Wayzata World Factbook 1996/The World Factbook - 1996 Edition - Wayzata Technology (3079) (1996).iso/pc/text/humanrts/uganda.txt

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TITLE: UGANDA HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE: FEBRUARY 1995

                             UGANDA


President Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement
(NRM) continued to rule Uganda through the National Resistance
Council (NRC) and an appointed Cabinet since taking power in
1986.  The President dominated the Government, the NRC, and the
extended transition process to constitutional government.  In
March citizens elected individual members to a Constituent
Assembly charged with debating and ratifying a constitution.
The elections were open to all candidates and internationally
recognized as reflecting the will of Ugandans, although
political parties were not permitted to sponsor candidates.  At
the end of the year, the Constituent Assembly had still not
completed its work, and the Government extended the Constituent
Assembly's mandate for an additional 6 months to June 1995.

The National Resistance Army (NRA) remains the key internal and
external security force.  In rebuilding the police force, the
Government reduced the NRA from 90,000 members in 1990 to under
50,000 in 1994.  The Army, along with local defense units
(LDU's), assists the police in rural areas.  The LDU's operate
without a clear legal mandate.  The professionalism of the
Ugandan police continued to improve, but police committed some
human rights abuses, and much of the force remains ill-trained,
poorly equipped, and corrupt.  In August the Government
established a home guard force to assist with the
counterinsurgency effort.

Beginning in February, the Government faced a renewed
insurgency threat in the north from a group calling itself the
Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, which
committed egregious human rights abuses, including murder,
rape, and kidnaping.  In countering the threat, there were also
credible reports that the NRA and LDU's committed serious
violations, including extrajudicial killings in March and
detention of civilians without charge.

Primarily based on agriculture, the economy showed strong
growth--about 4 percent--in 1993-94.  Coffee remained the chief
export crop and foreign exchange earner, but modest increases
in tobacco, cotton, and tea exports also contributed to the
improved outlook.  Despite massive rural poverty, the
Government continued to implement a tough economic reform
program.  Uganda also continued to depend heavily on foreign
aid, which amounted to 60 percent of government spending in
1993-94.

Although the Government continued to pledge support for
democracy and respect for human rights, it also carefully
controlled the steps toward constitutional change.  The
Government maintained prohibitions on certain political party
activities and limited freedoms of speech, press, and peaceful
assembly.  It arrested two politicians in March and two
journalists in October on spurious sedition charges, and in
August and September prohibited three seminars on
constitutional issues.

In the renewed insurgency in the north, the LRA rebels
committed most of the human rights abuses against civilians.
In response to the threat, the NRA committed a number of
serious abuses.  Elsewhere, army and police officials sometimes
tortured criminal suspects, particularly after arrest, and
beatings during interrogation were common.  The Government, the
NRA, and the police took measures to increase the discipline,
training, and, in some instances, punishment of security
officials.  Both police and NRA officials responsible for human
rights abuses were prosecuted for such violations, but the
disciplinary measures varied from one command or magistrate to
another.  Discrimination against women, domestic violence, and
the rape of women and children remained serious social problems.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
           Freedom from:

     a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

There were no known instances of political killings.  However,
in the insurgency fighting there were a number of extrajudicial
killings by both the NRA and insurgent forces (see Section
1.g.).

There were also a few reported incidents in which village
Resistance Council (RC-1) and LDU personnel tortured or killed
criminal suspects.  For example, in November in Mengo, two RC-1
officials and an LDU member reportedly tortured a suspected
thief to death.

In handling an antitax demonstration in Iganga in January,
during which angry demonstrators tried to overrun a police
station, the police used excessive force by firing into the
crowd, killing two persons.  However, press reports indicated
that the police did not shoot unprovoked into the crowd.  The
Government received the results of the official investigation
of the incident on December 30.

     b.  Disappearance

There were no reports of disappearances.

     c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
         Treatment or Punishment

NRA officials and police commonly beat suspected criminals,
usually at the time of arrest or interrogation, and often for
the purpose of forcing confessions.  There were also credible
reports of isolated incidents in which security forces used
other forms of torture.  The Government investigated some
reported cases and tried and punished some offenders.

There were instances of mobs attacking suspected thieves and
other offenders caught committing a crime.  These mobs engaged
in stonings, beatings, and other forms of mistreatment, such as
tying the suspect's wrists and ankles together behind the
back.  The authorities rarely prosecuted persons engaged in
administering mob justice.

Prison conditions remain harsh, due primarily to the nation's
poverty and budgetary restrictions.  Uganda maintains two
prison systems; one state-funded and run by the Ministry of
Internal Affairs, and a second rural-based under the Ministry
of Local Government.  Conditions are particularly harsh in the
local prisons which receive no central government funding.
These local administrative prisons, together with military
prisons, have a very high mortality rate from overcrowding,
diseases spread by unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and
AIDS, a disease which is pandemic among the general
population.  In 1993 there were 508 prison deaths.  Juveniles
are kept in prison with adults.  Women have segregated prisons,
with female staff, and as a result rape does not appear to be a
problem among women prisoners.

Pretrial detainees comprise over half of the prison
population.  In August there were 11,761 total prisoners, of
which 4,253 had been convicted, with over 7,500 held in
pretrial detention.  In October, primarily to ease the
overcrowding, the President pardoned 800 prisoners, including
the terminally sick, the aged, and breast-feeding mothers, but
excluded those charged with capital offenses.  The U.N.
Development Program and nongovernmental organizations (NGO's)
have started programs for training wardens, counseling
prisoners, and providing supplementary food and drugs for AIDS
victims in prison.

The Government permitted full access to prisons by the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and local
NGO's, principally the Foundation for Human Rights Initiatives
(FHRI) and the Law Society.  Prison authorities require advance
notification of visits, a process that is often subject to
administrative delays.

     d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

Under Ugandan law, a suspect must be charged within 24 hours of
arrest and be brought to trial or released on bail within 240
days (480 days for a capital offense).  The authorities
enforced neither requirement.  Other extant laws, such as the
Public Order and Security Act of 1967 (the Detention Order),
provide for unlimited detention without charge, but these laws
have never been invoked by the NRM Government.  Legal and human
rights groups sharply criticized the excessive length of
detention without trial, in many cases amounting to several
years.  Acknowledging the problem, the Constituent Assembly
reduced the length of detention to a maximum of 120 days (360
for a capital offense) in the projected new constitution.

The Government detained both civilians and military personnel
on suspicion of treason but did not formally charge anyone with
treason in 1994.  The NRA detained approximately 170 civilians
in northern Uganda for suspected collaboration with the LRA.
Of these, it released 34 in October and November and 70 in
early December.  Some persons had been held since February.
The Government permitted both the ICRC and Amnesty
International to visit the detainees.  The NRA held 26 rebel
prisoners in Gulu at year's end.  The Government also
temporarily detained journalists and political party leaders
(see Sections 2.a. and 2.b.).

The Government does not use exile as a means of political
control.  A presidential amnesty for former rebels remains in
effect although those who return may be prosecuted for criminal
acts they may have committed in the past.  Several prominent
Ugandans returned from exile in 1994, including Sam Luwero, a
former insurgent leader of the Uganda National Liberation Army,
Aggrey Awori, a former ambassador, who was elected to the
Constituent Assembly in March, Major General Yusuf Gowon, Chief
of Staff under Idi Amin, and Col. William Omaria, Minister of
State for Internal Affairs under former president Milton Obote.

     e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial

Pending anticipated constitutional changes, the regular court
system consists of magistrates courts, the High Court, and a
Supreme Court.  The military maintains an independent system of
courts-martial for military offenders.  The civilian judicial
system contains procedural safeguards, including the granting
of bail and appeals to higher courts.  While the judiciary is
generally independent, the President has extensive legal
powers, including the power to appoint the four members of the
Judicial Service Commission which makes recommendations on High
Court and Supreme Court appointments.  The Commission must
concur in the dismissal of a magistrate.

In addition to the regular court system, the village RC-1's
have the authority to settle traditional civil disputes,
including land ownership and payment of debts.  The RC-1
courts, often the only ones available to villagers, frequently
exceed their authority by hearing criminal cases, including
murder and rape.  RC-1 decisions may be appealed in magistrates
courts, but often there are no records made of the case in the
RC-1's, and many defendants are not aware of their right to
appeal.

The right to a fair trial in Uganda has been circumscribed in
recent years by an inadequate system of judicial administration
and resources resulting in a serious backlog of cases, the
reluctance of military authorities to respect civilian court
orders, and the failure to provide due process safeguards in
military courts.  The Commission of Judicial Inquiry,
established in 1993 to investigate the mismanagement of
criminal cases, criticized the excessive delays in the
investigation and prosecution of cases by the police and the
courts.  The Commission made extensive recommendations for more
expeditious processing of cases, elimination of the legal
provisions for lengthy detention, increased training and
funding for police investigations, and restructuring of the
office of public prosecution to oversee all criminal cases.

In June the High Court reported it had over 100 cases pending
consideration.  Criminal cases may take 2 or more years to
reach the courts.  Many defendants cannot afford legal
counsel.  The Government provides attorneys for indigent
defendants only for capital offenses.  The Ugandan Law Society
operates legal aid clinics in four regional offices and assists
military defendants as well as civilians.

The military court system does not assure the right to a fair
trial.  Although the accused has the right to legal counsel,
the defense attorney is often untrained and may be assigned by
the military command, which also appoints the prosecutor and
the adjudicating officer.  The sentence passed by a military
court, which may invoke the death penalty, may be appealed to
the high command, but not to the High or Supreme Courts.

The number of political prisoners (as distinct from political
detainees) held by the Government at year's end was unknown.
The courts continued to process the appeals in approximately 12
cases of past political convictions for treason.  In January,
in the appeal case of Professor Isaac Newton Ojok, a former
Minister of Education under Milton Obote, the High Court
acquitted him, overturning his 1991 conviction for treason and
sentence to death.  Similarly, the Supreme Court annulled the
previous conviction (and death sentences) for treason in 1992
of Hofni Topacho Ogentho, Noan Habbas, and Philip Aboth
Kerunen; the three men were set free in March.  Also, in
October the High Court acquitted Brigadier Opon Acak and Ahmed
Oginy in one of the few remaining treason trials.  The trial of
Colonel Ahmed Kashilling on the same charges was continuing at
year's end.

     f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
         Correspondence

The Government does not generally intrude in the privacy,
family, or home of citizens.  The law requires that the police
have search warrants before entering private homes or offices,
and this law is generally observed in practice.  However, the
police searched vehicles for weapons at checkpoints without
prior warrants.

     g.  Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
         Law in Internal Conflicts

There were new violations of humanitarian law, committed both
by government forces, and especially by the Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony.  Kony is estimated to have
approximately 250 to 300 followers, although most of his
support is reportedly gained through intimidation.  LRA rebels
operate guerrilla-style in groups of 5 to 10; it is unclear
what, if any, political goals the group seeks.  The LRA resumed
attacks on officials and civilians in northern Uganda, killing,
raping, and abducting large numbers of civilians, and burning
homes, granaries and other property.  The group also mutilated
some of its victims, cutting off limbs or disfiguring faces.
Kony's rebels killed over 100 civilians and abducted over 230
civilians in the February through October period.

Starting in August, the insurgents used land mines to block
northern roads.  These mines interfered with humanitarian
relief operations for southern Sudan and Sudanese refugee camps
in northern Uganda.  Land mine explosions killed civilians as
well as soldiers.  The NRA provided armed escorts to relief
convoys after the United Nations and NGO's requested protection.

In responding to the attacks, the NRA reportedly committed
similar abuses.  Newspapers reported that the NRA killed 5
civilians in one village and 15 in another, raped women, and
burned property in February and March.  In July, after the NRA
changed army commanders in the north, military discipline
improved, and some soldiers suspected of abuses were tried in
courts-martial and punished.  Toward the end of the year, Kony
and a number of his followers reportedly fled to Sudan.  The
level of the insurgency was reduced, with few reported attacks
by the rebels in the final quarter of the year.

Section 2  Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

     a.  Freedom of Speech and Press

The NRM Government restricts freedom of political speech and
the press in a variety of ways but has not invoked censorship
laws from previous regimes.  Open debate occurs in the
Constituent Assembly, in the NRC, in the press, and in many
public forums.  While there is also direct criticism of
President Museveni in the media, such public criticism of
high-level officials, including the President, runs the risk of
legal sanctions (see below).

Some 15 newspapers and magazines publish a wide range of
viewpoints covering the political spectrum, including party
newspapers.  The government-owned newspaper, the New Vision,
accurately reported on corruption in government and human
rights abuses.  The Government controls one television (UTV)
station and a radio station, and in 1994 two private radio
stations and one private television station began
broadcasting.  Although these stations are not yet able to
reach the entire country, in Kampala they have become far more
popular than the government-run stations.  At year's end, all
three private stations had fledgling news services and
broadcast British Broadcasting Corporation or Voice of America
news programs.  The Government has encouraged the development
of the private media.  During the preelection period, UTV and
Radio Uganda gave equal time to the NRM and the political
parties to expound their views.

The Government restricted freedom of speech and the press by
publicly harassing opposition leaders through short detentions
and legal actions on vague sedition charges.  In March the
police arrested two Uganda People's Congress (UPC) leaders and
threatened acting UPC Secretary General Cecilia Ogwal with
arrest for publishing the UPC party's manifesto for the
election campaign.  The authorities released the two arrested
politicians on bail, and Ogwal continued to campaign, winning
her seat in the Constituent Assembly by a large majority.  In
October police arrested Ogwal and another Constituent Assembly
delegate, Patrick Mwondha, for attempting to address a crowd
gathered in Iganga.  In April the police questioned the
editorial staff of the Monitor newspaper and later arrested the
Monitor's editor on charges of criminal libel for publishing a
story critical of several cabinet ministers; they dropped the
charges the following day.  The authorities arrested Teddy
Cheeye, the editor in chief of Uganda Confidential, for failing
to appear in court in violation of his bond for 1993 charges of
sedition.  While Cheeye was able to publish regularly
throughout the year, he continued to defend himself against
several different lawsuits for publishing allegedly defamatory
and seditious articles about the President and his wife,
cabinet ministers, and other prominent Ugandans.

In September the NRC began to consider the Ugandan Mass Media
and Press Bill, first introduced in 1991 and set aside several
times for revision.  The journalists' associations have
protested the bill's provisions for licensing all journalists
and publications, the establishment of a media council to
monitor and discipline journalists, and the instituting of
district censorship boards.  The NRC rejected the bill as
drafted and sent it to a committee which has consulted with
journalists and other interested parties.  At year's end,
revisions of the bill were still in progress.

A considerable degree of academic freedom exists at Uganda's
five public and three private universities, with no government
interference in teaching, research, or publication.  However,
professors appear to exercise caution rather that test the
limits of their academic freedom.  Students have sponsored
wide-ranging political debates in open forums on campus.

The Museveni Government requires many government officials to
take NRM political education and military science courses known
as "Chaka Mchaka."  These courses seek to indoctrinate
officials in the NRM positions, including Museveni's view
against multiple political parties.

     b.  Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

The Government restricts these freedoms despite constitutional
guarantees.  It arbitrarily limits peaceful assembly by denying
permits for public gatherings and barring rallies by political
parties.  The police issue administrative permits for public
gatherings but have the right to deny permits in the interest
of public safety.  In August and September, police barred two
seminars on federalism sponsored by the Crusade for
Constitutional Governance, an NGO.  In the first instance, the
police cited security reasons and refused to issue a permit for
the outdoor meeting.  In the second, after granting the Crusade
a permit for a September 25 seminar, the police revoked it just
before the meeting was to begin.  In both instances, armed
police officers cordoned off the meetings sites and refused
entry to participants and the public.  Also, during the 1994
election campaign, the Government did not permit Constituent
Assembly candidates to hold individual rallies, nor permit
political parties to call public meetings to support
candidates.  The Government's statute for the elections
prescribed the format of candidates' meetings, allowing all
candidates equal time to address the public.

In February the election Commission withdrew accreditation from
the National Organization for Civic Education and Monitoring
(NOCEM), an umbrella group of 14 NGO's, for conducting civic
education before the election, after the Commission received
complaints from government officials that NOCEM was partisan.
The Commission allowed NOCEM to continue its monitoring
activities through the election in March.  NOCEM applied for
registration as an NGO but was not registered before the year's
end; all the member organizations of NOCEM had been previously
registered.

     c.  Freedom of Religion

The 1967 Constitution and the draft constitution provide for
freedom of religion, and the Government respects this right.
There is no state religion, and a variety of religions are
freely practiced.  While the Government requires religious
groups to register as NGO's, it does not use this requirement
to curtail religious activities by any group.

     d.  Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
         Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation

Growing insecurity in northern Uganda restricted freedom of
movement due to bandit and rebel attacks on travelers, and,
starting in August, the insurgents' use of land mines on
northern roads.

Ugandans are free to emigrate and to travel abroad.  Uganda
accommodates over 350,000 refugees from Sudan, Rwanda, Zaire,
Somalia, and other countries.  The Government cooperated with
the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other
humanitarian organizations in assisting refugees.  There were
no reports of forced expulsion of those having a valid claim to
refugee status.  The Government signed an agreement with the
UNHCR and Zaire in August, allowing for the repatriation of
Ugandan refugees from Zaire.

Section 3  Respect for Political Rights:  The Right of Citizens
           to Change Their Government

Under the 1967 Constitution, citizens have the right to change
their government, but they will not be able to exercise this
right until the new constitution is in place and presidential
and parliamentary elections are held.  In March the first
generally free and fair election was held to elect
representatives to the Constituent Assembly, charged with
drafting and approving a new constitution.  Although political
parties were not permitted to sponsor candidates or hold
rallies, opposition party members could stand as individuals
for elections, and many won seats (see Section 2.b.).  The
282-member Assembly began deliberations in May on the new
constitution, but did not complete its work by December as
stipulated in the statute.  The NRC extended its mandate until
June 1995.

President Museveni continued to hold power as Chief Executive,
Minister of Defense, and Chairman of the National Executive
Council.  In November the President appointed a new Cabinet
that included members of all three major opposition parties,
the Democratic Party, the United People's Congress (UPC), and
the Conservative Party.  However, these Cabinet members'
portfolios were generally less powerful than in the past.
Also, there were few meaningful checks and balances on
presidential power in place.  Museveni has repeatedly and
publicly stated his opposition to multiparty politics but has
said that he will accept such a system if it emerges from the
deliberations on the new constitution.

The Government has encouraged the participation of women in
government and allocated special seats for women in the NRC and
the Constituent Assembly.  The President appointed Dr. Specioza
Kazibwe as the first female Vice President in November.  Women
hold positions of responsibility at all levels of government
and within some of the political parties, one of which (the
UPC) has a woman as its highest acting official.  In the NRC,
women held 43 of the 264 positions, and 5 of the 48 government
ministers and ministers of state are women.  There are 48 women
in the Constituent Assembly.