The press and political repression in Uganda: Back to the future?

Since 'liberating' Uganda in 1986 the government of Yoweri Museveni has professed support for freedom of expression. Print and other media have flourished and grown dramatically in the country over the past twenty years. This article examines press freedom in Museveni's Uganda in greater detail, comparing the experience since 1986 with that under the first regime of Milton Obote in the 1960s. Both these periods are presented as moments of liberal politics in Uganda's troubled past, yet both are periods in which political repression of the press has persisted. The article focuses first upon the Transition affair of 1967-69, when the Obote regime clamped down upon what was then Africa's leading literary magazine for its criticism of government policy, before turning to the Museveni government's harassment of the print media, especially the Daily Monitor, from 1989 to the present. The concluding section draws parallels between the behaviour of the Obote and Museveni governments toward the press, suggesting that press freedoms need to be vigorously protected at all times, and perhaps especially at moments of liberal and democratic rule.