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Uganda: Press Freedom Remains Elusive

Grace Matsiko

2 May 2008

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opinion

As the world prepares to celebrate the World Press Freedom Day tomorrow, media freedom in Uganda seems to be far from getting better. The Freedom of Access to Information Act has remained ineffective with arrogant government officials violating it with impunity.

Last Saturday, security agents arrested Mr Andrew Mwenda, the managing editor of the bi-monthly newsmagazine, The Independent, the magazine's Consulting Editor Odoobo Bichachi and reporter John Njoroge. The mid-morning operation also saw Daily Monitor photojournalist Joseph Kiggundu handcuffed, blindfolded, beaten and driven away by a security squad under the command of Mr Charles Kataratambi, the head of Media and Political Desk at CID headquarters.

For a trained officer like Mr Kataratambi he should have known that Kiggundu, who identified himself to the police, was not a threat to them but was at the premises to do his noble duty. Beating and torturing Kiggundu was a signal to the media practitioners to stay away from the noble cause of covering news whenever security is conducting an operation be it illegal or legal.

Should we fault the Special Police Constables for being incompetent when they unleash similar brutality onto civilians? Not quite. Kataratambi provided a leading example to them. Days after the raid on Mwenda's offices, the Army Spokesman Maj. Paddy Ankunda slapped 'sanctions' on me for reporting that the UPDF had created new army divisions.

According to Ankunda I wrote the story with an "ulterior motive" and that was a basis for his sanctions against me. "You can always get information from your sources but not from me," charged Ankunda, who a few years ago, was an approachable officer.

I have known and interacted with Ankunda for the many years I have been covering defence and security stories both at the New Vision and my current employer Daily Monitor. At times during an argument he would ask me why "I work for an enemy publication," a derogatory reference the independent Daily Monitor, by some government officers.

In 2002 Ankunda, on orders of Col. Nathan Mugisha, the UPDF 4th Division Commander, had banished me from Gulu. I was almost "deported" to Kampala had it not been the intervention of Gen. Aronda Nyakairima. My crime, according to Mugisha, was that "I work for an enemy publication" and that it was why I had reported that Gen. Aronda was expected to visit the Ugandan troops inside Sudan."

It was the first such visit by a senior commander since the beginning of Operation Iron Fist that year. Because Ankunda, then a spokesman for the 4th Division in Gulu, was working under orders from his boss, I did not take issue with him. Ankunda has been one of the fastest rising military officers in Uganda's history given that in just four years he has moved from Lieutenant to Major.

I used to take his 'jokes' that I work for an enemy publication. But not any more this time. To get information from him is as hard as trying to milk a cat. Ankunda's change in character and attitude towards the media, is at least a position many fellow journalists have told me about in the past but I ignored.

What Ankunda forgets is that as journalists we do a noble job like he, an army officer, does. As we celebrate the World Press Freedom day, my worry is that the once press friendly government and UPDF, are now joining media haters. Or have they succumbed to the notion that power corrupts?

The writer is a journalist

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