BBC, 21.09.2004

President Yoweri Museveni appeared on a BBC TV interview hosted by Britain's awards winning interviewer Tim Sebastian. The confrontational interview by nature sounded the President out on issues ranging from the third term, corruption and allegations of torture. The Monitor brings you a verbatim transcription of the 30-minute interview:

Question: Your government proposes lifting the two-term limit that the President may serve. Why not just go quietly when your second term is finished?

Answer: Well that's up to the people of Uganda to decide, it's not for one person, the people are debating the principle whether it is correct to have those two term limits or not because we have surveyed the world systems. Some of the countries don't have those term limits, some have them and we are debating that issue so it's not...

But you want to change the Constitution, your government is proposing to change the Constitution to allow the President to serve another term.

Yes that's what we are debating now

But it's just a proposal, proposals of the government for amendment of the Constitution.

That's true, its part of many proposals regarding the Constitution and it will be debated, but it's not for one person, its for all times.

But since you are the person who is now in office, why do you want to serve a third term? Isn't there anybody else to be President?

I'm not saying that I would necessarily serve, we are saying that we are debating the merits and demerits of that system, that's the issue. It's not for one person, in any case the people are the authority. They are the ones who decide.

But you are the one who wants to change the Constitution?

I'm not the one. It's the population who raised the issue.

But your government wants to lift the limit, the two five years for the President.

Yes, we debated among our selves, we did not see the good reason why it should not happen, and in any case the people are the ones to have got the ultimate authority. If there are free elections at regular intervals, completely competitive, then there is no reason why an unpopular government cannot be voted out or the one, which is popular, maintained.

Why are you so reluctant to come out and say yes, I Yoweri Museveni, I want a third term? Why do you hedge around? Why don't you just come out and say I want a third term?

But I cannot be there for all time because if the Constitution is amended, it will be for all time not for Museveni, I may not even represent myself.

From your government's proposal, why don't you conclude that here is one more African state?

You cannot cling to power when you have got a free vote. It's not possible. You will be voted out if you are unpopular even if the article is amended, and I'm sure you know leaders who have been voted out when they have been in power for a long time when there are free elections. I can quote you examples in Africa

What faith do you think the population can have in the electoral process because during the last elections there were so many irregularities pointed out by the Supreme Court, serious election irregularities and election violence took place?

We are going to computerise the electoral register. The main arguments are normally caused by an unclear electoral register. Some of the people want to cheat, register several times so that they vote several times. So once we computerise the register, it will be impossible to cheat. We want to capture somebody's fingerprints, clearly read or to show their faces and also other bio-data.

What about the violence that took place last election because the report on the Select Committee on election violence said election violence was escalated by illegal involvement of some agents of the State?

Then the army will be completely out, then the police. At that time the police was not completely adequate. We did not have enough policemen that time. That's why we had to borrow the army because we had 17,000 polling stations and the whole of the police force was 14,000, but we hope the police now will be more so that we can use the police alone.

So who are these agencies of the State who escalated the violence there?

We had to borrow other agencies like intelligence officer, like the army, to guard the polling. that's what they were talking about.

They were escalating the violence, the report by the Select Committee said that it was many State agents who opted for violence and State agents carried out the violence

That was not correct.

So the Select Committee got it wrong?

Yes, in that particular area they got it wrong.

Really, they state this in great detail?

They got it wrong because and I told them so at that stage.

Mr President, why did you sack three ministers who opposed the lifting of the limits on presidential terms who included a friend of yours, Eriya Kategaya, who opposed the extension of your term to a third term. Why did you sack him?

The main reason I sacked them was because they did not maintain cohesion the manner hoe we discuss is that we can disagree and within the government and the Movement for you express your position of the consensus within the forum then we cannot go along with you.

But you position in Cabinet is that it was those who opposed you in you power

Not at all, differences within the Cabinet are not a problem but when you externalise them it creates a problem and it's not acceptable to do that for us

From your proposals, from your government's proposals to amend the Constitution, it appears that you want to strengthen the President's powers and limit the powers of Parliament. You propose in paragraph 6(13) to limit the power of power of Parliament to reject your nominees for minister. Why are you cutting back on Parliament's powers so much?

There is now a little beat of paralysis and little beat of potential paralysis. You could get a situation where a President who is popularly elected, he takes a position and Parliament, which is also elected, takes a different position and you could have a very bad situation.

That's democracy, is not it?

No, no that is paralysis. We do not like paralysis.

You prefer dictatorship?

Not at all. Dictatorship cannot be when we are from a popular vote. Therefore, some of those proposals are saying that in case of paralysis, the President dissolves Parliament and he also resigns and they go for fresh elections. You go to that Supreme Court, who are the people.

But you limit Parliament's ability to questions your nominees for ministers and you also in paragraph 3(15) propose to reduce Parliament's scope for censuring a minister as well?

First of all those are proposals. They will be discussed, they will be debated.

But that's what you want to do, is not it?

Ok, it will be debated and discussed, but in any case even if what we were proposing was accepted that ultimate authority are the people. It is not Parliament, it is not the President these are servants.

You say that but you limit their powers of the parliament and the Members of Parliament are the people's representatives. So you limit their powers.

The President is also the people's representative. In many cases he has got more votes more that all the MPs combined. So there must be rationalised management of programmes.

This is called rationalised management. You propose also, Mr President, to severely limit the office of the Inspectorate of Government - the government's watchdog, you want to neuteralise his powers and basically render him powerless?

No, that one has been amended. I do not know what you have there but one of the issues that was being debated is whether the Inspector General of Government should intervene in contracts before they are concluded or he should wait until they are concluded and if there is any wrongdoing, he acts against the wrongdoers. We have now compromised that in some cases he can intervene because we realise that some of the monies involved are so huge that it you wait for the post-mortem it might be too late to recover the money.

But there is a list in your government that the Inspector General will not now be able to do. He will not be able to prosecute, he will not be able to interrupt, or otherwise interfere with the decision-making process of any public body, he will not be able to alter, reverse or revoke any decision of any ministry.

No, that's out of date.

These are your printed September 2003 papers. So you have changed this?

But in the White Paper they will be different.

Transparency International said in its 2004 report the absence of a functioning opposition on the onset facilitated corruption by minimising the scope for political parties to hold government to account, what they are saying is that there is really no body who holds you to account and corruption is rampant

That one is true. We are talking of the Inspector General of Government. We are the ones who started that institution. You are talking of a free press saying that there was an article in The Monitor paper which was criticising me and government, so once you have put in place a free press and you have got anti-corruption agencies like the one you are talking about, hold regular elections like we do although there were on individual merit, you cannot have corruption, because those who are corrupt will be voted out.

Well, in today's paper the IMF representative here says that as far as corruption is concerned, the situation has not changed. Why do you always say you are on the vanguard of fighting corruption? Why hasn't it changed?

Well, it has not changed because fighting corruption is not like the book of Genesis. You know in the book of Genesis God said 'let there be earth', there was earth, and He said 'let there be oceans' and there were oceans and 'He said let there be living things in the ocean' and they were there. Unfortunately we human beings must work for what we believe in now...

The accusation is that you haven't in doing it because many countries are becoming disillusioned. The French ambassador accused the government of doing nothing to stop the problem of corruption.

The French ambassador should revise the history of his own country. It took them almost 100 years from 1879 to stabilise. If I were the French ambassador, I would not quantificate about things I don't know much about.

He says scandal after scandal, report after report, investigation after investigation, nothing is done

Oh I beg your pardon, I don't want to call His Excellence the French ambassador someone who don't tell the truth because there was a commission of inquiry in the police and we caused an earthquake in the police. We sacked so many police leaders. There was an internal inquiry in the army, some officers who were cheating the government money, so many brigadiers and officers are now in the court. So when the French ambassador is saying that he must be living on Mars. He can't be living in Kampala

No, Mr President lets take the examples of the two reports of the helicopters by the Uganda military and found to be unfit for service on the allegations of bribery attached to the purchase. The report recommended that Salim Saleh, your brother and commander of the reserve force, was never prosecuted.

That matter is now with the Director of Public Prosecutions. He is now the one handling that matter and there was also supposed to be another additional inquiry from neutral judges from outside. The Minister of Defense is in the process of getting those jugdes.

So you are saying he is going to be prosecuted?

Yes, if he is found to be guilty really.

But the report recommended that

The report was not conclusive. It was recommending further action

It was found by the Cabinet that $800,000 was spent on these junk helicopters

That's not true, he did not take a bribe, but there was a discussion about some commission and he is the one who actually reported the matter, so he is actually a witness.

So the report has not recommended his prosecution yet, but you say he is going to be prosecuted

He will, if he is guilty because that did not prove that he was guilty, it only recommended further investigation

So he can prove his innocence in the trail so that he can prove himself

But even to frame charges you must have a watertight face charge, otherwise you will be embarrassed

Mr President, people said if you were serious on the question of corruption, then ministers Sam Kutesa and Jim Muhwezi would not be reappointed after they were censured by Parliament for conflict of interest and corruption, but they are serving as ministers in your government

That was sort of a Kangaroo court. It was not really serious. Yes, some of the MPS were politically motivated and I do not believe all they said yes some of them made mistakes but I don't think the way they handled it was the correct way

But it undermines confidence, particularly of the donor country. Doesn't it? The Dutch ambassador said in May last year that several senior officials had been sanctioned for corruption and they have not been prosecuted. Instead they have been rewarded by government, instead they have been given other positions. Such doesn't indicate that corruption is an unacceptable behaviour.

I think the Dutch ambassador is entitled to his own opinion because am also an elected representative of people in the country. I have got more votes than all theses people combined so that if the Dutch ambassador should also take into account my assessment because after all because after all am the one who is accountable so my view was that yes, some of those ministers were, especially Jim, had made some mistakes and that was not the right way to handle it and certainly it was not criminal.

To these mistakes you don't seem to expect high standards from your ministers

Well, I expect high standards, but I also correct those who go making mistakes but who can reform

So you bring them back in?

Yes, we are Christians. We believe in repentance and forgiveness and rectification and further guidance because they did not commit crimes, they were sort of indiscretion.

Conflict of interest in corruption is not enough to disqualify corruption

Corruption was enough, but there was no corruption proved.

Mr President, how far do you share the international concerns about Uganda's Human rights record because I just want to say to you that Human Rights Watch in its 2004 report why say that the use of torture is foremost among an escalation in human right violations by Uganda military forces since 2001 why is this still going on, why is this escalating?

But what is the credibility of this Human Rights Watch? Who are they? What are their credentials regarding this subject? What are they talking about?

In June and September last year they interviewed former and current prisoners from Kigo and Luzira prisons and Mubuku prison in Kasese. Twenty prisoners were interviewed at length.

Let me tell you one thing Mr Sebastian, our army and our Movement became very popular among the people of Uganda because we were dealing with one problem - extra judicial actions by State agents. We are the ones who stopped extra judicial killings by being very harsh on soldiers who kill people. We have really executed soldiers. So if there is any report, unless it not proven, they shall act on it, Human Rights Watch does not need to remind us.

This does not concern you? Are you not worried? In an informal they said survey in Kigo Prison, where political cases are held, indicated in June last year that 90% of the detainees had been tortured during their prior detention.

If they were prosecuted and it comes to the attention of the DPP they would be prosecuted?

How many people have been prosecuted for torture?

I do not know. I do not have the list. If you had told me before I would have given you the list.

But approximately do you...

But there were very many cases when we were fighting in the Movement where soldiers were executed for killing people. That was the highest signal to anybody who was violating other people's rights.

Mr President, the 2002 report by a parliamentary committee investigating the use by security services of safe houses and other alleged abuses has not either been finalised of made public why not?

That one I cannot answer because I do not deal with those matters directly. But what I'm telling you is that the most visible cases for instance the ones involving murder, these are the ones that I remember most. I'm absolutely sure that actions taken impunity is never tolerated.

So they have got it wrong?

They have got it wrong or they do not have all the facts or the facts are not clear to the DPP.

So this is not just one more cover up by the government?

No, we cannot have cover-up in Uganda. Here it impossible.

You had a cover-up according to the UN panel of experts in their report of April 2001 where Uganda was accused of plundering the resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo?

That UN report was really, especially the first one, it was like a circus. It was not a serious one.

When everybody else accepted it as serious?

Well, the world is fond of accepting wrong things. That's how the whole world has been turned upside-down. That's why they go by very superficial sort of perceptions and that's why they make all these mistakes.

But your own Porter Commission upheld some of the findings of the UN findings?

Yes, we are following up the Porter Commission report because it named people and we are following them up.

Are they going to be prosecuted for looting the resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Yes, if they are guilty they will be charged either of stealing or of extortion whatever the charge was.

It's going to be a lot of people because according to the UN report, the consequent of illegal exploitation has been individual enrichment of top Ugandan military commanders and civilians and a lot of people in your army have apparently got very rich for looting the DRC.

But I'm not so sure because what were they looting because in Congo....

Diamonds for instance.

Diamonds are not so easy to get. Where were they getting them from, because they were not in the diamond area. There was only one time when our army was in a diamond area.

I have heard you explain the fact that in the decade before your troops arrived in the DRC there were no diamond exports from Uganda. Then from 1997 to 2000, diamond export jumped from 2,000 to 11,000 carats. Suddenly you have diamonds?

The diamonds could come here because of our liberalised system. Because here, unlike our neighbouring countries, you can operate an external account. You can have dollars in your own account. In many of the neighbouring countries they are very rigid. The money must go through the central bank. So that one is attracting people to come and open external accounts here.

Sebastian: Mr President Yoweri Museveni, thank you very much for being with us on the programme.

President: Thanks for coming to Uganda.