Uganda: Country Brands Foreign Journalists Spies
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The New Times (Kigali)
April 20, 2006
Posted to the web April 21, 2006
Posted to the web April 21, 2006
Charles Kazooba
Kampala
Kampala
Kampala is investigating journalists in Uganda working for foreign media on allegations of sourcing intelligence information for their employers.
'Government is investigating reports that some individuals posing as journalists are writing on Uganda on behalf of certain external interests. If this is not a kind of espionage, what else is it?' a government statement signed by the information minister, Thursday, April 20 stated. The statement also said cabinet on Wednesday 19 resolved to investigate and take action against the blacklisted journalists.
The Vice President, Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, chaired the cabinet meeting.
Kampala's anguish came the same day government declared commencement of all the provisions of the Access to Information Act, 2005.
"This is a historic day and further proof that the Movement government is keen to transform Uganda into a land of more prosperity, freedom and liberty for its people. Effective this date, every citizen of Uganda has a constitutional right of access to information in the possession of the
State or any other organ or agency of the State," the same government statement reads in part.
However, government contradicted itself when it banned access to security information in the same law.
"That is something (investigating foreign journalists) we are taking very seriously. They (foreign journalists) must be very miserable. No country can accept that. After concluding our investigations, we will not hesitate to take appropriate action no matter what other people say," the information minister, Dr. James Nsaba Buturo emphasised, in regard to Uganda's position on foreign journalists.
He said certain sections in the media were posing a 'new' threat to Uganda's security.
"They are unelected by the people of Uganda yet they have assigned to themselves the critical role of shaping Uganda's relations with her neighbours. This is dangerous and it must stop,
especially, since their motivation for reporting, mostly fiction, is driven by a motive to make money. Judas Iscariot betrayed our Lord in exchange for money! Ugandan journalists must not compromise their country's stability simply because they want to increase sales of their papers," Buturo warned.
Also recently, the state-manned Media Center that sieves media practitioners deported a Canadian journalist on allegations of 'misbehaviour'.
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Meanwhile, sources in government informed The New Times that there was discontent in government circles about a recent report in the newspaper indicating that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni would in shake up the
intelligence leadership soon after swearing-in.
In another incident, The New Times journalist was quizzed by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Ruhakana Rugunda, for publishing a report that stated that Uganda had issued a passport to Rwandan dissident, Ignace Murwanashyaka.
Murwanashyaka, the leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo-based Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), was later arrested in Germany after he used Uganda as an escape route from the DRC.
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