Kalyegira wouldn’t be arrested in a democracy
By Abbey K. Semuwemba – 9th-15th Aug 2010
Mr. Semuwemba
I would like to agree with Daniel Kalinaki’s analysis of Timothy Kalyegira as a “conspiracy theorist” rather than a “terrorist”. There is an old saying that one can never convince anyone who doesn’t wish to be convinced.
I therefore think whatever Kalyegira writes is up to the readers to make up their own minds on whether it’s true or not. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories but I think it’s wrong for a government to arrest a journalist for writing something that they feel passionate about. As long as the mainstream media continues to leave some important questions lying dormant, people will write their own opinions and there is very little the state can do about it.It’s now acceptable worldwide that anyone who questions the settled version is ridiculed as another one of those “conspiracy nuts”. But I think arresting and charging a journalist or anybody with sedition is a step too far. It discourages further investigations, disparages independent thinking and all other efforts to find answers to unanswered questions.
The July 11 bombings in Kampala were as shocking as the September 11 attacks on New York. Several conspiracy theories were written after the latter attacks. Alexander Emerick Jones is one of USA’s ‘conspiracy theorist’ and journalist but the government there has never arrested him for sedition.
Film maker Michael Moore did a documentary titled “Fahrenheit 911’’ that made insinuations to the effect that 9/11 was really a CIA plot. But nobody searched his house or asked passwords for his emails. Another documentary titled “Loose Change” ridiculously came to the same conclusion as that of Michael Moore and people loved it.
Craig Unger also wrote an informative book which he called “House of Bush, House of Saud” and it criticizes the Bush administration for allowing many Saudis including relatives of Osama Bin Laden to leave the country quickly after Sep 11 attacks and yet all other flights had been grounded. Unger cites FBI and Police agents as witnesses. But he also never faced the same wrath as Uganda’s Timothy Kalyegira is facing now.
What the then CIA director Robert Gates did after the conspiracy theorists went into high gear was to issue a press statement stating that “…the American people know what they saw with their own eyes on September 11, 2001. To suggest any kind of government conspiracy in the events of that day goes beyond the pale”. The US didn’t need to arrest people who differed with the government position.
Mr. Mohamed Al Fayad, the owner of Fulham FC in England, also came up with a theory that Princess Diana and his son Dodi were murdered. But the UK government didn’t arrest him. He actually spent a lot of money on this investigation but it yielded nothing and now he has let it go.
When President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, innumerable theories were written about him. Oliver Stone made a film called ‘JFK’ and it sold like hot cakes. The same Oliver did a film on the shooting of Ronald titled “The Day Reagan Was Shot” and he made a lot of money out of it. In Uganda, up to now, people don’t believe that General Kazini was indeed murdered by a mere woman despite several contrary reports by the government.
I request the government to leave Timothy Kalyegira alone. The police who arrested and charged him should be the ones to be charged with sedition; for they attempted to turn our Constitutional Republic into a Dictatorship. A Sedition Act was introduced in the US in 1918 during World War I. But that was because it was a very unpopular war and therefore suppression of speech was necessary at the time.
But the last Sedition case handled by the U.S. Supreme Court was Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). Court overturned the conviction of the KKK leader who had advocated [in speech] the use of violence to effect political change. The U.S. Supreme Court said the law must distinguish between advocacy of ideas and incitement to unlawful conduct. This is the law today.
The bottom line is that the July 11 bombings need a better investigation. There are definitely unanswered questions that Ugandans need answers to. The issue is all about lack of trust between the government and the people they lead. It’s a loophole that some people will always exploit. “Byebyo ebyange”
Mr. Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba is a Ugandan living in the United Kingdom
