The Press and Political Repression in Uganda: Back to the Future?

Abstract

Since ‘liberating’ Uganda in 1986 the government of Yoweri Museveni has professed support for freedom of expression. Print and other media have flourished and grown dramatically in the country over the past twenty years. This article examines press freedom in Museveni's Uganda in greater detail, comparing the experience since 1986 with that under the first regime of Milton Obote in the 1960s. Both these periods are presented as moments of liberal politics in Uganda's troubled past, yet both are periods in which political repression of the press has persisted. The article focuses first upon the Transition affair of 1967–69, when the Obote regime clamped down upon what was then Africa's leading literary magazine for its criticism of government policy, before turning to the Museveni government's harassment of the print media, especially the Daily Monitor, from 1989 to the present. The concluding section draws parallels between the behaviour of the Obote and Museveni governments toward the press, suggesting that press freedoms need to be vigorously protected at all times, and perhaps especially at moments of liberal and democratic rule.

Notes

1. Onyango-Obbo and Mwenda v Attorney General, Constitutional Appeal No. 2 of 2002, Supreme Court of Uganda, 11 Feb. 2004.

2. Gariyo, ‘The Media’, 1.

3. Hyden and Okigbo, ‘The Media and the Two Waves of Democracy’, 31.

4. Mwesige, ‘Can You Hear Me Now?’

5. Most recently, Bogere and Muhumuza, ‘We Are Still in Charge’, 1.

6. The State of Media Freedom in Uganda, 12–20.

7. The edition being printed carried an advert paid for by Besigye's party, the Forum for Democratic Change. The advert was similar in design and content to the posters pinned up in Kampala that night. The writer was on the premises at the time of the raid, at about 11 p.m.

8. ‘A Matter of Transition’, 43.

9. Neogy, ‘Do Magazines’, 31.

10. Quoted in Gariyo, ‘The Press’, 72.

11. Neogy, Letter, 6.

12. Vazquez, ‘An African Dilemma’, 12.

13. Soyinka, ‘On the Trail of Transition’, 414.

14. Vazquez, ‘An African Dilemma’, 14.

15. Abiola Irele and Tommie Shelby have now assumed editorship, with Gates and Appiah becoming publishers.

16. Vazquez, ‘An African Dilemma’, 14.

17. Vazquez, ‘An African Dilemma’, 6.

18. ‘Culture in Transition’, 2.

19. Irele, ‘Transition, Nos. 1–32 by Rajat Neogy’, 443.

20. Neogy, ‘Do Magazines’, 30–31.

21. Gariyo, ‘The Press’.

22. Obote, ‘A Plan for Nationhood’, 18.

23. The initial print-run in 1961 was 2,000 copies. It had jumped to 12,000 by 1968. See Friendly Jr., ‘Slick African Magazine’, 3.

24. Trilling, ‘Trilling on Transition’, 6.

25. Nelson Kasfir, Personal interview, 4 Dec. 2006.

26. Friendly, ‘Slick African Magazine’, 3.

27. ‘Slickest, Sprightliest, Sexiest’, 41–42.

28. Friendly, ‘Slick African Magazine’, 3.

29. ‘Tribalism Issue in Sedition Case’, 43–49.

30. Obote, Myths and Realities, 16.

31. Mayanja, ‘The Government's Proposals’, 20.

32. Adoko, ‘The Constitution’, 10–12.

33. Mutibwa, Uganda Since Independence, 59. See also Oloka-Onyango, ‘Governance’, 34.

34. p'Bitek, ‘Indigenous Ills’, 47.

35. Obote, Myths and Realities, 19–27.

36. Nelson, ‘Newspapers’, 30.

37. Ali, ‘Ideological Commitment’, 47–49.

38. Mayanja, ‘The Fact’, 15. (In March 1969, President Obote named four Ugandans – Saulo Musoke, W.W. Wambuzi, Aloysious Mukasa and Emmanuel Oteng – as puisne judges of the High Court. See Uganda Argus 28 Mar. 1968. None of the four men was Obote's tribesman).

39. Mayanja, ‘The Fact’, 15.

40. ‘Sedition Charges Dismissed’, 1–2.

41. Neogy, born to Indian Brahman parents in Uganda, was a committed man of culture. Jail broke his spirit forever – and he was only 30 when he was released in March 1969. See Soyinka, ‘Memories of Rajat’, 10–12, and in the same issue Mazrui, ‘The Day I Stopped’, 8–9, and Theroux, ‘Rajat Neogy Remembered’, 4–7. Mayanja lived to serve in various cabinet positions, including information, and justice, under Yoweri Museveni.

42. Mutibwa, Uganda Since Independence, for a full history of these events.

43. Langlands, ‘Students and Politics’, 6. See also Ryan, ‘Uganda: A Balance Sheet’, 47.

44. Bazaara, ‘Contemporary Civil Society’, 27–28.

45. Mazrui's association with Transition first as contributor and then as associate editor, added to the magazine's lustre in the West. Said to be a social constructivist, it was during this period that Mazrui wrote what some consider his most influential article on African Affairs. That article, ‘Nkrumah: The Leninist Czar’, dealt with the thought and politics of Ghana's founding president Kwame Nkrumah, then newly deposed.

46. ‘Mazrui Comments on Detentions’. Another Makerere scholar and regular Transition contributor M.M. Carlin added his voice challenging the government to say publicly whether free speech was dead in Uganda. See Uganda Argus, 24 Oct. 1968, 5.

47. ‘Emergency Extended’, 1. See also ‘Dr Obote’, 2., and ‘Criminals Must Not’, 2.

48. Nelson, ‘Newspapers’, 31.

49. Hall, ‘Rajat Neogy on the CIA’, 44–47. See also Mphahlele, ‘Mphahlele on the CIA’, 5.

50. Neogy, ‘It Only Happens’, 378.

51. Gukiina, Uganda, 170.

52. Obote, Myths and Realities, 30.

53. Editorial, Transition no. 38 (June–July 1971): 5.

54. Barton, The Press of Africa, 99.

55. Maja-Pearce, ‘The Press in East Africa’, 62.

56. Munnansi (or Citizen), the opposition Democratic Party mouthpiece, was left unscathed. This appears to have been deliberate because the government wanted to demonstrate to the international community particularly that an independent press was tolerated. See Maja-Pearce, ‘The Press in East Africa’, 62.

57. Munnansi (or Citizen), the opposition Democratic Party mouthpiece, was left unscathed. This appears to have been deliberate because the government wanted to demonstrate to the international community particularly that an independent press was tolerated. See Maja-Pearce, ‘The Press in East Africa’, 63.

58. Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, 1995, 28.

59. Mwesige, ‘A Profile’, 213.

60. Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), ‘Attacks on the Press 2003’.

61. Mwesige, ‘A Profile’, 213.

62. For a catalogue of these cases, see Maja-Pearce, ‘The Press in East Africa’, 63.

63. Gariyo, ‘The Media’, 38–39.

64. Gariyo, ‘The Media’, 38–, 38.

65. Kupe, ‘The Role of the Media’, 2.

66. Maja-Pearce, ‘The Press in East Africa’, 63.

67. Editorial, The Citizen, week ending 20 Sept. 1989, quoted. in Gariyo, ‘The Media’, 39.

68. Mwesige, ‘Can You Hear Me Now?’ Mwesige estimates that number rose to about 30 by the end of 2006, personal interview, 22 March 2007.

69. Onyango-Obbo, ‘A Ugandan Journalist’.

70. Reporters Without Borders, Uganda – Annual Report 2006.

71. Mwesige, ‘Can You Hear Me Now?’

72. Nelson, ‘Newspapers’, 30.

73. ‘A Matter of Transition’, 44.

74. The Guardian [London] 20 Nov. 1986, 12, quoted. in Maja-Pearce, ‘The Press in East Africa’, 63.

75. Tusa, ‘Fourth Estate or Fifth Column’, 4.

76. Reporters Without Borders, ‘Introduction Africa – Annual Report 2007’.

77. Reporters Without Borders, ‘North Korea, Turkmenistan and Eritrea’.

78. Gyezaho and Luggya, ‘Opposition Too Weak’.

79. Nassanga, ‘Local Considerations’, 117.

80. Mayanja, ‘The Government's Proposals’, 24.

81. Neogy, ‘Do Magazines’, 32.