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Radio Saptiensa, one of the four FM stations shut down on September 13 during the riots has re-opened. The Broadcasting Council announced that the management of the Catholic Church-owned station had apologized “for excesses of their staff.”
Broadcasting Council chairman Godfrey Mutabaazi announced a week after the closure that the station had been switched on and seriously warned.
Museveni may have re-opened the station to avoid falling out of favour with the huge Christian population.
Central Broadcasting Services (CBS), owned by Buganda Kingdom and one of those closed has lost its license. The biggest and most critical radio in the country was operating two channels — 88.8 and 89.2.
Sources say Suubi FM and Akaboozi ku Bbiri are likely to be re-opened but with stringent conditions. The government previously shut down NTV in January 2007 but the television station was only re-opened after concessions, which prompted critical journalists Andrew Mwenda and Timothy Kalyegira to quit The Daily Monitor, also owned by NMG. The company’s MD, Conrad Nkutu, was also transferred to Nairobi before quitting the company.
The closure of media in Uganda is not new under Museveni. He closed Daily Monitor for a whole week in October 2002 after the paper published a story alleging a military chopper had gone down fighting the Lord Resistance Army rebels.
In 2005, Museveni closed Kfm ,which is owned by the same group, after Andrew Mwenda heavily criticized him over the death of South Sudan President Dr John Garanga.
Garanga died when Museveni’s chopper which he was using to return home after paying a call on Museveni, crashed.
Mwenda criticized Museveni for flying his colleague at night and in a faulty chopper. Museveni warned Mwenda and threatened to deal with him. Mwenda who used to host Andrew Mwenda Tonight, an evening talk show on Kfm, returned fire describing Museveni as a coward.
Mwenda was arrested and detained for about four days and Kfm closed for over a week.
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