Sunday Nation Team
13 October 2002
Nairobi — The US government and international human rights groups yesterday condemned the continued sealing off of the offices of Uganda's only independent daily newspaper, The Monitor.
A spokesperson for the American Embassy in Kampala, Mrs Mary Jeffers, warned that the crisis should be resolved without compromising the independence of the media in Uganda.
She spoke as The Monitor failed to appear in the streets for the second straight day after police raided and sealed off its editorial and commercial offices on Thursday.
"The US regards the media as the voice of the people talking to the government and explaining government ideas to the people," Mrs Jeffers is quoted as saying in a lead story in the early editions of today's Sunday Vision newspaper.
She adds: "Because independent media are important to the US government, we hope the problem we have seen over the last 24 hours will be resolved quickly without any damage to the independent media.
"The media are a market place of ideas because we feel if people are allowed to put their ideas on the table, the right ideas can be picked," Mrs Jeffers told a group of journalists who had completed a course on radio production at Makerere University in Kampala.
An estimated 50 soldiers, some in uniform and others in civilian clothes, occupied the offices of The Monitor in Kampala late on Thursday and started searching electronic and written material.
The newspaper had reported that a military helicopter had crashed during operations in the rebel-hit northern part of the country.
The company's board of directors had made attempts to end the blockade with Uganda government officials. The soldiers ordered staff to leave and disconnected telephones in an operation that crippled the newspaper's production.
The Monitor has not been published for two days but its radio station Monitor FM has managed to continue broadcasting despite police surrounding its offices in the same building.
Nation Media Group has controlling shares in The Monitor.
The Monitor news editor David Ouma Balikowa said police had confiscated all keys to the premises and prevented staff from entering. The search continued into Friday and yesterday when soldiers removed files and computer diskettes.
New York-based Human Rights Watch saw the move as "a blatant attack on press freedom" and asked the Uganda government to end the siege.
"Just when independent reporting is most necessary - in war - the Ugandan government has silenced one of the country's most respected journals," said Juliane Kippenberg, researcher in the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), another New York-based group, said the closure should be seen as an unfortunate outgrowth of the US war on terrorism.
"We deplore what has happened in Uganda," said Yves Sorokobi, Africa programme director for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
"What's really sad about this development is that it's one of the distant repercussions of the US war on terrorism."
The Ugandan government justified its move against The Monitor on the basis of anti-terrorism law enacted last May that, according to Mr Sorokobi, was inspired by a US law passed in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York. Both laws restrict civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism, Mr Sorokobi said.
The US State Department had no immediate comment. Mr Sorokobi told the Sunday Nation he was not surprised. "They know they have pretty much created this monster that is threatening press freedom globally."
For President Yoweri Museveni to sanction the closing of a newspaper would have been considered out of character prior to the September 2001. "But now, regardless of their stated commitment to democratic rights, this sort of thing is pretty much to be expected from governments in the developing world," Mr Sorokobi said.
Uganda's opposition Democratic Party condemned the act, describing it as a "serious setback to the democratisation process of the country which was illegal and meant to control the media by the rulers".
"Whoever are responsible are examples of impulsive, immature and irresponsible leaders using their privileged positions to disorganise the flow of information," read a statement by party president Paul Ssemogerere.
In a statement issued yesterday, the government accused The Monitor of promoting banditry in the country.
Executives from the Nation Media Group in Nairobi jetted into Kampala on Friday evening to seek an explanation from the authorities. Sources said they had been promised the newspaper would resume publication soon.
CID officers mounted a second search at The Monitor's Namuwongo head office yesterday morning and carried away four computers.
Journalists who witnessed the search said computers carried away included the one used by Sunday Editor Odobo wa Bichaci, news editor Joseph Were and investigation desk head Andrew Mwenda. Also taken were files from Editor-in-Chief Wafula Ogutu's office.
Meanwhile, the fate of reporter Frank Nyakairu who filed the story that prompted the raid remained unclear after local media reported that he was not being held by police but by military intelligence.
The army said yesterday that Mr Nyakairu had been handed over to police where he recorded a statement but the government-owned New Vision daily reported today that officers from the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence had picked him up yesterday as he took his breakfast from a restaurant in the northern town of Gulu.
The army maintained it had no interest in Mr Nyakairu beyond showing him that no military helicopter had been lost as reported by The Monitor.
Reports by Kevin Kelley, Michael Wakabi and ReutersComments\Views about this article
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