Kampala — HUMAN Rights Watch, a human rights body based in the US, claimed in its latest report that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had been "compromised and biased" and deliberately omitted to investigate the UPDF for suspected atrocities committed in northern Uganda alongside the LRA.
It is belittling to the ICC to suggest that their independence, competence and impartiality can be compromised by mere provision of "armed escorts" for travel in the region. One of the constitutional mandates of the UPDF and other security agencies is to protect the lives of our people and their property. During the years of terror by the LRA, the UPDF escorted civilians and foreign aid workers operating in the region, including ICC staff.
Uganda is one of the over 100 countries that have ratified the Rome Statute and was the first to refer a case to them because the LRA mass killers and abductors were out of our jurisdiction in Sudan and the DRC. Therefore, the ICC will enjoy our continued cooperation.
A team of 12 international investigators and trial lawyers from 10 countries collected evidence in over 50 missions over a period of nine months in northern Uganda.
During this time, 2,200 killings and 3,200 abductions in over 850 attacks by LRA rebels from July 2002 to June 2004 were established. Some 12 counts of crimes against humanity and 21 counts for war crimes including rape, murder, enslavement, sexual enslavement and forced enlisting of children into armed activities were found to have been committed by the LRA. The ICC has up to now not found any evidence of crimes committed by UPDF.
The UPDF has in the past publicly executed some of its soldiers for capital offences. Many others are serving long jail sentences, while several others have been dismissed with disgrace.
The UPDF has carried out its constitutional duty of protecting Ugandan citizens and their property well. Due to pressure from the UPDF, the LRA released women and children who had been subjected to various forms of abuse during captivity. Hence the country is now peaceful.
Uganda has a fully functioning Judiciary. Anybody with evidence against the UPDF should direct it to the Government's investigative agencies for inquiry.
The writer is the acting UPDF spokesperson
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In Uganda, the articles of government spokespeople continually camouflage the truth. If you read a government official responding to a charge by a human rights body, anti-corruption investigator or any other body which presents a critical perspective, you can be sure the government is busy covering up something -- in an attempt to protect its image.
Uganda is trying to project an image of natural beauty friendly to tourism and investment -- the reality is a story of tragedy: dictator after dictator, diseases and deprivation of human rights.
UPDF's atrocities in the Congo are well-documented; the International Court of Justice had sufficient evidence to find Uganda guilty of crimes against humanity and looting resources from Congo.
And still the Queen visits Uganda, posing serenely with Museveni. Tacit world support for a dictator and his NRM regime.
This is how the UPDF spokesperson can asserts innocence, while the bones of "rescued" LRA children begin to poke up from shallow graves in Northern Uganda and the Congo.
The ICC can redeem itself by letting go of the umbrella the Ugandan government has provided it. Not only does the umbrella given shroud the truth, it makes it appear that the ICC is being guided by the government in its "investigation."
Ocampo's credibility has long been held in question, starting from press conferences held with Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni. How likely would Ocampo's investigation extend to a friendly host?
UPDF's atrocities in Karamoja have been suppressed from presentation at the United Nation's General Assembly. The US stood with the Ugandan government on the effort to block the report from being tabled. What is Uganda hiding? A pattern of abuses by its own military?
Chris Magezi states that Uganda has a fully functionning Judiciary. This judiciary functions at the behest, and under the control of the Ugandan military. How many "investigations" have been left to gather dust on the shelves of some office, if they have not been thrown in the dustbin altogether? What has happened to the culprits of the Global Fund scandal,the GAVI Fund to name a couple, while people have died from the diseases those monies would have saved? What about the invasion of the High Court by the treacherous "Black Mambas"? What about the arrest on trumped up charges of the main Opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, who had to spend time back and forth to jail and the court during the last election? What about the too numerous to mention examples of graft, kickbacks, and corruption that has cost the Ugandan taxpayer billions of shillings if not dollars that go unpunished. What about Magara who killed 3 people in cold blood and nothing was done to punish him? What about the safe houses where people are sent to be tortured! What about the rapes and plunder of the DRC, for which the ICJ found Uganda guilty and fined the Government 10,000,000 dollars, and yet the top Ugandan officals who were responsible are still in power and benefitting from the wealth they accumulated! Or those responsible for the fake farm implements and seeds that were sent to the north that would not germinate, as people starved! What about the recent arrest of 3 Baganda officials and the manner in which they were arrested, held incommunicado and transferred from jail to jail in the west well beyond the constitutional time limit for being brought to court and notified of what they were accused! If we go back in history the treatment of the northerners, the atrocities committed by the NRA/UPDF, the use of torture and rape screams for justice! This is an indictment of the Museveni Regime. The justices are appointed by this regime, that interferes in their pursuit of Justice.
This is a spurious article, written by the spokesperson for the UPDF. It is his job to defend the UPDF as a military person himself.
It is certainly well known that the UPDF has committed atrocities in the area, the contention that the ICC should be "hands off" in investigating those atrocities foisted upon the civilian population in the North is baseless.
In fact the creation of the internment, type concentration camps by the government is itself a crime..Especially as these "protection villages" which they were euphemistically called, were not protected by the said, UPDF. In fact, many of the configurations of UPDF who were there, were located in the ":middle" of the camps, or the UPDF were NOT THERE, relying upon the paramilitary underaged forces such as the Arrow Boys, which received scant training, and little real protection themselves (note the Barlonyo massacre)
The role of a government is to PROTECT its' people. This is a basic requisite. It is a red herring to assert that the UPDF did in fact do that. One also wonders why this "war" lasted so long. Now, it is coming into the news of the many "ghost soldiers" of the UPDF, such that there was much profiteering going on...
It is all well and good that the Government of Uganda supports international law in the form of the ICC. However, it is highly unusual for a government to actually name the lawbreakers, giving over a specific case to the ICC. This is not the pattern followed by other cases or countries. One might easily say, as does Human Rights Watch, that this leaves the ICC in a biased position., as in favoring a certain outcome. While it is true the UPDF did provide security, and in fact REQUIRED the services of the army for service providers to the North..this itself may have intimidated people from speaking out.
UPDF was recently ordered out of Southern Sudan because it has been committing crimes in the guise of the LRA.
A recent report which appeared in Ugandan newspapers also revealed that the military was selling arms to the Kony and his LRA.
"Sources close to the committee chaired by Mr Amama Mbabazi, then minister of Defence, told Daily Monitor that several testimonies gathered from the Fourth and Fifth Divisions in northern Uganda, indicated that some commanders may have "sold their souls" in return for Kony's dollars." (Monitor, March 31, 2008)
It is time for a full investigation of the UPDF's crimes in the Great Lakes region.
The UPDF's Chief of Military Intelligence Col. Mayombo was killed last year, in an attempt to bury the evidence.
For more please visit: http://www.exposeugandasgenocide.blogspot.com
The Human Rights Watch is absolutely 100 % right. The most unconscionable fact in all this is that the international community and more importantly the Ugandan community are complicit in letting Museveni and his criminal gang militia get away with so many atrocities committed in the last 22 years in both Uganda and her neighbours that form the so-called Great Lakes Region. The main modus operadi of cleaning their sordid actions is through corruption: bribery. Witness how Museveni bought the MPs at $ 2,500 each to eliminated the presidential term limits. And Museveni is always on the ready to align himself with the prevailing international power centers and brokers. He is now fighting America's war on terror in Somalia when the rest of Africa has declined to send troops to Mogadishu. Or watch how is hobnobbing with Queen. He is always sucking up to the powers that be. That is why he is more often than not referred to as a puppet military dictator that is always famous for, and on the ready to celebrate crushing - meaning - killing the less resourced internal opposition. It is obvious that Ocampo and his ICC have been compromised or bribed in one way or other by Musevenis government. The International Court of Justice got it right, when it charged UPDF with looting Congo Kishasa's resources among other crimes, but its sister court the ICC flunked when it failed to indict the UPDF killers for the war atrocities they committed in eastern and northern Uganda and the Congo. For example in eastern Uganda the UPDF locked up innocent people in a railway wagon in Mukura railway station and setup fire under the wagon, literally roasting them to death. It is telling when the composition of the UPDF, especially at its upper echelons, is not representative of the Ugandan population. The New Vision stories sound like Idi Amin regime when the latter always spoke through a "government spokesman". Why would anybody trust what comes from the government mouth piece, such as this UPDF soldier ? They simply have no credibility whatsoever.
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