How does Radio Katwe separate fact from fiction?

Many people have been writing to the website complaining that Radio Katwe is just an anti-Museveni website and that is why most of the news and tips we publish lead negatively toward Museveni and his family.

Many have wondered why we do not also publish damaging articles about Kizza Besigye, Winnie Byanyima, or other public figures from the opposition.

These are important questions if the search for truth is not to be turned into a witch hunt.

First of all, there has never been anything like RadioKatwe.com in the past 20 years, to totally throw open the whole state system from State House downward to scrutiny, so if there are errors on the website, they must be appreciated against the benefit of the website.

Many stories and tips have been flooding to the website which the editors have not published because they seem a little exaggerated or simply wrong.

Here are a few examples:

a) Museveni and Besigye gay?

One example is a claim that Museveni and Besigye are both homosexuals. The website's editorial team felt that this was a highly unlikely as Museveni and Besigye come from traditional African homes and are not likely to be homosexual.

b) Meeting of Basiita clan at Rwakitura

Another story that Radio Katwe has declined to publish is one that several people have sent us claiming that in 1992 a meeting took place at Museveni's home in Rwakitura where plans were finalised to make sure that Uganda is ruled by the Basiita clan for the next 50 years.

The *document gives a list of names of those who supposedly attended the meeting. At first it seems possible to believe it, but what gives it away is the claim that Odrek Rwabwogo, who at that time was a first year student at Makerere, also attended the meeting.

Rwabwogo only became part of the First Family in the late 1990s and this shows that the so-called 1992 list was a fabrication and backdated to 1992 to make it look convincing.
*(This document will later be made available for downloading here so everyone can read it and give us their assesment -Ed)

c) Colonel Leo Kyanda Museveni's son?

The claim that the current chief of Military Intelligence, Colonel Leopold Kyanda is a son of President Museveni was made in a February 4, 2006 dispatch by Smart Musolin of Entebbe.

Radio Katwe doubted this claim and requested Musolin to substantiate it and a note by the Editor of Radio Katwe was added to the site pointing this out.

As far as Radio Katwe is able to acertain, Colonel Kyanda is a son of the late UPC secretary general, John Kakonge. Kyanda is also a half-brother to Robbie Kakonge and Julia Kakonge Muntu, the wife of FDC's national mobiliser Major General Mugisha Muntu.

Kyanda was born in 1963, according to information available to Radio Katwe, by which time Museveni was still in secondary school.

So, the Kyanda-Museveni connection has been discarded by Radio Katwe, but because the rest of Smart Musolin's dispatch contained accurate and plausible information, we decided to publish it.

d) Museveni admitted to a South African hospital

A number of people have been sending in tips that claim that President Museveni is sick and mid February he was admitted to a hospital in South Africa. Radio Katwe of course did not publish these tips because anybody can confirm that Museveni has not been anywhere near South Africa for the whole of 2006 and maybe even 2005.

e) Basil Tyaba the Computer man given fair hearing

When Radio Katwe published a list of the operatives and officers on the ISO/ESO/CMI payroll, we got an e-mail from one of those listed, Mr. Basil Tyaba, trying to clear his name and his role in the tallying of votes in the Electoral Commission computer room in 2001.

It would have been easy to ignore Tyaba's request to explain himself but the Radio Katwe editorial board firmly decided that Tyaba had to be given space to explain himself and clear his reputation, which Radio Katwe readers have seen.

This should show the public what Radio Katwe is all about. Fair play.

If State House or anybody in Museveni's family sends us a message asking to clear this or that allegation, within two days, it will be published on the website in its full and original form.

If Radio Katwe is to fight for a more open and really transparent Uganda, the last thing is to be like Museveni and enjoy tarnishing people for the sake of power and control.

f) Andrew Mwenda an ISO agent?

Radio Katwe got a number of submissions alleging that journalist Andrew Mwenda is in fact an operative for the Internal Security Organisation. Radio Katwe had heard these rumours for some years.

They could not be dismissed just like that but at the same time could not be treated as truth. What Radio Katwe did was to explain what people were saying but defend Mwenda in an article titled "Is Andrew Mwenda and ISO agent?"

Unfortunately, Mwenda did not read the article properly to see that he was being defended by Radio Katwe and instead launched an attack on Radio Katwe!

g) The Radio katwe story on CIA check of Museveni's health Many people who read this story last week either laughed off Radio Katwe as not being serious and some were angry that the website is publishing things "which any educated person knows cannot happen."

That is what the Radio Katwe editorial board thought when the story came in. It seemed too wierd to be true. But when we checked further, it began making sense.

The CIA has done things even more strange like trying to poison the underwater swiming suit of Cuba's Fidel Castro, flying prisoners to safe houses in Europe, etc, etc.

That habit of trying to check a leader's health by placing a basin under the sewarage tank was done on the then Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev when he visited Washington in December 1987. So we could not dismiss that story just like that. Your stool can tell an eloquent story about the state of your health.

In January when Museveni was campaigning in Soroti or somewhere near there in eastern Uganda, he warned an unnamed country against spying on him and this was reported by the government-owned New Vision.

So Radio Katwe took the gamble and published the tip on the CIA getting samples of Museveni's stool from his toilet in Washington.

With time, we shall become better at sorting out fact from fiction.

h) Kwame Ruyondo behind Danish posters?

A message was sent to Radio Katwe claiming that a businessman called Kwame Ruyondo, who is close to the First Family, was the man behind the posters recently impounded at Entebbe International Airport, intended for use in civic education.

Given Ruyondo's background and blood relationship with President Museveni, it was easy to believe such a story.

For the information of those who do not know, Museveni had a sister with whom he shared the same father Kayibanda and same mother Esteri Kokundeka.

She was pure Rwandese and later got married to the Town Clerk of Masaka in the late 1970s, Nathan Ruyondo. (Violet Kajubiri is only Museveni's half-sister in the same was that Salim Saleh is Museveni's half-brother.)

That wife of Ruyondo was the mother of the late Colonel Patrick Lumumba, Kwame Ruyondo, and their sister called Doreen, who is now married to an Italian and lives in Italy.

That is why on February 5, 1981, the day before he attacked Kabamba barracks, Museveni used Nathan Ruyondo's Peugeot 304 car to drive from Masaka to Kabamba. Museveni spent the night of February 5, 1981 at the home of Mrs. Ruyondo, his sister (same father, same mother.)

Very, very few people know this. In Masaka town, most people knew Ruyondo as a Rwandese Ugandan and his wife also as a Rwandese. What they did not know and might be surprised to learn from Radio Katwe is that she was the REAL sister (same father, same mother) of Museveni.

To prove this, go around Uganda and ask how many people have the surname Ruyondo, if it is a Ugandan name. Very few.

In fact, Radio Katwe invites the public who might know to send us information on the names of Kwame Ruyondo's mother, including her maiden names, because she is the most compelling proof that shows without a shadow of a doubt that Yoweri Museveni is a pure *Rwandese, and not a Munyankole as he has pretended to be for 40 years.
[*Since we all come from somewhere, ethnicity is not an issue in itself, but the attempt to hide and distort - Ed)

You might have wondered that in the case of buying the junk helicopters around 1998 or 1999, Kwame Ruyondo a simple business man teamed up with General Salim Saleh. What is the connection? Now you know.

Up to this day, Ruyondo goes to State House where he gets free fuel as he wishes and he is almost untouchable.

If his brother Colonel Patrick Lumumba had not died, today he would be Museveni's most trusted army officer, even more than Saleh and most probably Lumumba would be the Chief of Defence Forces.

When Lumumba died of AIDS in 1991, Museveni was so, so hurt because the Ruyondo children were his only connection to his real roots and origins.

So Radio Katwe could not dismiss any claims about Ruyondo being involved in bringing in fake posters to implicate the FDC. In Museveni's Mafia Uganda, anything is possible.

But when the MS Uganda country directors came out and acknowledged that they had imported the posters but with good intentions and not to tarnish the UPDF, Radio Katwe decided not to run the story because it was a clear fabrication intended to damage the public image of Kwame Ruyondo.

So you can see that Radio Katwe is not a malicious website which is out to destroy the Museveni family and regime. It is mainly concerned with the truth which Ugandans and the world have been denied for all these years and that is how they have ended up living in a police state manned by Museveni.

If you check all the articles on Radio Katwe, can you find any which calls Museveni a dictator? None! He is Uganda's president and so he is referred to that way.

We call Janet Museveni "First Lady" and not by abusive terms. We refer top military officers by their ranks and do not falsify their positions in the army.

If you read what we write about the First Family, you might have seen that we tend to expose Museveni himself, his wife Janet, Major Muhoozi Kainerugaba, and daughter Natasha.

If Radio Katwe is a malicious anti-Museveni forum, why don't you see the website also saying terrible and scandalous things about their daughters Patience and Diana?

This is because they do not have a track record of scandal or absurd behaviour and even in the rumour circles of Uganda, you don't hear much or anything about the two younger children Patience and Diana.

That is how we operate at Radio Katwe.

Okay, why do we focus on the Museveni family and regime and not on the FDC, DP, UPC and others?

The reason is because Besigye has suffered enough humiliation at the hands of the state and most of it unfairly. So there is no need to help Museveni bash Besigye more.

What we decided to do was a tit-for-tat on behalf of Besigye, to make State House realise that you cannot go on using dirty tricks, smear campaigns, arrogantly using state power to cripple your opponents, without being paid back with your own medicine.

Even if Museveni rigs and remains president for five more years, his image as a principled, disciplined freedom fighter who heads a God-fearing Christian family has been totally blown away and now every person on the streets of Uganda knows what takes place in the beds and bedrooms of State House and Museveni's family. It serves them right!

But if Besigye becomes president, Radio Katwe sends him a warning that he will have to conduct matters of state in a principled and transparent way, otherwise Radio Katwe will undress him exactly as it has undressed Museveni and his regime.

We are a non-sectarian, non-profit organisation that looks to the dream of a free and democratic Uganda. Winnie Byanyima issued a warning to Museveni threatening to expose his dark secrets. Our warning is issued not just to Museveni. If Besigye or any other presidential candidate becomes another Museveni, we shall strip him bare to his underwear as we are doing to Museveni now.