Supplementary written evidence submitted
by Human Rights Watch
RESPONSES TO
QUESTIONS ON
UGANDA AND
THE FCO ANNUAL
HUMAN RIGHTS
REPORT
Why has the international community "allowed
this appalling abuse to go on for so long and has pretty well
washed its hands of it?"
Throughout his tenure in power, President Museveni
has successfully portrayed his regime in a favourable light by
contrasting it with the appalling records of his predecessors.
Museveni has been very open to international donor projects, co-operating
extensively in AIDs, poverty alleviation, and other social/economic
projects. The record is good, especially in comparison to Uganda's
neighbours. In consequence donors have been slow to measure Uganda's
record against standard international human rights norms. This
has had a particularly negative effect on the north. Donors have
given Uganda universal debt relief and continued to fund over
half of Uganda's national budget.
However, at the same time the international
community has analytically compartmentalized Uganda, siphoning
off the north as a "problem area," and leaving the state
and the military free to pursue their own agenda of outright military
victory without overt interference. The successes in AIDs and
development projects in other parts of the country have meant
donors and NGOs have been less forceful than they might otherwise
have been in pushing for more extensive engagement in the north.
The Ugandan government, keen to retain control
of the information flow coming from the north, has been successful
in limiting the international presence there. Furthermore, the
protracted nature of the crisis has undoubtedly prompted fatigue
in some quarters with the international community unwilling to
get involved in an area in which, in the past, it has seen little
opportunity for resolution. UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator Jan Egeland's
repeated calls for more attention on northern Uganda and the emergence
of peace as a real possibility in past months has meant the international
community has become more engaged with the north than before but
not nearly as effectively as it might.
What should the international community be doing
in relation to Uganda as of now?
Pressure is needed on the Ugandan government
from the international community regarding serious human rights
issues in the north. Donors' recent attention on the north has
primarily involved supporting the peace talks (in particular the
UK, the Netherlands and Norway) and providing (inadequate) humanitarian
aid. However, the international community has consistently failed
to pressure the Government on serious human rights issues in northern
Uganda.
PROSECUTIONS OF
UPDF ABUSERS NEEDED
The failure to prosecute Ugandan armed forces
has been and still is a major protection gap in northern Uganda.
The international presence in the north is minimal, particularly
in Pader and Kitgum districts where fewer NGOs operate. In the
more remote displaced persons camps often the only source of information
is the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF), a body that enjoys
continuing impunity for the many human rights abuses it has been
responsible for in the duration of the war. Although it seems
ICC indictments are imminent, it is likely that there will only
be prosecutions of Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commanders (and
only for abuses committed after September 2002), and little effort
has so far been made to address abuses by the Ugandan army. While
the military retains a formidable presence in the north, the deployment
of civilian police in the congested displaced persons camps is
negligible and scant, further undermining the protection of civilians
in the north.
ADEQUATE NUMBER
OF INTERNATIONAL
MONITORS NEEDED
IN THE
NORTH
Encouragingly, reports suggest that the UN is
in the process of scaling up its protection presence in the north,
but the response has been slow and late, and steps must be taken
to ensure that an adequate number of international monitors are
ultimately placed in the north.
ADDRESS THE
FAILURE TO
PROTECT CIVILIANS,
AND HOW
THE UPDF MIGHT
IMPROVE PROTECTION
The UK, one of Uganda's biggest donors, has
been integrally involved in Uganda's ongoing defence reform. This
would have been, and could still be, the ideal opportunity for
making human rights safeguards part of the Ugandan military institutions.
Yet the UK has failed to push the Ugandans on key human rights
concerns. The defence review, undertaken with advisors from the
British Department of Defence not long after the massacre at Barlonyo
in February 2004, did not address the failure to protect civilians,
nor did it examine how the UPDF might improve protection, through
changes in operational tactics, in northern Uganda.
Furthermore, the Ugandan government refused
to discuss the creation of local defence units and militias, stating
that they were not officially part of the army. Local defence
units and militias have been implicated in accounts of human rights
abuses in the north and some massacres, such as the one at Barlonyo,
were in part due to a general lack of protection in displaced
persons camps resulting from under-deployment of small detachments
of ill equipped local militias. Nevertheless the UK did not push
for specific discussion of local defence units, despite widespread
use of militias as part of the Ugandan government's military strategy
in northern and eastern Uganda.
Jemera Rone and Alexander Moorehead
Africa Division
Human Rights Watch
10 February 2005
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