At work i am creating a handbook on Uganda, hence the prayers and articles that I have been bombarding you all with. And this is an extract from an article by Human Rights Watch. It really highlights the dilemnas that face the people of Uganda. Dilemnas that are faced by many in this region and this continent of Africa. WHy is such a beautiful place so dogged by war, death and destruction. A lady who I know calls it the ‘devils playground’ its hard to argue that some terrible evil has happended in Africa in the last Century. Buy why do we let it happen? A question many have asked but really we let it happen because we can, because its not my human rights that are infringed upon, and because we have dulled our minds with western capitilism, and luxery. Think Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, DR Congo, Algeria, Cote D’Ivoire, Sierra Leone…they happended on our watch. NOt ok.
Human Rights Watch Report
The soldiers asked, “Why are you here?” We said, “We don’t know why
we are here.” Then they said, “You are here because we want the
gun.”… If you say, “I don’t know about the gun,” the soldiers get the
stick and begin beating you …. They say, “Get the gun! Get the gun!”
—I.N., detained in Kaabong barracks, September 2006
I heard the army vehicles and just ran out. I was trying to run but I saw
that the soldiers were already there surrounding the [homestead]. I
didn’t even know I was shot until I lay down and saw the blood.
—B.P., young girl shot during disarmament operation, Kaabong district,
December 2006
In the remote Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda, pastoralist herding
communities struggle for survival amidst frequent drought, intercommunal cattle
raids, and banditry. Gun ownership is pervasive, and armed criminality and cattle
raiding by civilians in Karamoja exposes the population there, as well as those in
neighboring districts, to high levels of violence, and restricts even the movement of
humanitarian workers. It poses significant challenges to the government’s
responsibility to provide for its citizens’ security and human rights.
Since May 2006 the national army, tasked with law enforcement responsibilities in
the region in the absence of an adequate police presence, renewed a program of
forced disarmament to curb the proliferation of small arms. In so-called cordon and
search disarmament operations, soldiers surround villages in the middle of the night
and at daybreak force families outside while their houses are searched for weapons.
This report, based primarily on field research in Kampala and in the Kaabong and
Moroto districts of the Karamoja region in January and February 2007 and
additionally drawing on reporting by the United Nations (UN) and other sources,
documents alleged human rights violations by soldiers of Uganda’s army, the
Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF), in cordon and search disarmament and
other law enforcement operations in the region. These violations have included
unlawful killings, torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary detention, and theft and
destruction of property. While the Ugandan government has a legitimate interest in
improving law and order in Karamoja, including stemming the proliferation of illegal
weapons, it must do so in a manner consistent with human rights.
Human Rights Watch welcomes steps taken by the Ugandan government in the past
year to curb such human rights violations during disarmament and other law
enforcement operations, in response to international and domestic pressure. The
Ugandan government, however, has not adequately held to account those
responsible for past abuses, and allegations of human rights violations continue to
surface periodically in connection with disarmament and other law enforcement
operations in Karamoja.
The government has mounted several disarmament campaigns—some voluntary,
some forced—in Karamoja since 2001 to collect what it now estimates to be as many
as 30,000 unlawfully-held weapons in the region. At the same time, however,
government programs to improve security, including programs of disarmament, face
a fundamental dilemma: guns are used to defend from raiders as well as to rob and
steal. The dynamics behind weapon possession in Karamoja include, for some, the
desperate need to secure and defend their cattle and access to limited resources
essential for their cattle, a matter of life and death. Removing weapons while not
providing sufficient guarantees of safety and security renders, in their view, many
communities vulnerable to attack.
Weak government institutions in the region exacerbate these vulnerabilities and
leave law enforcement responsibilities in the hands of the UPDF. The present
disarmament campaign is just one of these responsibilities, which also include
recovering raided cattle, apprehending and prosecuting criminal suspects, and
protecting livestock in UPDF-guarded enclosures.
In Kaabong district in December 2006 and January 2007, UPDF soldiers shot and
killed 10 individuals, including three children, as they attempted to flee during
cordon and search operations. Only one of the individuals killed was reported to
have fired on the soldiers, while one other was running away with his gun. Four other
individuals, including two children and one youth, were also shot and injured. In
four armed confrontations with Karamojong communities between October 2006 and
February 2007, at least two of which were preceded by cordon and search operations,
dozens of civilians were killed, while the lives of an unknown number of UPDF
soldiers were also claimed.
Soldiers routinely beat men, at times to uncover the location of weapons. In Moroto
district victims of three cordon and search operations described an almost identical
pattern of mass beatings by soldiers of the entire male population: men were first
rounded up outside of their homesteads, and then subjected to collective beatings
with sticks, whips, guns, and tree branches accompanied by soldiers’ demands that
they “get the gun.”
Following cordon and search operations, soldiers detained men in military facilities.
Although one UPDF spokesperson described such detentions—purportedly for the
purpose of inducing the surrender of weapons—as lasting no longer than 48 hours—
Human Rights Watch interviewed some men who were detained without access to
family members for at least two weeks. Former detainees reported to Human Rights
Watch that military authorities subjected them to severe beatings and violent
interrogations, along with deprivation of food, water, and adequate shelter.
Communities were also the victims of property destruction and theft. During one
cordon and search operation, soldiers drove an armored personnel carrier through a
homestead, crushing six homes, and narrowly missing a crowd of people.
By conducting cordon and search operations to seize weapons, rather than to
prosecute firearms offenses, the government may be seeking to avoid legal
requirements authorizing searches, arrest, and detentions in the context of law
enforcement operations and that protect the rights of persons under national and
international law. Consequently, post-cordon and search detentions lack judicial
control, and, at times, are not specific to individuals suspected of criminal activity,
thereby violating the rights to be free from arbitrary arrest and detention. Moreover,
searches conducted during these operations are authorized by military order alone,
and not court-issued warrants mandated under national law, violating individual
privacy rights.
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