15 November 2002
Kampala — Presidential Advisor on the Media John Nagenda has called for tougher punishment on journalists who abet terrorism, reports Anne Mugisa.
Nagenda was delivering a paper on the recent temporary closure of the Monitor paper at the Faculty of Law. Makerere University. He said there were no apologies for the action against the newspaper over the helicopter article.
"We shall get the people concerned, turn their places upside down and get the information. Get where these lies come from....the laws will deal with people who give succour to the enemy fighting government during a war," he said.
Nagenda clashed with Monitor journalist Andrew Mwenda over the helicopter story. Mwenda said defence minister Amama Mbabazi lent credence to the story before it was written when he told Parliament that Kony had acquired capacity to shoot down aircraft.
Mwenda said The Monitor had earlier got hold of a letter written to Mbabazi from the airforce that the helicopter was in a sorry state, with leaking engines.
Nagenda said the article claiming that a UPDF helicopter had been shot down by the LRA rebels in northern Uganda was a fabrication whose evidence the Monitor had failed to produce. Ends
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