Uganda: The More You Scare People the Less They Fear You [opinion]

A group of CBS radio employees last week met President Museveni at State House Entebbe to beg for the reopening of the station that was closed more than six months ago. Once a proud and powerful media institution, and one that could defeat government programmes like the Land Bill, CBS has been reduced to begging for survival. The dogged defiance seen in the early days of the closure has given away to desperation.

It is not just CBS that has been reduced to its knees. Radio stations across the country are broadcasting on 100% FEAR FM, dreading the day they will have their licenses withdrawn or big advertisers influenced to withdraw their adverts. The political brigade of RDCs, CAOs, DISOs, etc., routinely bully private radio station owners and operators against hosting opposition politicians or airing views that are critical of the government.

When such views slip through the tight-knit net of self-censorship, the station owners and managers are forced to make personal apologies to the wronged party, which often is President Museveni.

Failure to do so could lead to the coveted license not being renewed at the end of the year. This clampdown is significant. Most Ugandans, especially those upcountry, get their information from radio because it is largely free and transient.
The direct and indirect control of radio content means that Ugandans are being denied critical information about what is being done by those they have elected to run the country on their behalf.

They are free to listen to Bebe Cool sing about wives tending to saucepans for their husbands but should not be told about, for instance, government plans to lease off lakes and their implications to their livelihoods!

Granted, some of the statements made, especially by politicians, can be false or deliberately skewed to discredit the government. Others are simply misinformed because of the government’s failure to provide clear, timely and up-to-date information.

The best way to deal with people who disagree with or criticise you is not to abuse them, shut them up or jail them, as the government appears to be doing, but rather defend yourself with the facts and the context.

Neither should the government seek to control what people watch, listen to, or believe, as appears to be the case. The government is now mulling amendments to the law to bring newspapers under the same short leash it has the radios tethered to.

The law governing NGOs and civil society organisations has also been strengthened to ensure that new thinking is controlled or is not too critical of the government. The banning of the bimeeza (open-air radio talk shows), one of the most democratic spaces in Uganda, has now driven debate and discussion underground.

The problem with underground debate is that there are no rules, no chance for the truth to compete with the lies. So visit any of the bufunda around Kampala and you will be amazed at the incredulous rumours that people spread – and believe – about those in power.
The irony is that what people are unwilling to ask in a radio call-in programme, they are more than willing to state as fact in the safe company of friends.

By threatening Olara Otunnu if he continues to question the army’s conduct in the Bush War and the LRA war, Gen. David Tinyefuza and State House have given the UPC leader a campaign platform where he appeared to have hardly any.

It is not that people necessarily believe Otunnu – they just want to know why the man is not being exposed as a liar but being told to shut up!

So the more you scare people, the less they fear you and the less you allow them to question you the more they are willing to accuse you. The more the government tries to control what we believe, the less we believe those in power.

- April 29, 2010 by Daniel Kalinaki, Managing Editor of the Daily Monitor
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Source: www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/DanielKalinaki/-/878782/908562/-/uuw14hz/-/index.html (accessed on 29.04.2010)