Netters,
As we all know, the Monitor newspaper is currently experiencing some, er,
difficulties with the government. I thought that this might be an opportune
time to take a look at where we have been with regard to this issue. I'll
start off by sharing a letter from Rajat Neogy, former Editor of Transition
during Obote I.
Transition was censored by the Obote government in a tragic comedy of
errors that included the government arresting and beating up the editor of its
own paper, The People when government agents were looking for Neogy, but that
is another story. The editor was fired a few days later by an embarassed
government.
Ssekanyolya, a Luganda daily, was banned outright, as were probably
others. Perhaps history repeats itself, especially for those incapable or
unwilling to learn from it: ideas are awfully hard to kill. As many a dictator
has found out, sometimes too late, if the Emperor's clothes are torn and he is
naked, gouging the eyes of the hapless populace does zilch about the state of
the clothes, even as psycophants cheer.
I have put Neogy's letter in a pdf attachment (ca. 10K) which any
browser or email program should be able to open. A free Acrobat reader is at
www.adobe.com. Plain text is also
available.
ssemakula
