By Josephine Maseruka

Buganda’s attorney general Apolo Makubuya wants the Uganda Broadcasting Council to accord CBS radio a public hearing that will determine whether its owners should apologise or not. He also dismissed the Government’s other conditions for re-opening the radio station.

CBS was shut down last September following riots in parts of Buganda. President Yoweri Museveni, in a meeting with Buganda MPs at the time, accused CBS of inciting the public, promoting sectarianism, “at one time talking of people with long noses” and telling lies about the land bill.

The Cabinet last week recommended that CBS management should apologise, relocate its studios from Bulange, withdraw pending court cases against the Government and follow the broadcasting standards before it can re-open.

Museveni, while touring Mpigi district, repeated the Cabinet decision that the proprietors of CBS apologise for inciting violence that led to the death of over 20 people and left a lot of property destroyed.

But in a strongly worded statement yesterday, Makubuya said the Government’s demands were “premature and ironical.”

“In the case of CBS, several of whose personnel await trial and whose cases against the Government are pending, the demand for an immediate apology is premature and ironical.”

He wondered why army generals and the Cabinet were at the forefront of the CBS negotiations and not the broadcasting council.

“General Tinyefuza’s missive to Gen. Salim Saleh of January 12 and Gen. Museveni’s demands for the owners of CBS to apologise for the September 2009 riots as a precondition to reopen CBS radio must be puzzling and disturbing to many,” the attorney general stated.

“Why are army generals not so keen on the trial of the trigger-happy security personnel that killed 27 Ugandans during the riots?” he asked.

“Will an apology by CBS proprietors alone atone the victims and answer the accusations made against it? And why are the generals very keen for CBS to withdraw the court case against the Government as a precondition for its licence to be restored?”

He added that the Government itself owes the country several apologies, “including for the breach of the Constitution; the wanton loss of innocent lives; 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 on critical voices in the media and elsewhere.”

He also alleged that the broadcasting council has not been allowed to independently deal with the matter due to external interference.

He was optimistic that if an independent and impartial inquiry is set up, CBS would be exonerated and some people would be required to apologise for undermining the Constitution and the rule of law.

“Since the Buganda kingdom respects the rule of law, abhors impunity and cherishes peace, if such inquiry found CBS or its agents responsible for any breaches, then the army generals and others will well be within their rights to demand an apology,” Makubuya said.

He said the conditionality to CBS is largely lifted from Gen. Tinyefuza’s ideas and demonstrates the Government’s “unfriendly intentions” towards Buganda.