A nation waits, and expects

Uganda’s national team, the Cranes, will tomorrow, Saturday, kick off their campaign to earn a berth in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa at the Nelson Mandela national stadium.

The Cranes have not had much luck in recent campaigns, but the team at least has a loyal nation behind them. So the 40,000-seater Mandela national stadium (located at Namboole on the outskirts of Uganda’s capital Kampala by the way, not somewhere in Johannesburg) is once again expected to fill up to the brim.

The expectations, as has been the case each time the Cranes have started such a campaign, will be enormous. And with Uganda’s soccer governing body, FUFA, having summoned a record 16 professionals, the fans will expect nothing short of a victory.

Opening day victories have in any case been formalities each time the Cranes have started such campaigns. Where the Cranes have come short in the recent past is in their failure to win sufficient games (especially away from home,) to garner sufficient points to claim a qualification slot.

Over the years the Cranes have, in the words of one pundit, come second so many times that if there was a competition for coming second, the team would still take the second position.

The most painful was of course the qualification campaign for the 2008 Nations Cup campaign where the team failed to qualify by a single goal. A second experience of that nature would be too much to bear for a nation that has already endured so much heartache.

Part of the reason the team has performed poorly in the past was the federation’s inability to transport all the team’s professionals to feature in every game of a campaign. It was a problem that reared its head again in the last campaign – with the team captain, Ibrahim Ssekajja, failing to make it for two crucial games.

This time round, with at least four games to be played in June, and the local league – as well as most leagues across the world – having been completed, even the 16 players plying their trade in foreign leagues can be maintained in camp for the entire month.

The signs look good; it is now up to the players to go out there and discard that nearly men tag that has dogged Ugandan football for ages.

A nation waits, and expects.

Killing the messenger

In his previous life, veteran Ugandan politician Al Hajj Ali Kirunda Kivejinja of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party published a newspaper, The Weekly Topic, which he co-owned with Kintu Musoke and Jaberi Bidandi Ssali.

This newspaper, though apparently heavily censured, grew in influence and size to become a daily, before it folded up after some of its most senior journalists like Wafula Oguttu, Charles Onyango-Obbo and Ogen Kevin Aliro (RIP) jumped ship to launch The Monitor newspaper.

Today, Mr. Kivejinja is Uganda’s third deputy prime minister and minister of information and national guidance. Having swapped his media hat for a government one, the good minister is now at the centre of an alleged plot to muzzle media freedom.

Since President Museveni and his National Resistance Army (NRA) guerrillas shot their way to power in January 1986, Ugandan media has gained considerable wriggling room. That room was not gained on the cheap though as a number of journalists and media houses have paid heavy prices, but the reality is that Museveni’s government was continuously conceding ground.

When Mr. Kivejinja was put at the helm of the information and national guidance ministry after the 2006 general elections therefore, it seemed as if Museveni had finally appointed one of us. But Mr. Kivejinja has, since taking up his appointment, run his office like a man who knows which side of his bread is buttered.

Since President Museveni made his now famous outburst in Kololo in 2005, while mourning his employees who had died with South Sudan President Dr. John Garang that he would sort out the media, many functionaries in his government have been trying to outdo themselves in showing their boss that they doing his bidding.

Mr. Kivejinja seems to have done little to change his boss’ thinking. It is under his watch, after all, that nearly every independent print media house in Uganda has at least two journalists before the Ugandan courts battling cases brought against them by the state, and – in scenes reminiscent of the raid on The Monitor newspaper in October 2003 – another newspaper, the fledgling Independent, was raided by security operatives.

But the worst is not yet over. Recent reports seem to indicate that the government is raising the stakes in their quest to clampdown on the media. On May 21, cabinet constituted a powerful special sub-committee to investigate radios and newspapers accused of giving bad publicity to the NRM government.

This seven-man committee, comprising two deputy prime ministers, the ministers of security and of internal affairs, as well as the Attorney General, sends strong signals that the NRM government is determined to swing the whip hard.

Mr. Kivejinja has argued that this move by cabinet is not aimed at clamping down on the media, but a well-meaning attempt by the government to guide the media to do “responsible reporting”.

“For now over 2 years I have been studying the performance of both our electronic and print media and the legal framework under which they have been functioning. As you all know, I have taken time off to talk to fellow practicing journalists either individually or collectively and even visited most of the major Media Houses with the intention of breaking barriers that might be created between the media and government,” Mr. Kivejinja said during a press conference he called on May 22.

“My main objective has been to look for best practices that would enable our media to play a vibrant role and be one of the pillars of governance in our society,” he added.

This would all have been fine, was it not for the fact that the NRM takes most criticism of its failings as a political effort to malign it before the electorate, treats many media houses that host members of the political opposition as enemies, and perceives any critical views of the way that the country is being run as negative publicity against the ruling NRM party.

With the Uganda government intent on “fixing the press”, one would have expected that a siege mentality, if nothing else, would galvanise the journalists. Sadly, the attack on the media is coming at a time when our own house is not in order.

Early this week, information came through that the Uganda Journalists Association (UJA) – which is affiliated to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) – was holding a General Assembly on May 24 in which a new executive was to be elected. This information had been sent by the outgoing President of UJA, Mr. Ahmed Kateregga.

On May 22, the outgoing Secretary General of UJA, Mr Stephen Ouma Bwire, sent out a communication of his own, calling the meeting that had been called and organised by Mr. Kateregga “illegal”. Mr. Ouma says UJA “has never convened anywhere and at any date to propose, discuss and resolve to hold its General Assembly on May 24, 2008”.

“The purported meeting with forged backdated list of Executive Committee participants, resolutions is being “cooked” up by outgoing President Ahmed Kateregga to present at his solely convened General Assembly this Saturday,” argued Mr. Ouma.

He added: “Ahmed Kateregga should produce minutes of the Executive Committee, where it convened, the agenda and resolutions before he thinks of convening a General Assembly of his own making. Kateregga must take note, if he has never read, understood and internalised the UJA Constitution.”

The UJA Constitution says that General Assembly shall be convened by the associations’ Secretary General by giving a notice of at least 14 days before the scheduled meeting. And that the notice shall include the date, venue and agenda for the Assembly. Mr. Ouma says he, as the Secretary General, has never circulated such a notice.

Mr. Ouma’s letter raises several other allegations (to which Mr. Kateregga was yet to reply by 12pm on May 23) that highlight the level of infighting and intrigue in an association that is supposed to unite Ugandan journalists. For instance, Mr. Ouma claims that his President is running UJA like a personal business and has organised an assembly at short notice so his team elect an executive loyal to him.

Besides exposing the fact that the journalists’ body is not being run professionally, this latest squabble brings to light a more fundamental issue. The rat race for readers seems to have divided the media to such a state that practitioners in the country see each other as adversaries more than as partners.

As a result, the associations that are supposed to unite Uganda scribes and fight for their cause have largely been left to journeymen journalists like Mr. Ouma and Mr. Kateregga whose main interest are the foreign trips and other such freebies that they occasionally receive from international organisations.

At a time like this when the media is under siege, one can’t help but feel that while the government is going all out to hang the media, it is the media industry – through its own internal shortcomings – that is actually providing the rope.

A re-awakening in Maputo

A first prize in the 2007 Akintola Fatoyinbo Africa Education Journalism Award presented me with the opportunity to get away from my hectic schedule in Kampala and earn a most longed for two-week rest in the beautiful Mozambican coastal capital, Maputo.

The 10 days in Maputo, and another four in Johannesburg, have not just enabled me to slow down; they are also affording me a number of fascinating and inspiring chance encounters.

On May 3, for instance, I was among the hundreds who gathered at the Joaquim Chissano International Conference Centre to witness the presentation of the 2008 UNESCO/Cano World Press Freedom Prize to Mexican Journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro.

This particular ceremony was graced by several dignitaries, including Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, former President Joaquim Chissano and the UNESCO Director General, but it was Ms Cacho who – rightly – took centre stage.

When the 45-year old journalist stepped up to make her acceptance speech, it turned out to be so powerful that it earned her a standing ovation from nearly everyone in the hall.

“By honouring me tonight you are recognizing the talent of my teachers, of the hundreds of women, men and children who have trusted me with their personal histories, their tragedies and their triumphs. Somehow they knew I would honour their trust by doing my job as a journalist,” she said.

The inspiring thing about Ms Cacho’s story is that she has faced several hurdles in her career, but did not lose her resolve. In her 18 year journalism career, Ms Cacho has been the target of repeated death threats because of her work, especially when she reported about a peadophile ring that included powerful figures in Mexican politics. Her car was sabotaged and she was the victim of police harassment.

“When I was tortured and imprisoned for publishing the story of a network of organised crime in child pornography and sex tourism, I was confronted with the enduring question of the meaning of life. Should I keep going? Should I continue to practice journalism in a country controlled by 300 powerful rich men? Was there any point to demanding justice or freedom in a country where 9 out of every 10 crimes are never solved? Was it worth risking my life for my principles? Of course the answer was… yes,” said Ms Cacho.

But her works have also earned her international acclaim. Besides the $25,000 World Press Freedom Award, she was awarded the Francisco Ojeda Award for journalistic courage in 2006 and, in 2007, the Amnesty International Ginetta Sagan Award for Women and Children’s Rights.

In a moving speech, Ms Cacho told the reasons why she has persevered against the odds. She told of having been contented to keep the promise she had made to the little girls who were abused by pedophiles and child pornographers, and who asked her to tell their stories. She called on other journalists to uphold the virtues of their calling.

“As journalists we should never become messengers of the powers that be. Nor should we surrender to fear and self censorship,” she said.

Three days later, I stood at the very podium that Ms Cacho had used; it was my turn to deliver my acceptance speech for the Africa Education Journalism Award to the 600 delegates and more than 50 education ministers attending the 2008 Biennale on Education in Africa.

Ms Cacho had raised the bar so high with her speech; I did not try to emulate her. I only spoke about the need for politicians to always keep it in mind that the decisions they make can change or ruin the lives of their people. I asked them to ensure that even the ordinary persons in the most remote part of their country get a fair deal from their governments.

For my own speech, I did get a resounding handclap from all in the Joaquim Chissano International Conference Centre that evening. Whether the politicians took the words to heart is another matter. The task for me now, and several other journalists, is to continue to make sure that the politicians are accountable to the people who entrusted them with the duty of making the policies that guide the destiny of their country.

This is no easy task; but Ms Lydia Cacho Ribeiro has once again reminded us all that it can be done.