Donors funding opposition - govt
By Halima Abdallah
March 12, 2004
KAMPALA â Donors are bankrolling opposition groups and politicians to destabilise the country, the Information minister said yesterday.
Addressing the weekly Cabinet press briefing at Nakasero, Mr Nsaba Buturo expressed worry about the trend.
âGovernment is concerned that some opposition political groups are being funded from outside,â he said. âWe would like to warn those groups that it is not in the interest of government; the funding is for purposes of fighting the Movement. There is a campaign to discredit the President, they are not in our interests,â he said. Buturo alleged that the donors were funding the opposition groups to create chaos in the country.
He did not name any donor or opposition group.However, opposition politicians who spoke to The Monitor yesterday said they were unmoved by the allegations.âDefinitely we get money from within and without to run our affairs,â the head of the Justice Forum political party, Muhammad Kibirige told The Monitor by telephone yesterday, âgovernment also gets money from outside.â
The secretary general of the Conservative Party, and Lubaga South MP, Ken Lukyamuzi, said his party does not have foreign funding.âWe are not and if we were, why should government be concerned?â Lukyamuzi queried.
The chairman of Uganda Peopleâs Congress caretaker Presidential Policy Commission, Dr James Rwanyarare also denied minister Butuuroâs claims. Meanwhile, the minister announced during yesterdayâs briefing that government has approved the Access to Information bill.
 2004 The Monitor Publications
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
