FDC asks State to prove Besigye plotting treason

The Forum for Democratic Change yesterday challenged government to provide evidence that their leader Kizza Besigye is involved in subversive activities. The party spoke out following Sunday’s accusation by Mr Kintu Nyago, the President’s deputy principal private secretary, that Dr Besigye is working with some Western envoys to effect “unconstitutional regime change”.

FDC Secretary General Alice Alaso, however, said the state has for long been planning to imprison Dr Besigye for treason and the weekend unsubstantiated allegation is a ruse to subvert his pending bail application hearing due tomorrow.

The FDC president and his Democratic Party counterpart, Norbert Mao, were last week remanded to Nakasongola Prison for allegedly organising ‘unlawful assembly’ and inciting violence by leading walk-to-work demonstrations over soaring inflation. Both men have described the February 18 presidential vote they lost to Mr Museveni as “a sham” and vowed not to recognise a new government formed on the basis of its result.

While alluding to this year’s mass uprisings in Egypt that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak, Mr Nyago said: “What Besigye wants is to mimic what happened at Tahrir Square. He wants to come and sit at the City Square and, using a rented crowd and hoodlums, cause fracas.”

Ms Alaso, also Soroti Woman MP, seized on these comments to demand proof their leader, a three-time unsuccessful challenger to Mr Museveni’s, is engaged in any mischief. She said: “They are systematically preparing the public’s mind so they slap a charge of treason on Besigye and keep him out of circulation. The allegation is meant to scare the populace so that they neither associate with Dr Besigye or the walk-to-work demonstration.”

Nyago now ‘mute’
When asked to substantiate his allegation, Mr Nyago, who previously pointed to intelligence briefing, last evening, simply said, “You know that I am a public servant. Let me leave it at that.” A fortnight ago, President Museveni told journalists at his Rwakitura country home that information by the intelligence community linking the opposition to a devious plot is “rubbish”. “I always read this rubbish in the intelligence reports – that Besigye is planning this, Besigye is planning that. He is planning nothing. It is not possible,” he said then.

Questions yesterday lingered over where Mr Nyago might have obtained information implicating Dr Besigye in subversion just a week after his boss Museveni, who as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces is entitled to the finest of the country’s intelligence, dismissed the rumour.

The walk-to-work demonstration, which has taken place in Kampala and other upcountry towns four times since April 11, is a clarion call by the newly-formed pressure group, Activists for Change (A4C), over spiraling prices of fuel and other commodities. Masaka Municipality MP-elect, Mathias Mpuuga, the A4C national coordinator, said last evening that the government is using Dr Besigye and Mr Mao as scapegoats to hoodwink the public while failing to address people’s legitimate demands for state intervention to cool the heating inflation.

Likely court appearance
“They want to make Dr Besigye look ‘devilish’ so that ordinary people fear to participate in the walk-to-work demos, fearing the government might also charge them with treason.” Dokolo Woman MP-elect Cecilia Ogwal last night said the party had reliable information that Dr Besigye would be “quietly charged with treason in a Kampala cour