Besigye: My generation yet to accomplish liberation mission; young people must take it up

Veteran opposition politician Dr Kizza Besigye has called on the youth to join the liberation struggle since his generational mission is yet to be fulfilled.

Speaking at his office in Kampala on September 22 during a book launch event, Besigye explained that there was a misconception that the mission for his generation ended with the 1980-86 liberation struggle.

Besigye was part of the National Resistance Army (NRA) struggle that propelled incumbent President Yoweri Museveni to power 34 years ago.

After the bush war, during which he served as rebel leader Yoweri Museveni’s physician, Besigye served in the Museveni government before falling out with his former boss at the end of the millennium.

“The mission which I participated in didn’t end by one dictator going and by another one coming,” noted Besigye during the launch of Mitooma District FDC member Nelson Nkwene’s ‘Uganda without Museveni’ book.

“Revolution has specific targets. When people control their destiny and leaders are servants of the people. My generation has failed up to now. The younger people must continue. Make sure that Uganda is liberated. The task is upon you.”

The four-time presidential candidate urged Ugandans to emulate the courage of pre-independence activists who pushed for freedom against all means.

“Those who had struggled before succeeded in freeing us from foreigners. It was an intense fight. The British didn’t just pack up their bags and go after 70 years of subjecting Ugandans to sub-human lives,” explained Besigye.

“And they struggled, they fought back against foreign domination. But domination didn’t end; it continued from within.  What happened in 1962 wasn’t transfer of power from the British monarchy to the new rulers of Uganda: it didn’t descend to the people of Uganda.”

The former FDC president noted that the liberation struggle he was involved in was later hijacked by gun rule.

The second liberation, he continued, was against domination by gun rule, and was meant to perpetuate people rule “so that all power in Uganda comes from the people.”

EXISTENTIAL THREAT: CHINESE TAKING OVER UGANDA

Besigye also warned of “an existential threat that we live in as Africans, not just Ugandans,” adding that “there is no way we shall be sheep and keep roaming in the world of lions.”

He called for swift action lest Africans become extinct like the indigenous inhabitants of the United States of America, New Zealand, Canada, and South America, a few of who are now being protected through affirmative action.

“That’s what’s going to happen to us if we don’t get our act together, and very very quickly. It’s going to happen. It’s already happening; we are on our way to extinction,” he said.

“Those to take over [Asians, Europeans] have already arrived. The Chinese are taking very big chunks of land. I don’t think there is now any Ugandan who has as much land as these Chinese [investors] in Uganda.”