Uganda's Daily Monitor reopens after police closure

Employees of the Daily Monitor newspaper with their mouths taped shut, sing slogans during a protest against the closure of their premises by the Uganda government, outside their offices in the capital, Kampala, on 20 May 2013

Journalists had protested against the closure

Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper has reopened after being shut down by the authorities for more than a week.

The privately owned paper was closed after publishing a letter alleging that President Yoweri Museveni was grooming his son to succeed him.
The letter, purporting to be from an army general, said those who opposed this risked assassination.
A government statement said the newspaper's owners "highly regretted the story".
Two radio stations linked to the Daily Monitor, KFM and Dembe Radio, which were closed down are on air again.
The Red Pepper newspaper, which was also shut down for reporting the allegations, has been allowed to reopen too.
Mr Museveni has been in power since 1986, and elections are due in 2016.
There has been long-standing speculation that his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a brigadier in the army, is being groomed as his successor. The government has denied having any such plans.
Search to continue

Staff at the newspaper have said the police, who had been occupying the premises in the capital, Kampala, for the last 11 days, began to open up the offices on Thursday morning.

The BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga in Kampala says there has been criticism from some journalists who say the Nation Media Group has chosen to protect their business interests over their editorial policies.

The company said it lost thousands of dollars each day its newspapers and radio stations were closed.
The Daily Monitor's Managing Director, Alex Asiimwe, told the BBC the paper had not caved in to government pressure, but rather "reason had prevailed".
"It is not good thinking for people to say if they have opened us, then we have backed down," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
When asked if the paper "regretted" the story, he said it would prompt "self-reflection".
"When we produced that story we thought we had subjected it to the best [editorial policy guidelines] that we can."
Earlier this week, police tear-gassed and beat journalists with batons as they protested outside the offices of the Daily Monitor.
The authorities said they wanted evidence of how the Daily Monitor got hold of the confidential letter, purportedly written by Gen David Sejusa,
who is out of the country.
In the government statement, it said the raid on 20 May 2013 was ordered because "it was established that the director general, Internal Security Organisation, to whom the letter was addressed, as well as the officers to whom the letter was copied never received it. Evidently, it was only the Daily Monitor in possession of the letter."
President Museveni and the management of Nation Media Group, which owns the Monitor, met on Sunday 26 May, it said.
They had agreed to "only publish or air stories which are properly sourced, verified and factual", amongst other undertakings, the statement from the Minister of Internal Affairs, Hilary Onek, said.
They also "undertook to be sensitive to and not publish or air stories that can generate tensions, ethnic hatred, cause insecurity or disturb law and order", it said.
Thanks to these agreements, the minister had ordered that the police remove the cordon at the Daily Monitor's office to allow "normal business as police continue with the search".

The government commended the Red Pepper publication for its co-operation during the crisis.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22717291

Thursday 25 April 2013

400 desert UPDF

President Museveni inspects a guard of honour at Kololo Independence Grounds recently. The high number of soldiers deserting the army has raised concerns among top military strategists. PHOTO BY FAISWAL KASIRYE

By TABU BUTAGIRA

Posted Thursday, April 25 2013 at 01:00

In Summary

* Some of them escaped with guns
* Most affected unit is that which guards President Museveni
* Many come from northern and eastern regions
* New recruits more “interested in money, not service

Kampala

At least 400 Ugandan soldiers, among them 37 members of the presidential guards, responsible for protecting President Museveni, have deserted the army, one of Africa’s most respected militaries.

This is the highest number of reported desertions in the history of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), since 1995, when professionalisation of the national army commenced with the promulgation of the Constitution. Most of the deserters, according to available information, are from northern and eastern regions.

The SFC is the army’s crack unit, and its better-trained and better-armed troops have performed exceptionally when deployed on the most challenging and unique assignments within and outside the country. It is commanded by First Son, Brig. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a graduate of both the UK’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Fort Leavenworth Command and General Staff College in the United States.

Deserters’ list published
The UPDF’s decision to publicise the desertions earlier this week is unusual. It is traditionally secretive especially when it involves elite units like the SFC. In a lengthy investigation, the Daily Monitor has established that the unprecedented wave of desertions from the SFC, whose soldiers are famously proud of their unit, was linked to work details they had been asked to carry out.

Last August, SFC units were deployed from Mityana District to work on President’s Museveni’s Kisozi Ranch in Mpigi District. The first batch was made up of 120 soldiers from “A” Company.
They were later replaced by another unit, which was withdrawn a fortnight ago. Some 37 soldiers in both groups, who complained of being subjected to hard labour; felling trees and clearing thickets on the ranch, had reportedly escaped by March, this year. Five of these deserters were captured in the past week and have been detained at SFC headquarters at Kasenyi in Entebbe, according to a highly-placed security source.

These include some of the individuals a Board of Enquiry chaired by Maj. William Atungwire dismissed with disgrace from the elite Force on Saturday, March 9, 2013. Deputy SFC commander, Col. Sabiiti Magyenyi, said desertions have always occurred in the military for various reasons.

Reasons for desertion
Soldiers deployed on the Kisozi Ranch were, he said, like while on any other assignments, responsible for clearing an observation zone to give them a vantage point to spot enemies. No SFC soldier had been taken off to do private work on the President’s farm, Col. Magyenyi said.

Another wave of desertions has come from ordinary army units, most of them drawn from northern and eastern regions. These units are central to the army’s battle operations in South Sudan and Somalia, where it is helping restore stability in the area and driving al Shabaab out of Mogadishu.

A private in the Ugandan army earns Shs310, 000 which compares with what, for instance, a police constable takes home. However, soldiers serving in the Special Forces earn an extra Shs150, 000 monthly as a food allowance. The rise in desertions, mostly involving ordinary soldiers from regular units, raises questions about the discipline and cohesion of the army credited for restoring civilian security, helping South Sudan achieve independence and beating al Shabaab out of Mogadishu.

Col. Felix Kulayigye, the army’s chief political commissar and spokesman, said: “We are concerned [about the desertions]. But a critical study of our population educates us that the young people who join the army come to look for jobs, and a job seeker is simply a wage seeker, and if the wage is not satisfactory to their expectations, they run away.

“Our assessment has been that a good number of recent entrants [into the army] are interested in jobs, not service [to the country]. There has also been a misunderstanding or misnomer that there is a lot of money in the army.”

Deployments on dangerous missions in difficult regions – such as the Karamoja sub-region and the Central African Republic – may explain some desertions, said Col. Kulayigye.

The Somalia impact
But it appears that some soldiers, who had been deployed to Somalia where they earned comparably higher pay, deserted when they returned to Uganda, probably to start up their businesses using the money they had saved on assignment.

The army has asked the public to help identify the deserters, some of whom took their weapons with them when they fled. Col Kulayigye, however, downplayed the dangers posed by so many guns in illegal hands.
But small arms such as AK-47 rifles that some of the deserters have fled with are, according to police accounts, the commonest weapons used in various fatal robbery and other shooting incidents in the capital, Kampala, and its residential outskirts this year.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/400-desert-UPDF--The-inside-story/-/688334/1757436/-/mg4nip/-/index.html