Forum for Democratic Change’s (FDC) Anne Mugisha returned to Uganda on Friday after nine years of self-imposed exile in the United States of America.
Ms Mugisha, the party’s External Relations Coordinator, touched down at Entebbe Airport at around 8 15 p.m. aboard Kenya Airways.
She was welcomed by FDC chairman Sam Kalega Njuba, who described her return as a big moment for the Opposition in Uganda. After stepping on her native soil, Ms Mugisha urged Ugandans to go and register so as to qualify as voters in the 2011 general elections.
Ms Mugisha joined active opposition politics in November 2000 as a publicity secretary for the Elect Kizza Besigye Task Force, which was later transformed into Reform Agenda.
She told journalists at the airport that she decided to go into exile in 2000 after receiving constant harassment and threats from security operatives in the aftermath of the 2001 elections.
Ms Mugisha says after her escape, she stayed in South Africa for two years. Then in 2002, she flew to USA where she has been involved in various activities aimed at drawing international attention to what she called “democracy deficit” in Uganda.
“I have been in exile, but my heart was in Uganda. I have been mobilising all Ugandans in the Diaspora and I think I have completed my work. I have decided to come home and mobilise the grassroots against the repressive NRM government.”
Ms Mugisha says in the nine years she has been in exile, she has managed to build effective partnerships with the donor community, think-tanks and individual rights that will help to increase financial and material support for the Opposition in Uganda.
She advised the Democratic Party to join the Inter-Party Cooperation, a loose coalition of five opposition parties including UPC, FDC, JEEMA, CP and SDP, saying the IPC provides hope to millions of oppressed Ugandans who wish to change their deplorable conditions.
A former Reagan Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC, Ms Mugisha, says since 2002 a lot of things have changed in Uganda’s political scene, and she attributes this to the work of Dr Besigye and the Reform Agenda group, which she credits for having opened a Pandora’s Box to multiparty democracy in the country
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