(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned the destruction of a radio station in the northern Ugandan town of Lira by rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). “We ask you to do everything possible to ensure the safety of journalists and media so they can continue doing their work,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned the destruction of a radio station in the northern Ugandan town of Lira by rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
“We ask you to do everything possible to ensure the safety of journalists and media so they can continue doing their work,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. “The rebels understood how important the radio station was as the population’s main source of news,” Ménard noted.
On 27 September 2002, about twenty rebels used axes to force their way into the premises of Radio Wa, a Roman Catholic station. They exploded grenades, which set off a fire that destroyed the whole building. Shortly before the attack, the radio station’s managers had asked the authorities to protect the premises. Twelve soldiers guarded the station during the night of 26 to 27 September, but all but one of them fled when the rebels appeared on the scene.
Belgian journalist Els De Temmerman, formerly with VRT radio station, was targeted in July by the rebels (see IFEX alert of 1 August 2002). An undelivered letter from rebel leader Joseph Kony ordering her assassination was found on a rebel who was captured by the Ugandan army on 31 July. The death threat against De Temmerman followed the publication of her book “Aboke Girls”, in which she described the ill-treatment of teenagers forced to join the rebel army.
