THE attorney general of the traditional Buganda kingdom, Apolo Makubuya, wants the Uganda Broadcasting Council to accord CBS radio a public hearing that will determine whether its owners should apologise or not, writes Josephine Maseruka in New Vision.
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.
Click here to read the full report, posted on allafrica.com.
