{UAH} My Observations from UNAA Convention in Boston 1

This past weekend, I attended the UNAA convention in Boston. It was very nice to see long lost friends.  In a few posts, I'll share what I observed at the convention:

NRM:

The convention was dominated by the NRM.  I have been complaining for years that it is bad for UNAA to allow the NRM to influence UNAA activities but my warnings fell on deaf ears.  But I am glad that more people are now waking up to this danger.  To be clear, I am NOT opposed to NRM members being in UNAA.  I have always said that members of all political parties should be welcome in UNAA but UNAA should not favor any party. In another post, I will explain how the NRM has  achieved an unprecedented level of dominance in UNAA. I will also show how the proposed changes to the UNAA bylaws will consolidate the  NRM's control of UNAA.

POLITICAL FORUM:

I attended the political forum.

There were lots of questions and answers about political things in Kla that I am not competent to discuss. But they also talked about NRM donations to UNAA.  As someone that has opposed NRM donations since the idea came up in 2006, I tried to clarify our views.  The moderator refused to pick me.  I tried to plead with UNAA leaders to have him pick me but it didn't work. In fact, one of them asked me what I wanted to say! After the forum,I asked the moderator why he refused to pick me yet he knew that I was well informed about that money any of the MPs and embassy officials he chose to speak. He said that it was because I moved from side of the room to another!  

I think there was an equal number of supporters of the NRM as well as supporters of the opposition parties.  I think each side about 30% of the audience.  The rest were independents like me, plus those that do not know what is going on in Kla.  The two sides shouted each other down on several occasions.  In my view, the moderator was very terrible.  He tended to favor the NRM speakers.  He also seemed to lose track of time.  He tended to tell speakers that they had 1 minute to ask questions but if he liked the person, he would ignore the time limits and let them talk to over 5 minutes.  This caused problems because he tended to prefer Kla based politicians ...and if you tell a politician to talk for 1 minutes, you'd need a bulldozer to grab the microphone from them.  There were two Ug embassy officials that "helped" the moderator to choose the people that would ask questions.  So the MPs would signal to the embassy officials who would then whisper in the ear of the moderator.  Towards the end, NRM MPs conferred among themselves and chose Mr Nsereko and a lady MP to ask the last questions. The lady said she lives next to Dr Besigye and wanted his "lumpens" to leave Besigye's house so that she can access her garden!  Later, I asked her why she thought that UNAA's political forum was the best to ask such a question.

Mr Nsereko also used his "question" to attack Dr. Besigye. I had a chance to talk to Mr Nsereko on many occasions on Sat and Sun...he really hates Dr Bersigye, but that is left for another post.

DEMONSTRATIONS:

This morning, I read that the NRM had foiled an opposition plan to demonstrate against NRM money.  I am sure that is total fabrication.  Someone in Kla just wanted to make money by falsely claiming to have foiled a demo!