Dr Kizza Besigye, Ugandan top opposition leader. Until mid-February,
each missive he penned got the President hot under the collar, prompting
the latter to author lengthy rebuttals. PHOTO | FILE
By Nelson Wesonga,The Citizen
In Summary
- Until mid-February, each missive he penned got the President hot under the collar, prompting the latter to author lengthy rebuttals.
Kampala. He gets along with
President Museveni the same way a cat does with a dog. In fact, he was
released from yet another spell in police detention last week, this time
having been locked up for about 72 hours without charge.
To the neutrals, his only crime would be political activism.
Until mid-February, each missive he penned got the
President hot under the collar, prompting the latter to author lengthy
rebuttals.
Their missives, reminiscent of the 1950s/1960s
when ideologues would thrash out philosophical issues through debate,
belie the fact the two were from the early 1980s to late the 1990s,
chums, of sort.
So just who is this man, Dr Kizza Besigye, whom
President Museveni prescribed teargas to prevent him from freely moving
in Kampala?
First, his voice: it is gruff. To his NRM critics, he is a bitter man.
However, Ms Beti Kamya who worked with him from 2000 to 2010 denies that.
“Why should he be bitter? He left the NRM by choice. He is not bitter,” Ms Kamya says.
Dr Besigye, too, agrees. “There is no objective
basis for anybody to suggest that I am bitter. In fact, the people one
could say act bitter are the ones in the NRM who act arbitrarily and
cruelly,” he says.
Dr Besigye denies claims that if he was president, he would be vindictive.
“I have been brutalised … and yet I have not taken
to violence. Museveni became violent by going to the bush yet he had
not been brutalised as his security officials have done to me. He has
never condemned them. So he must be approving of their barbarism,” the
former FDC leader says.
Still, charges that Besigye is confrontational come up now and then
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