{UAH} UNAA Peace-talks (2)

In part 1, I gave a brief description of what happened at the members' meeting in Hyatt.

In part 2, I give my personal recommendations that I suggested to the two sides (in this article, I will refer to the sides as "Wilson camp" and "unaacauses").

I suggested that the 2 sides should either meet without preconditions or they should form a unity administration.

1. the parties should meet without preconditions and the talks should start from the "end"...i.e they should begin from the point of agreement: that they all want unity. The question would then be: "how do we get back together?". This approach eliminates wasting time on endless talks about what divides them. Each side would be represented by folks with authority to bind their side.

2. Brian Kwesiga and Daniel Kawuma can form a unity administration. Each one would have veto power over the composition of their administration. i.e either of them would propose names to include in administration but the other could veto any name.  That way, controversial people would be kept out of leadership. Brian can get a second term without elections and Daniel would lead the next administration. After that, we'd have elections. A unity administration would allow UNAA to fix the constitution without looking the next elections. Since both sides would be in power, there would be less in-fighting over everything.

I talked to about 15 influential people in each camp (Wilson's and unaacauses) and almost all of them agreed to try the first approach (meeting without preconditions). My proposals were rejected by just 2 people on the Wilson camp and two people in the unaccauses.  But each side assured me that they could convince those people to accept the talks without preconditions.

Then on Sept 10,2014, Mr Wilson called at 10pm and informed that his side had met for 2 hrs and debated my 2 proposals and had unanimously rejected both! He said that the matter didn't concern ordinary members and it would be left to the Council. I told him that the dispute affected all members. He asked me how the dispute affects all of us...!

The next day, I called up several people that I thought had attended Wilson's meeting. Many leaders told me they did not attend the meeting. Among those that attended the meeting, about 10 people told me that Mr Wilson had ordered them not to talk to me anymore!

As I mentioned yesterday, I know that all current efforts at unity are doomed to fail:

1. The talks between the Council members (initiated by Stephen Katende and Daniel Kawuma) are focused on what divides them rather than what unites them. In addition, Stephen does not seem to have clout in the Wilson camp.

2. The talks initiated by the Wilson camp "volunteers" are led by people that do not have clout in the Wilson camp and Mr Wilson was opposed to their formation.  They only managed to nominate themselves after he'd left the room. Based on what the volunteers were saying in the meeting, they have little knowledge of the causes or current status of the dispute. Worse, like the Katende/Kawuma talks, the volunteers' approach/focus is similar to the previous failed talks. You can't do the same wrong thing and hope for different results!

thanks

For a faster response please contact me at 415.789.6427

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From: Joseph Musoke <joseph.musoke@ymail.com>
To: "ugandans-at-heart@googlegroups.com" <ugandans-at-heart@googlegroups.com>; "UNAANET@yahoogroups.com" <UNAANET@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 4:39 PM
Subject: UNAA Peace-talks (1)

Over the past year, I had deliberately decided to stay out of the fight between the Board of Trustees, The Executive and the Council. I naively thought that the fight would run its course and exhaust the combatants so that UNAA would be united and happy after the San Diego convention. 

I am now convinced that all UNAA members should jump in, in any way possible because the fight threatens to tear UNAA further apart.

To that effect, I approached both sides (Moses Wilson's "Good Judgment" camp and Francis Senoga's "Clear Direction" camp) and told them that the current "peace-talks" are not going to unite UNAA and a new approach is needed.

Brief history:

Over the past year, several attempts have been initiated by various people, including some BoT members, ordinary members, and some Council members. At the Special Members' meeting in San Diego, none of the elected UNAA leaders spoke in favor of talks. But several ordinary members from the Wilson camp spoke up in favor and against talking to the Francis camp. Though UNAA has about 500 members, there were just about 25 members present (almost all of them were exclusively from the Wilson camp) and about 20 Kla politicians and business people who are not even members (Mr Wilson has claimed today that the meeting was turned into a "townhall" but that decision was never communicated to us!  Mr Wilson does not even have powers to turn a members' meeting into something else).

A suggestion came up that both camps (Wilson's and Senoga's) come up with 5 people to start peace talks.  Two of the powerful voices against talks were Mr. Moses Wilson and Mr David Mureeba. Mr Wilson claimed that "UNAA already has 3 bodies (BoT, Executive and Council) there was no need for a fourth one"! 

Two of the most reasonable voices in favor of talks, were politicians and business people from Kla who were non-UNAA members.

Towards the end of the meeting, Mr Wilson left the room. At this time, there were about 20 or so people left in the room. They decided to request 5 people to volunteer to go to talk to the Francis camp (since the Wilson camp had refused to nominate the 5 people to represent them). 

That group of "volunteers" met the Francis camp and came back to brief the Wilson camp (I took a cute video and pics of Moses chairing the meeting to get briefed while the UNAA President is perched on the corner of the table, looking in...as they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words"!). As I was taking my pics, I happened to catch a few sentences from Tim Gaburungyi and Moses Wilson...needless to say, Moses was against the talks and did not like what they were telling him.

I am almost certain that these talks will never get anywhere: the volunteers do not understand the dynamics of the dispute, the volunteers do not have clout in the Wilson camp and the volunteers' approach/focus is similar to other failed talks. 

In my next posting, I'll write about my humble views on what I think is the best way forward.

thanks

 

For a faster response please contact me at 415.789.6427

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