Museveni gags media over Garang death

KAMPALA-- The sudden death of former Sudanese First Vice President
Dr John Garang late last month has critically strained the relationship
between Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and the local media.

Rights activists and the media are concerned over remarks the President
made during the joint national prayers on August 10, for the fallen Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) chief, his entourage and seven Ugandans who died in a crash in the Ugandan Presidential helicopter in Southern Sudan, July 30.

On that day, declared a Public Holiday, as flags flew half-mast, a
bitter-sounding Museveni threatened to close Ugandan newspapers for
allegedly compromising national and regional security.

The President said he was not happy with the manner in which the media
covered the helicopter crash incident, threatened to ban three local
private publications, ‘Daily Monitor’, ‘Weekly Observer’ and ‘The Red Pepper’ should they continue writing about the military without consultation from government. He also condemned Daily Monitor’s Political Editor and radio talk show host, the controversial Andrew Mwenda for writing articles that he said threaten regional security.KFM radio was subsequently shut down and Mwenda charged in court.

The President’s statements and subsequent actions have created tension and speculation, sending a signal and painting a bleak picture of the future of press freedom in the country. “First of all, the whole idea of closing down media houses is wrong because we have laws. They (the media houses) can be taken to court or before the Media Council. That is my problem with the President. He does not allow institutions to grow,” commented Managing Editor Weekly Observer Kevin Aliro during a Radio Talk show that evening.

But Museveni, who has ruled the country for the last 20 years, emphasized his point. “I am the President of Uganda. The people elected me. I therefore have the ultimate mandate to run their affairs.
“Now I will no longer tolerate a newspaper which is run like a vulture.
For them, the misery of many is their joy…Any newspaper which plays about with regional security, I will not tolerate,” Museveni said at the funeral.

And could it have been a coincidence that the very next day, the
Broadcasting Council (BC) abruptly and indefinitely closed Kampala’s
K-FM radio station, a subsidiary of Daily Monitor newspaper, saying it
breached sections of the Electronic Media Law?

The closure, the BC statement said was prompted by a Talk Show ‘Andrew
Mwenda Live’ the previous evening with the topic of discussion: “Can
government justify today’s public holiday?”During the show, Mwenda shot back at the President’s threats earlier in the day to close down newspapers ‘that threaten national and regional security.’

“First of all, no one is going to stop (writing about security). At
least
me, I am not going to stop. If he closes the newspaper and I am out of
a job, I will seek his job,” Mwenda said during his show.According to a source The New Vision, reported, government was angered by Mwenda’s statements which were interpreted as demeaning the person of
the President and the Presidency.

In a statement, the Uganda Journalists Association said the BC’s action
was arbitrary and “a clear attempt to muzzle the freedom of expression.”

“This is a very dangerous precedent and it is unfortunate that in this
country we do not have proper civil disobedience. If I had the powers,
tomorrow I would have asked all radio stations to go off air and all
newspapers to stop press for one day as a symbolic process because I
think we need to start dealing with these issues,” Aliro said.

Director Foundation for Human Rights Initiative Livingstone Ssewanyana
says if the station had broken any laws, government should have rather taken legal action than close it down. He wants Parliament to intervene and stop government from curtailing media freedom.“We think it is not proper for the government of Uganda unilaterally without using the Courts of Law, to stop any radio station from operating,” he
said.

Controversy surrounded the helicopter crash incident from day one, with
different media houses reporting what their sources could reveal as
government was reluctant to make any official statements.

The same government officials earlier in the week then condemned The
Red Pepper for reporting that before the crash, Garang had been shot twice in the head by possible hijackers. The same paper also reported that Rwanda was involved in a plot to bring down the Ugandan presidential chopper.

Also, the United Nations which is part of the investigation team said
on Wednesday that 17 bodies had been recovered from the site of the crash, contrary to a Ugandan report which insisted there were only 14 persons on board.

Members of the media however have defended their reporting and blame
government for being ‘unclear’ and coming up with different contradicting statements. “That is the biggest weakness of the government of Uganda and especially the Uganda military. They mismanage information,” Aliro who has been a journalist for over 20 years said.

The media fraternity has asked government to improve on its public
relations, get coordinated and stop giving contradictory statements.
“The (news) papers gave different accounts of what happened mainly
because there was lack of clear information coming from the government agents and the crash scene,” an Editorial in the state-owned daily, The New Vision said on August 12.“Government needs to learn a trick or two about the best practices of information management before it takes any extreme measures.”

At the weekly cabinet press briefing August 11 however, State Minister
for Information James Nsaba-Buturo admitted that the way government handled
information following the helicopter crash was poor. “It’s true, we were poor in providing information and some sections of
the media took advantage of this…The government is to blame for the
invention of some of the stories,” he told journalists.
He however warned: “The government has gone ahead to prepare taking on
whoever will seek to jeopardize Uganda’s interest in the name of press
freedom and human rights. We shall be tough on the media.”

President Museveni is known to get jittery over anyone/organization who criticizes two things; the army and his family.This is not the first time he has closed down a media house over
military issues. In October 2002, government closed Daily Monitor (then The Monitor) for a week over a story that an Army helicopter had crashed in northern Uganda while fighting Joseph Kony’s Lords Resistance Army rebel group.

In 2003, it also closed down a Catholic Church station, Radio Kyoga
Veritas FM in Eastern Uganda on the grounds that it broadcasts “sensationalist” news about attacks by the LRA rebels in the area.

Parliament recently amended Article 105 (1) of the 1995 Uganda
Constitution, giving Museveni who has ruled for the past 20 years, a chance to seek a third term in office. The Constitution had previously provided that a person shall not be elected to hold office as President for more than two five-year terms.

Museveni’s government, however, has been credited for liberalizing the media. There are over 100 FM radio stations and a dozen newspapers. But this week’s steps that seem to choke the freedom of the press now could probably change all this.