Uganda turning tough on foreign journalists
Updated Sun. Mar. 12 2006 7:09 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Blake Lambert spent his first days in Africa as a reluctant newsmaker, briefly making international headlines as he and other western journalists found themselves trapped between warring militia fighters in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Three years later and Lambert's final days on the continent have him again in the news, once more caught between warring forces far beyond his control.
This time the combatants are journalists pushing the limits of free speech and a nervous government increasingly ready to use harsh mea
sures to
control its media image.
Last Thursday, government authorities in Uganda expelled the 34-year-old Canadian journalist from their country.
Lambert was returning from a short holiday in South Africa when security men took him into an isolation room at Uganda's international airport in Entebbe and confiscated his passport and cellphone.
"Then they stamped my passport with a big X in red. They never told me why they were putting me back on the plane. I asked them but they didn't say anything," Lambert said.
He was deported to Nairobi where eventually he caught a flight to Toronto.
Lambert called the situation ridiculous.
"If I was thrown out because of my reporting, because someone thought I brought this on myself, that is ridiculous," he said. "I'm even-handed. I report things as I see them."
Sure enough, sources say Lambert's critical reporting for CBC radio, along with publications like The
Economist, The Christian Science Monitor and The Washington Times, had infuriated Ugandan officials still smarting from a recent flood of bad publicity.
Western critics denounce Ugandan government
Once the darling of Western aid donors (who fund nearly half the country's annual budget), Uganda's government has recently been widely condemned for its violent invasion and looting of the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, its failure to end a vicious civil war in the north of the country, and the arrest on treason charges of a leading opposition presidential candidate, Dr. Kizza Besigye.
Foreign analysts say this has deeply tarnished the international image of the country's rebel-leader-cum-president, General Yoweri Museveni, who was once feted as leader of a "new breed" of liberal-minded African leaders.
Western commentators also criticize Museveni, who has been in power 20 years, fo
r a
recent constitutional change pushed through Uganda's parliament which allows him to remain in office indefinitely.
The move became especially embarrassing when local media discovered government officials in a room in a Kampala motel doling out cash gifts to members of parliament supporting the change.
Museveni nonetheless won reelection last month in a disputed but largely peaceful presidential vote.
Seeking a better international image
With Uganda's international stock apparently on the wane, the government recently established a media centre specifically tasked with improving the country's image in the international press.
The centre's director, Mr. Robert Kabushenga, who reviews all applications for accreditation from foreign journalists, is convinced that taking a firm stand against certain reporters will improve Uganda's standing.
"Let me tell you," Kabushenga said, "we are going
to be
very aggressive about the way we're represented. That's a fact."
And true to his word, Kabushenga spent months refusing to renew the accreditation of Lambert and the BBC reporter in Uganda, Will Ross.
When reporters questioned why the accreditation of the two international journalists was being delayed, Kabushenga launched attacks on the two men in the press, at one point referring to Lambert, "That man has his own problems. He goes on the radio and talks nonsense!"
While the BBC's Ross was eventually given a temporary accreditation of four months (subject to a subsequent review) Kabushenga was unapologetic after Lambert's deportation, telling reporters, "Lambert is generally an unwanted person here. He consistently misrepresented and misreported the situation.
"We asked him to provide a more balanced outlook on Uganda, but he didn't listen to us."
In letters written to another arm of the Ugandan governmaent, Kabu
shenga
went much further: "(The) news reports of Mr. Lambert have been prejudicial to our foreign policy in particular and the national interest in general," he wrote. Kabushenga then added ominously, "In fact, it is actually doing the country more damage and this has to be stopped."
With such strong language, little wonder that Uganda's minister of Internal Affairs, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, explained the deportation by saying, "This position has been taken by the government because of national security."
In Lambert's case, government anger was especially inflamed by several reports in the influential London-based Economist magazine.
In a story on AIDS, Lambert quoted experts who suggested Uganda's success story in battling the disease was being reversed because of the religious beliefs of the country's first lady who was opposed to condom use and instead insisted on promoting abstinence.
In another story, meanwhile, Lambert repe
ated the
frequent expressions of journalists and local politicians who say they fear Uganda's President Museveni may return the country to the violent past of Idi Amin.
Kabushenga raised both issues in his letter demanding Lambert's accreditation be refused, even adding without irony "He is claiming that the government has started restricting freedom of _expression_ in the country and clamping down on foreign journalists. This as you know is not true."
Those comments came just over one month before Lambert found himself deported.
Deportations anger aid groups
Among foreign diplomats and international aid organizations, several of whom attempted to prevent Lambert's deportation, the move is setting off alarm bells. "It is outrageous that Ugandan authorities have deported a respected journalist," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
"Expelling Blake Lamber
t,
especially in light of other recent attacks on independent journalists in Uganda, puts into question Uganda's commitment to press freedom."
A senior western diplomat who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation added, "This is a keystone issue for us. If the [Ugandan] government fails to uphold it's commitment to freedom of speech, this is a serious problem."
Another told Reuters, "This is the latest in a worrisome series of pressures on the press and arbitrary government action."
The loudest protests have come from Ugandan journalists themselves.
The government has recently begun cracking down on the once-vibrant and aggressive local media.
Several newspapers and radio stations have been temporarily closed and threats of closure are frequent.
The country's most famous journalist, Andrew Mwenda, political editor of The Monitor newspaper and host of the hugely popula
r
Andrew Mwenda Live, faces charges of "Sedition" because of his critical reports. He is on bail, but faces 75 years in prison if convicted.
Several other journalists face similar charges.
While the deportation made headlines in the national newspapers, at popular local radio station KfM, a one-hour special was devoted to discussing Lambert's deportation.
Even the state broadcaster UBC held a one-hour television debate in which journalists angrily challenged government spokesmen.
"Here it comes," said Wafula Oguttu, founder of the independent daily newspaper The Monitor and now an opposition party spokesman. "The white journalists, they just get deported. But us, they will be sending us to Luzira," referring to Uganda's notorious maximum security penitentiary.
For Lambert, the most uncomfortable part of the deportation from Uganda has been waiting for a flight home.
When he arrived in
Nairobi, Kenyan authorities refused to allow him to enter the country.
He waited nearly 28 hours in a holding area for a flight home.
"I think the Ugandan government just wanted to wash their hands off me and I have learned that it is very hard to step off a transit flight as a persona non grata," Lambert said.
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