KAMPALA – Journalist Joseph Kabuleta has vowed to continue writing articles critical of the ruling NRM party and the First Family despite being arrested over the matter.
Mr Kabuleta, who is a pastor, spent nearly a week in detention at the Special Investigations Unit in Kireka near Kampala early this month in connection with his articles published on Facebook titled ‘Kabuleta’s Weekly Rants’.
He was subsequently released without the Directorate of Public Prosecutions preferring any charges against him and now he says this shows that he has no case to answer.
“I’m not a scared man but the rants will come; let’s see. What I wanted those people to understand is that dialogue should be handled with dialogue. Don’t use brute force because you don’t have an argument to counter somebody. There are so many people paid to do PR for this government; let them earn their money. I’m alone without a budget; they have big budgets, why can’t they have counter arguments instead of resorting to brute force? Why must they arrest and torture?” Mr Kabuleta said in an interview with the Observer newspaper.
“It’s a cowardly thing when somebody publishes something and you can’t counter it. There are so many people attacking me on Facebook and Twitter using pseudo names; fair game but let them not take me to Kireka when I hit back,” he added.
Mr Kabuleta believes that his arrest came after his articles touched on the subject of the First Son being groomed to take over from President Museveni.
“I had written so many rants but it’s the [Muhoozi] one that caused problems. … they made me make a confession that from now onwards, I will not write anything about the first family and that I will respect generals, especially General Muhoozi. When I was bleeding, somebody was taking pictures and sending them to somebody who was very angry and wanted to see me in a certain state,” he said.
He also said he has no issue with General Muhoozi Kainerugaba as an individual.
“I don’t even know the guy. Writing that they are preparing him to be president and describing him in the way I think he is, doesn’t mean I have anything about him. If I was wrong, they would have come out and said that is not who he is. Rhetoric should be answered with rhetoric because that’s how civilized societies behave. Am I the best writer in the country? Why can’t they get somebody who is as good as me to counter me? I’m a man of conviction; I don’t just do things without thinking. If Museveni was not president, I wouldn’t be writing about him. I used to write about Lawrence Mulindwa when he was still Fufa president; since he left, have I ever written about him?”
