Jossy Muhangi
18 November 2002
Kampala — Radio stations in Uganda face a ban for hosting exiled political dissidents, including Dr. Col. Kizza Besigye, on their talk-shows, President Yoweri Museveni told Radio West on Saturday.
He said radios would only be spared if the exiles denounced terrorist and subversive activities.
Museveni was responding to a question why radio stations were recently warned against hosting Besigye on talk-shows. Museveni, who was talking on Radio West, said supporters of the Reform Agenda, which spear-headed Besigye's presidential campaign in 2001, are of two types: those who remained in Uganda and set up office like Sam Njuba and Betty Kamya, and others like Besigye whom he said chose a self-imposed exile.
He said the likes of Besigye should have nothing to do with our FM radios.
He compared them with traditionalists or non-believers being allowed to worship in Christian churches.
Further pressed by a Radio West journalist on why other FM stations like The Monitor were hosting such people, Museveni said, "Even The Monitor and other stations will be stopped."
Museveni said Reform Agenda officials who stayed in Uganda were not being muzzled. Asked if that ban was a government policy, Museveni answered, "That is the position."
Earlier, Museveni said there were over 67 FM stations in the country but most of them were concentrating on decampaigning government programmes instead of sensitising the masses on self-economic improvement (okwecenuura in Runyankore).
He said some of them like ebimeeza (dubbed peoples' Parliament) were poisoning people's minds, exaggerating small problems while neglecting vital issues like health.
He said for instance, Ssebana Kizito's Kampala city was still irritatingly filthy, attracting rare green flies known in Runyankole as gandangire. In Luweero and Bunyoro, he added, people have no toilets and use the bush to dispose of human waste.
He said immunisation had declined from 80% to 40%. He said these were vital issues FM radios and papers ought to address.
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