveni was at 59 percent, far above what the Daily Monitor/KFM tally centre has been reporting. KFM has been reporting a consistent 46-49 percent range for either men at any one time.

Sources also tell us that Radio Katwe has become a source of information and updates that the mainstream Ugandan media cannot publish or broadcast.

At the American, British, and French diplomatic missions in Kampala, Radio katwe.com is constantly being visited for insider information.

More updates later.

Massive fraud reported in western Uganda, race still close

There has been massive fraud in western Uganda, with money becoming a decisive factor.

In Ankole especially, it was a case of pay-per-vote. People with voters' cards were being given money to cast votes, with sums like 3,000 shs. changing hands.

Some of the results seemed hard to explain.

In places like Nakasongola, Rakai, and Sembabule where the area is large but sparsely populated, there were reports of numbers as high as 400 or 500 voting at polling stations.

This could not be possible, to those who know the areas, where the population distribution is one family surrounded by kilometers of land and hills.

However, the picture is becoming clearer as Uganda enter the early morning hours of Friday February 24.

The Ugandan presidential race is much closer than the ruling National Resistance Movement had expected.

By 1:30 a.m. Friday February 24 (22:30 GMT, Thursday), President Museveni was at 49 percent and Besigye at 47 percent.

In a normal democracy this would mean nothing because a win is a win.

But in the NRM-ruled Uganda, that could trigger off a crisis, with angry calls for explanations as to why the result went as it did, when the NRM and its candidate President Yoweri Museveni were predicting a landslide.

If the result remains as it is, hovering around 49 to 50 percent for Museveni and 46 to 47 percent for Besigye, the calls for investigating allegations of rigging, voters finding their names missing from the register, will grow loud.

If Museveni's lead should drop below 50 percent in the final tally, then Uganda will be in for interesting times.

All this hinges on whether Museveni can accept a victory over Besigye that is so slight that, given the bitterness of their relationship, it is tantamount to a loss.

Any win for Museveni in which single digit results separate him from Besigye will lead us back to the Radio Katwe analysis of his mind and reactions.

In a crazy gamble, Museveni could order his men to find a way of artificially inflating his win to something in the range of what Radio Katwe predicted, 63 percent.

That will spark the crisis that everyone has been waiting for. Much of the population in central Uganda tuned in on Thursday night to KFM (or Monitor FM) to listen to the results being systematically announced and tallied.

The public, therefore, is being prepared for a very close race by African standards.

By the time the Electoral Commission announces the official results on Saturday, the public will have spent more than a day thinking of 49-47 percent, 50-46 percent, 51-48 percent, 48-46 percent.

As the earlier article showed, the number of ballots that were spoilt or invalid was one of the biggest surprises of the election and its ended the long-standing myth that Ugandas' rural population is uninformed, unsophisticated, and easy to manipulate.

The NRM will be forced to think about what to do with that expectation and nationwide alertness.

Will Museveni come to terms with a win over Besigye that is as good as a draw? Very doubtful. But then, if the public has shown itself so alert, how can a 63 percent victory be declared without causing chaos?

Museveni cannot deal with such a slight win over Besigye, after investing so much effort, cunning, money, military might, the General Court Martial, and the state machinery trying to frustrate Besigye.

In real political terms, it is a terrible defeat for Museveni and his reaction to that is what is worth watching.

More updates later.

Tight race between President Museveni, Besigye in Ugandan polls

Provisional results on the Ugandan general election by midnight Ugandan time (2100 GMT) showed President Yoweri Museveni slightly ahead of his main challenger Colonel Kizza Besigye, at 50 percent and Besigye at 46 percent.

By about 10:25 p.m. Ugandan time President Museveni stood at 53 percent and Besigye was at 42 percent.

This trend shows that with the passing of time and with more results coming in, Musevenii's lead over Besigye drops slightly, making the race even more tight and unpredictable.

Reports also have come in of the extent of bribery undertaken by the NRM in western Uganda.

All the polling agents of FDC Treasurer Jack Sabiiti were arrested and spent the night before the election in jail. Sabiiti stood in Rukiga county in Kabale district.

In Ruhaama County where the First Lady Janet Museveni stood, ordinary people were beaten by the presidential guard brigade at the polling stations of Rugendo Kashingi and Kabuga.

FDC official Yona Kanyomozi reported the matter to the police.

The NRM realized that there was no chance of an easy rig in central, eastern, and northern Uganda, so the efforts of the state were concentrated on securing the vote in western Uganda.

According to reports received by Radio Katwe, state agents went to polling stations and handed out 10,000 shs. to voters to give their ballot to President Museveni and in Ruhaama, up to 30,000 shs. was given to voters to vote Mrs. Museveni and the President.

In Kibaale it was total chaos as the FDC reported 300 cases of intimidation, with the police and army openly harassing FDC agents. The mobile phones of the FDC agents were seized.

In Sembabule district, soldiers ran off with ballot boxes.

The NRM set up its tallying centre at the Kampala Sheraton and a source there said the ruling party was worried that the results were too close for comfort between Museveni and Besigye.

The NRM's big worry was the way Buganda would vote.

The biggest surprise was over how few spoilt or invalid votes were recorded, which showed that the Ugandan electorate was much more alert and knowledgeable than at any time in the last 26 years since the 1980 elections.

Radio Katwe would like to note that the margin for rigging was reduced when in January Radio Katwe reported to the world that the state planned to jam the three mobile phone networks, Celtel, MTN, and UTL on the afternoon of the election.

The idea was to cripple communication and enable rigging to take place. After Radio Katwe blew the whistle in advance, the state gave up the plan and that is how the radio stations in Uganda were able to get reports from the field by their correspondents.

More updates later in the day.

SUDAN'S TROOPS; MUSEVENI MAN ADMITS PRESENCE OF 12,000 "SPECIAL" CONSTABLES

By Smart Musolin

Uganda government has admitted commissioning 12,000 "special constables" to provide security cover for the ongoing electoral period. Outgoing dictator Yoweri Museveni suffered heavy defeat on the worldwide Voice of America television programme when his police nominee General Kale Kaihura failed to survive a barrage of questions put to him by various experts. During Wednesday evening flagship programme hosted by Ugandan born Shaka Ssali, Kale Kaihura who used a telephone satellite link could not answer serious questions raised about the performance of the police and security situation in Uganda in general.

Asked by a caller who identified himself as a Ugandan born journalist Dr. Jesse Mashate on the alleged presence in Uganda of 12,000 Sudanese Anyanya mercenaries that had reportedly been hired to provide cover against a possible mutiny by Uganda's UPDF soldiers, Kaihura did not answer back. He however later confirmed that the NRM government had obtained the services of "12,000 special constables" to provide security cover during the electoral period. General Kaihura could neither reveal from where or how Uganda had trained or hired the "12,000 policemen", nor could he say whether or not the government had sought the clearance of the Electoral Commission or other political parties over the matter.

The journalist further asked Kaihura whether police had arrested any of the illegal fighters called "Black Mamba" and why Kaihura had provided fake police uniforms to known terrorists to undermine Uganda's constitutional organ of the judiciary and its high court.

One James Twino from Sweden questioned General Kaihura's "hypocrisy" in the re-arrest of treason suspects released by the constitutional court. He asked Kaihura, "Do you any longer take pride in being a member of the National Constitutional Commission when you are enforcing the breaking of constitutional rule?"

An Italian national from Rome bluntly told Kaihura concerning the threats that the European Electoral Observers were mere "Bazungu thugs" who should "go to hell with the FDC", that it would be the "NRM, Museveni and yourself Kaihura who shall be going to hell soon."

Smart Musolin
Entebbe (Uganda)

The "snake" that rules Uganda --- what Museveni will do after the election

Yesterday Radio Katwe analysed the circumstances under which President Yoweri Museveni will act and react to today's general election.

Radio Katwe reported three weeks ago that a survey of voter preferences in Uganda presented to Museveni by Brigadier Noble Mayombo has shown Museveni scoring between 29-31 percent.

In late January, Brigader Noble Mayombo took data to State House which he had complied from NRM campaign agents and mobilisers. This data showed that Museveni's support stood around 29-31 percent all over the country. When the NRM later did an opinion poll and told Museveni he was at 61 percent, he lost his temper and shouted at them, blasting them for telling him lies.

We must recall that at the time of his "victory" in 2001, he was so angry that during his speech he did not thank his campaign task force for work well done.

When he returned from Rwakitura and was meeting his campaign team, he reached then minister of state Betty Akech, did not shake her hand, but asked: "Why do you people hate me?"

The people he was talking about were the Acholi tribe and the people of northern Uganda in general.

During his final rally at Kololo airstrip, Museveni arrived accompanied by his wife Janet and they drove through a large crowd of cheering people dressed in yellow.

Janet Museveni was waving back to the crowd and flashing the thumbs up sign and you could see that she was interacting with the people.

Museveni, on the other hand, had his hands raised showing the thumbs up sign, but he looked absent-minded as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

That is what today's intelligence briefing is about, the mental state of Museveni and what he will do to Uganda after the election, whether he wins or loses.

In yesterday's analysis we revealed to those who do not know, that Museveni has a history of a mental illness known as bipolar disorder or manic-depressive *(see box below).

It was first noticed in his early years at Ntare School in 1962 and was more noticeable after 1964 to his fellow students and the teaching staff.

Everyone who knew him could see a boy who was so different from normal. Some thought he was very brilliant, others thought he was insane.

In the CIA story published by Radio Katwe, the contributor explained how Museveni stabbed the dog of a European teacher who had removed Museveni's hat from his head in class and put it on the dog's head.

The origin of this illness might go back to his poor mother, Esteri Kokundeka, who died in 1997. People close to the Museveni family, the Kaguta family, and many people from Ankole allege that Kokundeka's mental illness might be related to a bought syphilis which she was unfortunate enough to catch.

It is rumoured in Ankole that she lived with several men.

That is how she came to have a son Yoweri from a one Kayibanda, Salim Saleh from a Mombasa Yemeni truck driver (although Smart Musolin says he was a Somali), and Violet Kajubiri from Amos Kaguta.

She was a very beautiful woman, but she used to do and say crazy things and some people in Ntungamo thought they were witnessing full-blown insanity.

She had become a born-again Christian and when her daughter Violet Kajubiri was in Bweranyangye Girls' School, her mother used to come to the school to preach at outreach missions.

Girls at the school would see her and flee to their dorms because Museveni's mother cut a rather stern figure, withholding whatever motherly affection or softness she had. She was not a fool. But she was a most unusual person.

In 1967, Museveni's ill mother was admitted to Butabika mental hospital in Kampala after suffering a severe attack of schizophrenia, a mental illness. (You can read about bipolar disorder and schizophrenia on the Internet.)

That same year, Museveni also got a mental breakdown but it was not severe.

His major attack came when he was at Dar es Salaam University and his mentor President Milton Obote arranged for him to be flown to the Middle East for treatment. It might have been Oman or Bahrain.

In 1974, Museveni is believed to have murdered his first wife, the mother of his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

In response to what Radio Katwe has published, some UPC people who know the story say Hope, the sister of Museveni's former comrade Valeriano Rwaheru, was not strangled as Radio Katwe had reported. Other sources had claimed that Museveni shot her dead.

The UPC insiders say Museveni cut her up using a panga. It is a taboo story that even Museveni's close former comrades like Eriya Kategaya do not want to talk about, but this is the reason why most people who are close to Museveni fear him so much.

In 1982 when Museveni was fighting the Obote government, Major-Gerneral Kahinda Otafiire took Museveni's mother to Kenya through Rwanda to visit her son in Nairobi.

When she was there, she got bored one morning so she decided to go to town. She asked for directions to State House Nairobi and went there. At the State House gate, she insisted that she had come to see President Daniel arap Moi.

One source who was in Nairobi at the time says she spoke to the State House guards in Kiswahili, but Radio Katwe has not yet got a second view on whether she knew Kiswahili.

The guards politely turned her back.

The following year she was back in Uganda in Mbarara town and came to Entebbe to visit State House. It was a Saturday morning and the then First Lady Miria Obote was in Entebbe.

Mrs. Obote was told that there was a lady at the gate who insisted on meeting her and the lady said she was the mother of Yoweri Museveni, the commander of the NRA rebels.

Mrs. Obote allowed her in to see her and as they talked, Museveni's mother was saying all the time that her son was fighting to become president. "You wait, my son is going to come here one of these days and he will be living here!" Museveni's mother told a shocked and amused Miria Obote.

Miria then telephoned her home at Impala Avenue in Kampala to talk to President Obote but he was in his office at Parliament buildings. She told him about the strange woman at State House Entebbe.

Obote had Museveni's mother brought to Kampala and he called a number of government officials to attend to her.

Obote was told by the Minister of State in the President's Office, Chris Rwakasisi, that this was actually Museveni's mother but the crazy things she was talking about were because of mental illness. Rwakasisi said she was once admitted to Butabika hospital.

Obote ordered the then Commissioner of Prisons, Mr. Byabazaire, to check the records at Butabika and that was when it was discovered that Esteri Kokundeka was admitted there in 1967.

Obote told Rwakasisi to prepare a sack of sugar for her and some other foodstuffs and then find a way of taking her back to Mbarara under adequate security.

These are things that Miria Obote knows very well but she did not talk about them during her presidential campaigns. Museveni knows this also, that is why you can see that he has never at all made any personal attack against Miria Obote.

In the mid 1990s when she was in Kampala or Entebbe, she used to go for church services at All Saints' Cathedral in Nakasero in Kampala, a short walking distance from State House.

She used to bring her own chair and sit alone during the services, staring at people and greeting nobody.

You can find out details of this from any of the parishioners and regular attendees at All Saints' Cathedral, in case you think Radio Katwe is exaggerating.

Those of you who have wondered why Museveni when he is travelling upcountry takes his own chair, can now put two and two together and see where he and his mother had that habit in common. Another habit they had in common was the love for travelling and the love of hats.

By the time she died in 1997, Museveni's mother had gone completely insane and could not perform the basic toilet functions without assistance.

She was staying at General Salim Saleh's house in Mbarara and they had to keep knives, blades, and other sharp objects away from her, in case she harmed herself.

At her burial, her son Salim Saleh spoke and he said things which made many mourners (who included journalists but the story did not make the papers for obvious reasons) present wonder if this was not a family of mentally sick people.

Saleh lamented in first person to his mother, saying "You have gone but you have left me with this snake here! This snake is mad, why have you left me alone with him?"

The "snake" was seated there surrounded by his bodyguards and close family members and the snake just looked at Saleh without comment.

That "Snake" has ruled Uganda for 20 years and could have five more years.

That is the background to Museveni and his mental illness which many people in Ankole know but the average Ugandan might be reading for the first time at Radio Katwe.

We must keep in mind this as we watch his moves after today's election.

Museveni is in some ways not a normal human being and he has a cunning mind that is so good at coming up with evil schemes.

Radio Katwe can therefore sadly but accurately predict that if Museveni is declared winner of the election this Saturday, he will plunge Uganda into darkness from which the country will recover after 40 years.

The FDC has become Uganda's most popular political party and is now ahead of the NRM in real, non-rigging support, but even most of the FDC leaders who once worked with Museveni do not really know him.

The FDC say they want change because it is high time. But the way they talk, it is as if Museveni was once a good leader but being too long in power has made him lose direction. Their opposition to him could be tinged by naivety and a touch of ignorance.

The DP and other players do not know him. The DP is very active on the human rights agenda and they have documented many atrocities committed by Museveni's army.

But they still don't know how far the atrocities go back in time.

Most DP leaders snd supporters do not know, for example, that it was not Idi Amin who killed their leader Benedicto Kiwanuka in September 1972, but that Kiwanuka was murdered by FRONASA assassins on the orders of Museveni, as part of Museveni's Maoist guerrilla tactic of killing the innocent to put the blame on your rival.
God willing, Radio Katwe will in the future present information on which this assertion is made)

The only people in Uganda who understand and know Museveni are the Uganda People's Congress (UPC). They know his history. They know what he is capable of doing.

That is why Museveni was so scared of the late Dr. Milton Obote. Those in the know, are aware that there are many things Museveni leaves out of his book "Sowing The Mustard Seed."

They know that when Museveni was a member of the General Service Unit, he was actually under a department called the State Research Bureau in 1970 which continued under Amin.

Those who know, know that as an intelligence officer, Museveni was not a man to sit all day at a desk and go through paper work. Even today you can see that he does not care about institutions, careful procedure, written speeches, and protocol.

He was not an intelligence analyst under Obote. The real work Museveni did in the GSU is what people like Humphrey Babukika do in the External Security Organisation today; Museveni was a GSU hit man, a state assassin.

That is why old Milton Obote used to insist that "Museveni is a gunman, a killer." Many Ugandans find it hard to believe when they are told that Brigadier Perino Okoya and his wife were shot dead by Mueveni, who left Dar es Salaam University for a few days to do the dirty deed, on his own.

You ask yourself this question: the man is now a president and has 12,000 presidential guards at his disposal who are armed with sophisticated weapons and communications gadgets.

Why does Museveni insist, all the same, on personally carrying an AK-47 rifle and sleeps with it by his bed?

If he can still have that instinct to carry an assault rifle wherever he travels in Uganda at the age of 62 or so, you imagine what he felt about guns when he was 28 or 24.

And let him not tell us that he joined the GSU in 1970 when he completed Dar Es Salaam University. He was a GSU informer even when he was still at Ntare.

Museveni as we said yesterday is the man who ordered the destruction of Masaka and Mbarara towns during the 1979 war. He can do anything!

Do not be surprised if he is the one ordering Umeme to increase the loadshedding of electricity in Uganda so that we the people who have deserted him for the opposition can suffer.

Right now, as we said earlier, although the public still thinks he has some support, he knows the truth that he has been rejected.

After the election, he is going to rule Uganda with heart of stone, without any mercy and favour. He will purge State House of the people whom he believes have been stealing his money.

He will throw many people in jail and kill many others. He will look for any charges to prosecute the opposition, most of all the FDC leadership.

He will get military tenders and award them with his usual shamelessness to his children and will not care what onlookers think.

It will be a time that even those who voted for him will ask themselves, "Have we been ruled for all these years by a mad, insane man, and we could not see it.?"

Museveni is the kind of man who can order his men and urban hit squads to blow up the Owen Falls Dam at Jinja or set fire to Entebbe International Airport to intentionally hurt Ugandans.

During the bush days, when a stubborn officer called David Tinyefuza caused chaos, Museveni came on the scene to personally punish him.

He ordered his men to pluck a branch with thorns from the bush and Museveni personally told Tinyefuza to remove his shirt and Museveni whipped him with that branch of thorns. Tinyefuza's back still bears those scars.

In the bush, Museveni once beat Kahinda Otafiire so badly with 50 strokes of the cane that Otafiire fainted. In the army today, officers when they are joking tease Otafiire by calling him "Safari 50."

When some NRA officers would try and scheme against Museveni, he on several occasions personally cut open their stomachs and their intestines poured out and they died in agony.

In fact, it was Museveni personally in 1976 when he had sneaked into Uganda in June to try and assassinate Amin, who tried to make Amin unpopular with Makerere University students, by getting his men to abduct the warden of Africa Hall, Theresa Nanziri Bukenya who was eight months pregnant.

Museveni then slit her stomach with a knife and left her to bleed to death, and his FRONASA men dumped her body near the hall. Up to now, those who don't know think it was Amin's State Research Bureau men who did it.

One of these days Major-General Jim Muhwezi should speak out because Muhwezi was a FRONASA agent whom Museveni infiltrated into the State Research Bureau when Muhwezi was still a law student at Makerere around the late 1970s, in order to commit atrocities which could then be blamed on Amin.

That is why Muhwezi was put in charge of intelligence in the bush and was the first Director of ISO from 1987 to 1996. He has the same kind of cruel and sadistic heart that Museveni has.

That man Museveni? Wait and see what he will do!

That is why people like Smart Musolin who have been tirelessly working to expose him need our praise and thanks as Ugandans.

If Ugandans do not summon up the courage to kick Museveni out of power during this election, the outlook after 2006 is very bleak indeed.

*Some symptoms of bipolar disorder

The typical traits of people with bipolar disorder are increased energy, activity, and restlessness, racing thoughts and jumping from one idea to another.

We have seen this at press conferences or during his addresses to the nation, when he starts talking about economic activity and then out of nowhere jumps to telling an Ankole story.

Lack of sleep is also a common symptom and we know that Museveni sleeps for only around three or four hours a night, although he also has long sleeping episodes after he has taken his drug Lithium Carbonate and others yet to be identified.

He shows the psychotic and extreme personality, one of which is his inability to feel affection and pity. His fascination with violence is another trait. The use of terms like "We shall crush them!" is typical of him.

When people affected by bipolar disorder are in an upswing mood, they can be very charming and fascinating. They appear to be warm and humorous. That is the part of him that many in the public have seen for many years.

Museveni hires "Anyanya" mercenaries ahead of election

By Smart Musolin

Reliable security information has confirmed the arrival in Uganda of a large number of Sudan Liberation Army (SPLA) troops on mission to prop up the Museveni dictatorship.

The dictator announced at his last rally at Kololo of the deployment of 12,000 troops to "scare those planning to cause trouble in the country".

While he suggested he would use UPDF troops redeployment, it has now emerged that he referred to the SPLA soldiers. Political parties have protested at this development saying candidate Museveni had no authority to usurp the powers of the electoral commission without consultations.

The arrival of this large contingent of the Anyanya soldiers comes amidst reports of an imminent collapse of the Bahiima/Basiita military and security command and several conflicting reports about the whereabouts of General Wamala Katumba.

Earlier reports of his arrest were denied although speculation is still rising that Museveni's loyalists like Salim Saleh, Aronda Nyakaima and Muhozi Kainerugaba were now treating General Wamala Katumba as a renegade soldier.

One source has said Museveni's resort to Anyanya soldiers was testimony of Museveni despair since he had always claimed his mission was to fight Anyanya soldiers in Uganda.

A high ranking SPLA/M leader Rebecca Garang widow of former SPLA/M leader John Garang recently joined the Museveni campaign trail, an action that was protested by various political parties as interference in Uganda's internal affairs.

Museveni has proved illustrated that he would break any rules friendship, party belonging, and national security just to promote his personal ambitions.

In Sembabule near Masaka, Museveni supported a DP backed independent candidate Sentongo and openly defied his hosts Sam Kutesa and Anifa Kawooya at a public rally.

He even publicly rebuked the official NRM candidate Dr Elly Muhumuza simply because Ssentogo appeared to command a bigger public following.

While in Tororo district, Museveni again endorsed an independent candidate of Asian origin against the officially endorsed candidate. Like elsewhere, Museveni simply considered his presidential re-election pursuit as paramount to all niceties of protocol, party allegiance and political decency.

In resorting to the deployment of military mercenaries in Uganda, Museveni is thus simply pursuing the trend of personal ambitions at the expense of national security and all else. He has even sacrificed his sacred Black Mamba, Presidential Guard Brigade and the CMI.

Further reports have suggested that Museveni is co-ordinating the SPLA soldiers deployment with help of Idi Amin's son Taban Amin re-known for the terror he cause while imposed at Makerere University in the years gone by.

Museveni recently appointed Taban Amin as the second in command of the dreaded Internal Security Organisation (ISO).

Taban's father General Idi Amin ruled Uganda from 1971-79 called the reign of terror when his notorious security apparatus called the State Research Bureau (SRB) that murdered nearly 800,000 Ugandans.

While the West Nile and the entire Northern Uganda have rejected Yoweri Museveni, it is only Taban acting as an individual who has succumbed to bribery and embraced the disgraced dictator. Political opponents have said Museveni had resurrected the SRB through Amin's son.

Meanwhile, Rwanda has closed its border with Uganda. In a surprise move, Rwanda cited its national security interests as the basis for closing the boarder for the electoral period in Uganda.

Uganda has protested against the closure. Several foreign nationals are leaving Uganda for the safety of Kenya and Tanzania. Several upcountry towns have been evacuated of foreign nationals in convoys of mainly four-wheel vehicles.

Indians who are known to be sympathisers of the Museveni regime have panicked at the turn of events as their master faces electoral defeat.

The FDC candidate Dr Kizza Besigye has assured the country that Museveni would have no capacity to resist electoral defeat or refuse to hand over.

Speaking on Radio West in a two-hour programme, Besigye said, Museveni was already in the heap of history and none should listen to his unlawful threats that would never be implemented.

Like elsewhere in Uganda, the people of Entebbe are chanting; MUSEVENI AGENDA; MUSEVENI MUGENZI!!

Smart Musolin
Entebbe (Uganda)

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.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Katumba Wamala and 25 army officers under watch, phones tapped

Reports circulating in Kampala and Entebbe say that the commander of the army's Land Forces, Lt. General Edward Katumba Wamala has been put under a 24-hour surveillance, with his landline and mobile phones being tapped by Military Intelligence and his army radio communication closely monitored.

Reports, broadcast in the 10:00 p.m. news bulletin last night by CBS FM, also known as Radio Buganda, said that Katumba Wamala had been arrested, but they were denied by the army spokesman Major Felix Kulaigye.

Radio Katwe has reported that Katumba Wamala and his superior, the Chief of Defence Forces, General Aronda Nyakirima, shocked President Museveni in the first week of January during a meeting, when they both made it clear that if Colonel Kizza Besigye were to win the election, they would accept the will of the people.

Museveni ordered Katumba Wamala to be put under surveillance, but he found it difficult to do the same because Nyakirima is a Muhima and has close family ties to the powerful people at State House.

Reports in Kampala this morning also say that 25 army officers, none of whom is a Muhima, have also been put under surveillance, with their phones and military radios being monitored.

The 25 officers are from the regular army, not from the elite Presidential Guard Brigade which many observers consider the only part of the army loyal to Museveni.

Meanwhile, there are reports that General Salim Saleh, the half-brother of President Museveni and de facto chairman of the Elect Museveni national task force, has been overseeing the printing of additional and illegal ballot papers in Jinja.

The FDC has written to the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Badru Kiggundu, drawing his attention to reprints that extra ballot papers were being printed on the night of February 21 at the Picfare factory in Jinja.

"We have received a very credible tip that Nytil Picfare sent their regular staff home and brought in Asians for a night-shift of printing. Our sources have reason to believe that they were printing more ballot papers the whole night. Kindly take an immediate interest in this matter and investigate it," the statement dated February 21 and signed by special FDC envoy Anne Mugisha, reads.

Radio Katwe reported a few days ago that General Saleh was in Jinja last week on a campaign tour. A Radio Katwe informer who watched Saleh distributing money to the public at the YWCA Club in Jinja thought it was Saleh just going about his bribery and campaign mission.

But with this FDC letter to Kiggundu, it sheds more light on the Radio Katwe story and makes us wonder if Saleh's trip to Jinja was not, after all, to work on the printing of the extra ballot papers.

Radio Katwe has also began to get a clearer picture of how the rigging is being planned.

Sources told Radio Katwe on February 22 that at a secret meeting between President Museveni, General Saleh, and Badru Kiggundu, it was agreed that Museveni wil be announced as having won 63 percent of the vote while Kiggundu will announce that Besigye won 30 percent.

The source, however, did not give details of how much the other three presidential candidates have been apportioned in the plan.

Radio Katwe will be giving further updates throughout the day as the news develops.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Lt. Gen. Katumba Wamala arrested as Kampala hits a crisis

CBS FM, which is also known as Radio Buganda, reported in its 10:00 p.m. news bulletin of Tuesday February 21 that the commander of the Land Forces of the Ugandan army, Lt. Gen. Edward Katumba Wamala, has been arrested.

The radio also said that army had started arresting people in Kampala, although it was not clear whom the arrested people were.

CBS broadcast the story as breaking news but as soon as the female presenter had finished reading the story, a recording was run of the army spokesman, Major Felix Kulaigiye, refuting the story.

The rumour hit Kampala on Tuesday night, further increasing tensions in the already uncertain nation.

That rumour, by itself, will act as a deterrent against the arrest of Wamala and whoever started it could have done so with that goal in mind.

Wamala is reported to have stated in January and last week that if the election was won by the FDC presidential candidate Colonel Kizza Besigye, he Wamala would respect the people's choice.

This declaration is reported to have angered President Museveni. Katumba Wamala, the highest ranking Muganda army officer, was widely viewed as a moderate and was a respected officer.

As things stand today, February 22, 2006, Uganda is entering the crisis that had been expected.

The order has been given for the army to be put on alert and the Reserve Force is also at the ready. In Entebbe, soldiers of the Presidential Guard Brigade have been on the move.

An operative of the External Security Organisation told Radio Katwe that heavy antiaircraft guns have been deployed on all the hills that overlook Entebbe International Airport and the Airforce base.

Radio Katwe yesterday reported that the oil giant Shell sent out an email from its London headquarters warning its staff around the world to avoid Uganda for the time being.

In an interesting memo dated February 20, the security section of the British High Commission in Kampala said in a memo to its staff and British diplomats in Kampala: "A planned NRM rally is due to take place on Kololo Airstrip tomorrow morning (21/02/2006), at 0900 hours. Please avoid the area where possible and take alternate planned routes."

The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Uganda Red Cross in Kampala have completed the process of recruiting volunteers and blood stocks in case of violence and other emergencies.

There are reports that hundreds of people have been drawing money from their bank ATM machines.

The international media, from CNN, the BBC, Radio France Internationale, Reuters, the Associated Press, Xinhua, and others have set up media outlets in Kampala.

Aside from the 600 Commonwealth observers and 200 European Union observers, the United States embassy in Kampala, in a press release issued yesterday, said it is dispatching "60 observers comprising of 20 American officers and 40 Ugandan staffers of the Embassy to observe voting and vote counting."