Buganda Kingdom has rejected a raft of conditions the government wants CBS Radio to comply with before it could be reopened. President Museveni closed down the station, owned by Buganda Kingdom, last September accusing it of violating broadcasting regulations during riots that followed a government travel ban on the King of Buganda.

Musevei wants the owners of CBS to apologize for the riots, withdraw a case they have filed in court and move the radio from the kingdom headquarters to Kampala, among other conditions.

In an article published in The Monitor newspaper on February 2, the kingdom’s Attorney General Appollo Makubuya, said it was puzzling and disturbing to many that President Museveni and the Cabinet were at the forefront of the CBS closure/negotiations and not the Statutory Broadcasting Council.

“Why is CBS requested to apologise even when it has not been accorded a full public hearing? Why are the Generals not so keen on the trial of the trigger-happy security personnel that killed 27 Ugandans during the riots?” Makubuya asked.

“There is no doubt that, where fault is established in a due process, contrition is a honorable and proper thing. However, in the case of CBS, several of whose personnel await trial and whose case(s) against the government are pending, the demand for an immediate apology must be seen both as premature and ironical.”

Makubuya said it was the government that owes the country apologies for the breach of the Constitution, the wanton loss of innocent lives during the protests, the wrongful arrest and detention of many innocent individuals and denying them a right to bail, the illegal closure of CBS and other radio stations and the clamp down of critical voices in the media and elsewhere.

The Attorney General further said it was intriguing that instead of arresting and trying the culprits, if they existed, the government simply ordered that CBS's proprietors acknowledge in writing "admitting errors and committing themselves to change" and the current management "must be replaced."

“I am convinced that one day, when an independent and impartial inquiry is made, CBS will be exonerated and some people will be required to apologise for undermining the Constitution and the rule of law; fanning ethnicism and tribal conflict; refusing the Kabaka to visit Buruli and Bugerere in Buganda; the killing of innocent people; the unlawful closure of CBS Radio Station and for many other transgressions on the people and the Kingdom of Buganda, amongst others.”