UPDF Spokesman: Ignore Human Rights Watch Report on UPDF

A UPDF Spokesperson has responded to claims that the ICC has been "compromised and biased" in failing to investigate crimes that the UPDF has committed.

Crimes Against Humanity in Congo
The list of UPDF's transgressions is long, starting with a guilty verdict by the International Court of Justice for crimes UPDF committed in the Congo and fined billions.

This Has Happened Before, UN Report Blocked in 2007
A report on Karamoja detailing UPDF's extensive human rights violations upon Ugandan citizens was prevented from being presented at the UN last year.

Apologists for Uganda are also protecting its army from serious allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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ARTICLE EXCERPTS:

New Vision (Kampala) | OPINION |28 July 2008| By Chris Magezi, UPDF Spokesperson

"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.

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."

Read the full article...

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The “Lost Children” of Northern Uganda.

By Samuel Olara

International humanitarian law prohibits all parties to armed conflicts from arbitrarily depriving any person of their liberty, including through abductions and forced recruitment. Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and applicable to non-international armed conflicts, requires that all civilians be treated humanely – arbitrary deprivation of liberty is incompatible with this requirement. (See 1949 Geneva Conventions, article 3; see also International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005), see rule 99 and accompanying text).

As such, the recruitment of children under the age of 15 or their use in hostilities is considered a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The statute was adopted in July 1998 and considers such recruitment a war crime under its jurisdiction whether carried out by members of national armed forces or non-state armed groups.

Individuals who are responsible for recruiting children under the age of 15 into armed groups are criminally responsible for acts amounting to war crimes under customary international law. In May 2004 the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Prosecutor v. Sam Hinga Norman ruled that the prohibition on recruiting children below age 15 had crystallized as customary international law prior to 1996, citing the widespread recognition and acceptance of the norm in international instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone also found that the individuals responsible for recruiting children under the age of 15 bear criminal responsibility for their acts:

“The practice of child recruitment bears the most atrocious consequences for the children. Serious violations of fundamental guarantees lead to individual criminal responsibility. Therefore the recruitment of children was already a crime by the time of the adoption of the 1998 Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, which codified and ensured the effective implementation of an existing customary norm relating to child recruitment rather than forming a new one.” (see, Summary of Decision on Preliminary Motion on Lack of Jurisdiction (Child Recruitment), Prosecutor v. Sam Hinga Norman, Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, May 31, 2004, Case Number SCSL-2003-14-AR72 (E)).

In Northern Uganda, the United Nation’s Security Council Resolution 1612, adopted in July 2005, lists both the LRA and the government of Uganda as culprits with regard to child recruitment.

The issue of the centrality of children’s experiences to the conflict in northern Uganda raises uncomfortable questions - what are the purposes of these conventions and resolutions if not to offer children protection. More fundamentally, are the experiences and horrors perpetuated against children being manipulated-wittingly or unwittingly- by vested interests in this conflict?

This is why it is so important that all children, abducted or forcefully conscripted by both parties to the conflict are accounted for. Some commentators have argued that the number could be as high as 60,000.

According to available statistics, it is believed the LRA abducted up to 30,000, which begs the question, where are the other 30,000? These are the children referred to as the “Lost children”.

It is plausible that some of the unaccounted for were killed during abduction. The camp environment created by the government was fertile ground for abduction and forceful conscription, once children have been abducted by the LRA; they are automatically regarded and treated as LRA combatants, even if they were not yet armed, they are therefore killed indiscriminately once UPDF firepower has been unleashed.

Indeed, at the height of the war there were no signs of LRA-abducted children emerging, even as prisoners of war – rather those that escaped were referred to as “rescued”.

In response to criticism, instead of committing to minimising child casualties, Maj Shaban Bantariza, the UPDF spokesman emphasised that the children had been militarised, indoctrinated and trained to resist (see, Human Rights Watch, LRA conflict in Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, 2002).

Such statements served to legitimise in the spheres of the general public and other governments, the massacre of the captive children by the UPDF and NRM government.

Understandably, the issue of children is a thorny issue. Much as we already know the culpability of the LRA in regard to the "lost children", less do we talk about NRA/M -UPDF role. The truth is that the "lost children" will never be accounted for; they never existed and are therefore just simply numbers.

By 1991, the NRM government through Betty Bigombe and former RDC for Kitgum, JB Ochaya (RIP), were directed to recruit youths – the most significant aspect of the scorch-earth policy of Operation North, led by Maj Gen David Tinyefunze – in the entire Acholi sub-region to protect their own people as “the NRA/UPDF were busy with the security of the country”, they were called Atero Boys / Brigade.

Up to 6,000 youth armed with arrows, spears, machetes, and sticks, were mobilized and recruited in Gulu and Kitgum (then we didn’t have Pader and Amuru districts); then let lose against the LRA (see “Kitgum forms peoples’ battalions,” New Vision, 17 May 1991; “Gulu forms ‘arrow’ battalions,” The Economy, 4 June 1991).

Without warning, the NRA/UPDF decided that the Atero Brigades could take care of the rebels alone. Predictably, the rebels, seeing the Arrow Brigades as the key to their own demise, stepped up terror attacks on civilians, especially militia members and their families. The NRA/UPDF abandoned the mobilized Acholi population at the key moment, leaving them unprotected against an unprecedented wave of atrocities (see, “Kitgum rebels burn 14 in hut,” New Vision, 4 June 1991).

Then in 1994 Museveni accelerated the programme of recruitment and labelled the groups “Homeguards,” (not Atero boys) under the sterwardship of yet again Betty Bigombo. Every LC Zone was directed to come up with 200 youths who would help the army in guarding the civilians whilst the army pursued the LRA (see “9000 homeguards to counter Kony,” Sunday Vision, 23 October 1994; “EC envoys assess Sudan-Kony threat,” New Vision, 1 December 1994.)

By February, 1995, up to 12,000 Acholi youth had been given two weeks basic training, then armed and absorbed into the army (“Scores killed as NRA hits back,” Monitor, 25 January 1995; “Slavery returns: Sudanese dealers buy 110 Ugandan kids,” New Vision, 7 February 1995).

But, like the 6,000 Arrow (atero) youths before them, Homeguards were under-trained and under-armed; they became an easy target for the LRA. In one case, over 200 were killed in Atiak in April 1995. After routing the Homeguard, the LRA announced, “you Acholi are now fighting us, we shall teach you a lesson you will never forget.” (“Kony rebels massacre 82,” New Vision, 22 April 1995; “Kony toll rises,” New Vision, 24 April 1995; “Atiak’s longest day of the bullet,” Sunday Vision, 30 April 1995).

The LRA went so far as to send a letter to Bigombe announcing that she had “brought death to the Acholi” by telling the people to rise against them, and that they were going to kill all Acholi, leaving only 10,000 (see “Kony still in Kitgum,” New Vision, 5 July 1991).

Bigombe, for her part, further encouraged the creation of the Arrow Groups and did her best to justify the NRA’s abandonment of the militia, arguing that it was the people’s duty to clean up the rebels, and so the NRA could now “relax.” (see “Gulu assured of unity, peace,” New Vision, 12 June 1991).

The Operation North Commander, Maj Gen David Tinyefuza agreed and stated that NRA’s job was done, and those few rebels remaining would be handled by the militias. (see “Over 1500 rebels killed,” Weekly Topic, 9 August 1991).

Acholi elders and Resistance Councillors pleaded to both Bigombe and Gen Tinyefunza for the Arrow Brigades to be better armed, but the NRA refused to supply more than a handful of rifles. (see “Rebels massacre over 60 civilians,” The Guide, 24 October 1991).

The reason why the NRA abandoned the Arrow Brigades is not clear, but many believe it was a strategic calculation influenced by the NRA’s intention to eliminate any uprising in Acholi. Others attribute the desertion to the NRA’s plan to wipe out the Acholi using Kony as a tool (see “Kony rules revealed,” New Vision, 14 February 1992).

Clearly, the LRA who were better armed regularly overcame the Homeguard and then punished the civilians they were guarding, while the UPDF did not intervene, but actually encouraged them by provocation. (“Homeguards kill six Kony rebels,” New Vision, 28 April 1995; “Govt to be sued over Atiak massacre,” Monitor, 19 May 1995).

Also, the eradication of Acholi leadership under the guise of eliminating rebel collaborators — accelerated during Operation North by David Tinyefunza — meant that the NRM government remained unaccountable to the Acholi, so that when the militias called for NRA assistance, it did not arrive, and when the NRA deserted the Arrow Groups, no one could protest. Equally, it meant that no politician, Local Councillors or civil society leaders ever thought of listing the names of these youth in any way shape or form (see “3000 rebels netted in Kitgum,” New Vision, 14 May 1991).

Right from June 1987 onwards, the rural Acholi not only protested the abuse that the government troops doled out, but more frequently protested the NRA’s refusal to protect them from the LRA. As the New Vision put it in June, the NRA “seem to be only defending themselves and the barracks…; they are doing nothing to contain the situation.”( New Vision, Situation in Gulu is Unbearable,” 16 June 1987).

Or, according to the Weekly Topic, “the NRA mostly keeps to the urban centres in the region and leaves the rebels to roam the villages administering ‘terror to their own people.’” (“Kenya becomes rebels’ rear base,” Weekly Topic, 26 August 1987).

When the NRA did act, it avoided the rebels and conducted operations against civilians in zones suspected to harbour rebel support (“Insane happenings in the ‘northern’ war,” Weekly Topic, 24 June 1987). According to the Financial Times, the Acholi were “like millet in between two grinding stones.” (“Life in Gulu, Apac remains appalling,” Financial Times (Kampala), 29 June 1987).

Through a marriage of convenience, the NRA and the rebels came to what was termed by one journalist as a “peaceful coexistence,” rarely engaging each other in combat or making any attempt to do so, while the government through Betty Bigombe under the directive of Museveni continued recruiting militias, inadequately arming them and sending them to face the LRA. (see “The fire burns again in Gulu,” Weekly Topic, 12 April 1991).

Clearly, the Militias became a labour reserve for the UPDF: when regular NRA/UPDF soldiers are killed, militias are often assigned to their duties. The NRA/UPDF death is on the other hand not recorded, thus creating ghost soldiers from which officers pocketed money. (see “Army loses Shs 600bn in ghost soldiers report”, Uganda Observer, 26th May 2005).

As recently as 2006, following her visit to northern Uganda, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict said that, “an estimated 5,000 children are serving in the Ugandan armed forces which violates the United Nations Security Council resolutions” Citing the Voice of America, the Monitor Daily quoted Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy, as having told reporters in Geneva that “recruitment of child soldiers was still a problem.” (see UPDF has 5,000 child soldiers – UN, Monitor June 19th, 2006).

It was in northern Uganda that militias were stealthily ferried away in trailer-fulls in their thousands to die needlessly in the wars in Rwanda, in Buseruka (Hoima), in the DRC, in the Rwenzori Mountains against ADF, and in the Sudan, not considering the killing fields of Northern Uganda? (see Army loses Shs 600bn in ghost soldiers report, Uganda Observer, 26th May 2005); to which the then Army Spokesperson, Maj. Shaban Bantariza cynically said, the homeguards begged to join the force (see Monitor June 2, 2003).

Homeguards/LDUs are without any legal recognition, and so can be used at the discretion and mercy of the UPDF. Even those who join the homeguard to protect their homes often find themselves shipped off to Congo and other war fronts when they reach a reasonable level of competence. (Human Rights Focus 27-30).

By making children do their killing for them and killing thousands in the process, both the LRA and government of Uganda have killed the childhoods of the children of northern Uganda. As the survivors piece together the shreds of their humanity, they are no longer children. What they will become is a mystery, better still, even with the many international legal instruments to protect them; the sad fact of life is that nobody will ever account for the “Lost Children” of northern Uganda.

The writer is a human rights advocate in the UK; olarasamuel@hotmail.com


For further reading and reports, see “Amnesty concerned at reports of killings in the North,” Weekly Topic, 14 December 1988; for the failure to protect the Acholi civilians, see “100,000 displaced in Gulu,” New Vision, 14 November 1988; and “NRM officials narrowly escape rebel attack,” The Citizen, 3 May 1989, where the NRA admitted problems with its defense of Gulu town, after a large group of rebels entered the town, yelling and singing, and assaulted the hotel where the NRM officials were staying without any response from the NRA soldiers. See also “NRA mops up in the North,” New Vision, 18 March 18, which reports that the NRA troops in the area want the war to continue because of “operational allowances” and because they see it as intra-Acholi violence. For testimonies that civilians “feel that both the Holy Spirit and the NRA are no longer fighting each other but they, the civilians,” see “Rebels promote Latek,” New Vision, 1 November 1988. For genocide, see “N. Uganda: Okeny petitions Museveni,” The Citizen, 7 December 1988, where Okeny states that the NRA’s “scorched earth policy” in Acholiland appears to many Acholi civilians to be “the implementation of the often publicly uttered statements by high ranking NRM officials to exterminate a people.” As usual, the fact that the NRA actually has to defend itself against these accusations speaks to the accusations’ broad appeal: see “Holy Spirit enters Kitgum,” New Vision, 16 November 1988, where an NRA officer argues that, “The government troops are not out to wipe the Acholi. Some civilians believe that the government troops are in a sort of campaign to wipe them out.”

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Army Official Out to Steal Land from the Poorest

General Charles Otema is now the head of military operations in Gulu, Uganda. He commands the Uganda People's Defense Forces' 4th Division located there.

Gen. Otema is also at the center of a land dispute. Otema is accussed of wrongfully obtaining land -- commonly called "landgrabbing" by locals -- in Latooro County, a few miles from Gulu, one of the largest towns in northern Uganda.

100 families are now landless because of Otema's dealings. Acholi MP Simon Oyet has spoken out in support of the people who have been unceremoniously deprived of their ancestral land.

-XUG Editor


Brigadier evicts 100 families

By Yasiin Mugerwa & Al-Mahdi Ssenkabirwa
Jul 23, 2008 - 5:20:59 AM Kampala

The Fourth Division Commander, Brig. Charles Otema, is accused of grabbing an estimated 40,000 hectares belonging to internally displaced persons in the northern district of Amuru.

Area MP Simon Oyet (FDC, Nwoya) told Daily Monitor yesterday that the land in question is located in Latooro Parish in Porongo Sub-county, a few miles from Gulu town where an estimated 100 families are now landless.

“The land is now being guarded by people masquerading as soldiers in army uniforms,” Mr Oyet said. “It’s painful to see hundreds of my constituents being forced back to camp life because of Brig. Otema. Their crops were even confiscated from the gardens yet it is their land.”

When contacted yesterday, Brig. Otema denied displacing the IDPs, but said the land was vacant and free from human settlement. “The land I applied for was free and even if you go there now there are no people living on it. It was a game reserve which was gazetted during (former president) Idi Amin’s (RIP) time,” Brig Otema said.

He dismissed the land grabbing allegations as baseless and threatened to sue Mr Oyet for what he described as ‘tarnishing my good name’.“That’s a mad man [Oyet] and I am going to sue him for tarnishing my name and inciting the locals against me,” he said by telephone yesterday. “He is deceiving the country that I want to grab 40,000 hectares.

But the 40,000 hectares he is talking of is almost the entire size of Amuru District. I applied for 6,000 hectares and the district agreed to give me only 2,000 hectares which I accepted,” he added.

Mr Oyet, however, claimed that after he toured the land in question with representatives of some civil society organisations last Saturday, Brig. Otema’s brother, Mr Richard Todwong, who is President Yoweri Museveni’s adviser for Northern Uganda, sent him threatening text messages.

“They want to kill me because the people who were evicted want me to help them recover their land,” Mr Oyet said. “I went to the scene and found out that Brig. Otema together with his brothers had pushed our people back to camps yet that land belongs to people.”

The region, which is only recovering from two-decades of insurgency committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels, is currently the scene of fierce land wrangles as displaced people return to their homes. The communal land ownership in the area has pitted several families against individuals seeking to acquire land individually.

Mr Todwong dismissed the allegations against him. “That MP [Oyet] should grow up and should stop thinking in a childish manner,” he told Daily Monitor by telephone.

However, Mr Oyet told Daily Monitor that following intelligence reports and a string of threatening text messages from Mr Todwong, he has now rerecorded a case on file no. ST-15/20/07/2008 with Gulu Police station against the presidential adviser.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/Brigadier_evicts_100_families_printer.shtml

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Fact Sheet on Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni

What you need to know about President Museveni and Uganda under Museveni's rule

1. Crimes Against Humanity I

The Ugandan government failed to protect northern Ugandans when they needed it most. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is responsible for orchestrating genocide in Northern Uganda, where he has incarcerated nearly two million people in concentration camps, euphemistically known as “protected villages.” Read a report by the Govt. of Uganda, WHO, UNICEF and others (pdf version).

At the height of the crisis, (circa 2005), more than 1,000 people per week were dying from preventable diseases in these modern day concentration camps. More people have died from conditions in the camps themselves than at the hands of the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) or government forces, and over 20,000 children have been abducted.


2. Crimes Against Humanity II

In 2005, Museveni’s government was found guilty by the International Court of Justice for committing grave war crimes in the DRC, including: the invasion and plundering of the natural resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and of fomenting ethnic cleansing. Uganda was ordered to pay the DRC $6-$10 billion.


3. Rampant Corruption

Under Museveni, Uganda is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Yet, donor countries including the US, keep donating money to the regime without holding Museveni accountable for corruption.


4. Lawlessness I

President Museveni has no respect for international laws. He came to power using child soldiers and continues to coerce children into joining his armed forces to sustain his regime (See China Keitetsi’s story).

5. Lawlessness II: Locally, President Museveni does not respect the rule of law: he used soldiers to invade the nation’s High Court twice to intimidate judges, has exhibited complete disrespect for human rights, and bribed Ugandan Parliamentarians to amend the constitution to remove presidential term limits. The removal of term limits places Museveni as a de facto life president. Museveni has also been involved in land grabbing without the consent of the owners.

6. Militarism

President Museveni is a militarist who has no interest in dialogue to solve political problems. In 1985 he scuttled the Nairobi Peace Agreement mediated by President Moi of Kenya. Numerous attempts at peaceful negotiation between the LRA and the Government of Uganda were disrupted by Museveni’s actions, namely: 1994 and 2004 peace negotiation mediated by Betty Bigombe, the 1988 negotiation mediated by Acholi elders, and a 2003 initiative mediated by the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative. To date, Museveni has not shown much commitment to the current Juba Peace talks mediated by South Sudan--recently spearheading the creation of the Arusha agreement with the DRC, which stipulates the removal of the LRA from the DRC within 90 days.

7. Rampant Human Rights Violations

Recently, Uganda's ambassador to the UN blocked a report by the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Louise Arbour, from being tabled in the UN's General Assembly. Arbour has been vocal about human rights violations by the UPDF in the past. The report detailed extensive human rights violations by the Ugandan national army in the Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda. Read the report (pdf version).

In March, demonstrators protesting the sale of a portion of the Mabira rainforest, one of Uganda's largest forests, were fired upon. Three people were killed in what began as a peaceful demonstration. Sign the Save Mabira petition.

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A Long History Between the United States and Museveni

President Museveni visited President Bush at the White House,
October 30, 2007. Bush thanked him for joining the US
in "fighting terror." (White House Photo)

20 Years Earlier... President Museveni and President Ronald Reagan

at the White House, October 1987. (Source: Wikipedia)

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ICC Announces Al-Bashir's Indictment, Is Museveni Next?

Lt. Gen. Museveni's ledger: Seven million dead in DR Congo and one million dead in Uganda. Where is the ICC? Where are George Clooney, Mia Farrow and the global activists?


[Black Star News Editorial: Crime And Punishment | July 15, 2008]

Are we witnessing the beginning of the trial of Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir? Is it the International Criminal Court in the Hague itself that's on trial?

Time will tell.

The ICC has announced al-Bashir's indictment and asked for an arrest warrant to be issued for al-Bashir's alleged "masterminding" of genocide in the Darfur region. This is well and fine.

Indeed, al-Bashir is implicated in the atrocities that have claimed the lives of an estimated 300,000 or possibly more people and displaced millions from their homes. In addition to starvation and diseases, those displaced have suffered further abuse, accompanied with rapes of defenseless women.

Yet there are serious questions that the ICC must first answer.

Was the indictment of al-Bashir based solely on the crimes he is alleged to have "masterminded" as the case should be? Was the action the result of pressure generated by hundreds of thousands of global activists, including celebrities such as George Clooney and Mia Farrow? Was the chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo acting to fulfill the dictates of the United States and other Western countries?

The ICC must dispel any misconceptions based on its own actions; which must be uniform and consistent.

If al-Bashir was indicted purely because of the scope and scale of the crimes he is alleged to have masterminded, without undue influence from the United States and the global activists, then another African ruler should expect an indictment to be soon unsealed:

Uganda's Yoweri K. Museveni, not only masterminded but actually has directed crimes against humanity and war crimes in both eastern Congo and in northern Uganda, where ongoing genocide continues against the targeted victims, Acholis.

The Congo atrocities were committed when Museveni's army occupied and pillaged eastern Congo. Already the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found Uganda liable in the civil case and Congo was awarded $10 billion in compensation for the mass murders, the rapes, and for
the destruction of property and theft of Congo's resources.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo's ICC has also been investigating these same alleged crimes since 2004, after Congo president Joseph Kabila referred the matter to the court, according to a June 2006 article in The Wall Street Journal. Knowing where the evidence would lead to, Museveni called then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and urged him to block the probe--Annan said he had no such powers, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In Uganda, almost the entire two million population of Acholi, the targeted group, has been confined in death camps, where hundreds of thousands have died a slow death, through government-sanctioned starvation, through planned neglect, through unsanitary conditions,
through diseases, including AIDS, spread by targeted rapes of both men and women by soldiers known to be HIV-positive. A survey conducted by the World Health Organization and Uganda's own Ministry of Health concluded that as many as 1,000 excess deaths per week occurred in the death camps; this translates to more than 52,000 per week; some of the camps have existed for more than 10 years.

Northern Uganda once had the lowest incidence of HIV/Aids; as a result of confinement in the death camps and the diabolical targeted rapes, it now has one of the highest rates in the country. The ICC need not search too hard for evidence that Museveni masterminded and directed the genocide in Acholi; he has often donned military fatigues and encamped in the area to supposedly crush the Lord's Resistance Army; 22 years and counting, the LRA still exists while Ugandan citizens die in concentration camps that would not be permitted anywhere else in the world. There are numerous published statements where Museveni has boasted of "massacring" his enemies; the only problem is when they are dead it's diffcult to distinguish alleged rebels from innocent civilians.

When the accounting is done, the international community --especially the United States and Britain, Museveni's principal sponsors-- must bear some of the responsibility and shame.

The only difference between al-Bashir and Museveni is that the latter is a U.S. ally. In scale and scope, with as many as seven million reported dead in Congo resulting from the war and Uganda's occupation, and perhaps one million in the death camps where millions of Acholis
have been confined for more than a decade, al-Bashir's crimes, horrendous and deserving of the indictment, still pales by comparison.

The ball is clearly in the ICC's court.

Chief prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo has an opportunity to demonstrate to any genocidal African ruler that the days of mass crimes with impunity are over. He must emphatically demonstrate that the pursuit of al-Bashir is not a case of selective enforcement by the court.

The ICC must also answer the cries of those that lost their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters in eastern Congo and in northern Uganda. Who will account for the blood of those victims?


Milton Allimadi, Publisher/CEO
Please visit also visit www.blackstarnews.com

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Aiding and Abetting Genocide: Distorting History of IDPs

The Camps Have Caused More Deaths Than the LRA

In a stunning pronouncement this week, a visiting diplomat has hailed the IDP policy created by government officials.

In reality, an extreme lack of water, sanitation and health care has cultivated disease epidemics, caused thousands of preventable deaths and produced thousands of highly malnourished children unable to enjoy their right to protection, health and education.

Conditions in these camps have caused the most deaths in the long-running civil war been the Ugandan Government and the Lord's Resistance Army.

Picture: Living Water International: a camp borehole in Gulu, Northern Uganda. Camp dwellers often must wait hours for water, and are often at risk of drinking contaminated water.

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Diplomat Praises IDP Policy – Sunday, 6th July, 2008

By Francis Emorut

THE commissioner for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa, Mukirya Nyanduga, has commended the Government for adopting a national policy on the displaced.

“I commend Uganda for adopting the national policy which contributed to the implementation of the Peace Recovery Development Plan.”

Nyanduga was making a presentation on gender and IDPs during a meeting for leaders from seven districts of northern Uganda at Acholi Inn in Gulu on Thursday. The meeting preceded the official opening of the FIDA regional offices in Gulu.

He recognised the role civil society organisations play in the promotion of human rights among refugees and IDPs in Africa.

“Civil society organisations have continued to be a source of inspiration and strength to the African Commission.”

Nyanduga said civil society organisations had earned the status of observers in the Africa Commission because of their critical role.

He criticised governments that deny refugees asylum, arguing that it was a violation of their human rights and dignity.

He cited Kenya, which recently closed its borders against the Somalis.

The refugees state minister, Musa Ecweru, said the challenge of resettling IDPs was enormous.

He appealed to FIDA to strengthen the Government’s capacity to dispense justice, law and order.

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From Peace to War in Northern Uganda

Scapegoats of a bloodied land: From peace to war in Northern Uganda

Peter Okema Otika | June 29, 2008 | Monitor

A glimpse of hope and relative peace has prevailed in northern Uganda for the last two years since rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) declared a ceasefire.

The guns had roared for over 22 years since 1986 when Yoweri Museveni took over power from Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa (RIP), leader of the military government that unsuccessfully offered Mr Museveni an olive branch for peace in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985.

Northern Uganda has never been peaceful and has never been the same ever since. Today, the Uganda government is bracing for more war with the LRA rebels, a war they have all fought without winning.

Many people have been made to believe that the war in northern Uganda started with Joseph Kony's LRA. The Uganda government and the international community have been very central in telling a twisted version of history of Uganda so much to the extent that people are made to think that the LRA have been the major cause of this conflict.

You need to understand the historical contexts as to why and how the conflict started. It must be understood that when Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA) which was composed of child soldiers commonly known in Uganda as kadogos, took over power, they employed a revenge policy toward the defeated Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) in Acholi, Teso and West Nile regions.

They started arresting the former officers, jailing them, killing them and in many cases, looting and attacking their families. These former soldiers and members of their families were taken to Luzira Prison in Kampala and others were taken to Kigumba and Kiburara to toil in farms. Hundreds of these inmates died in these detention centres and they were not given fair trial.

It was from these fears for revenge that the remaining former soldiers decided to reorganise, arm themselves and start defending against the atrocious attacks. The first group to form was the Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA), a disciplined army that had peaceful co-existence with the local people and in many ways, defended the locals from being attacked by Ugandan troops as well as cattle rustlers from Karamoja.

Once the war started, another group also emerged in Teso known as the Uganda People's Army (UPA), the ranks of which were also mostly former soldiers who were being persecuted by NRA.

Although these two rebel groups reached would-be peaceful settlements with the government, most of their leaders and commanders were later jailed, or mysteriously disappeared while others were killed. Many other rebels groups also emerged in West Nile, Central and even Western regions of Uganda.

Meanwhile, the new government continued to persecute anyone who was part of or is alleged to have been part of the previous government. By 1987, they had extended this persecution to the locals especially in Acholi where NRA commenced what they called Operation North, Operation Mobile and so many other names.

This was a scorched-earth policy by the NRA in which they were ordered to kill anything that walks. Adults, babies, goats, chicken, banana trees, burn down houses, cut down bridges and even defecate in and poison water wells. I was a young boy in Alero, one of the villages that saw the worst atrocities.

I remember one quiet and peaceful afternoon in 1987 that was interrupted with gunshots and immediately, the entire village was surrounded.

I ran and ran and ran escaping with my life, but bruised all over my body and foot. Unfortunately, my grandmother, a cousin, a brother, my mother and countless others were not so lucky. They were killed; some were burnt alive in the houses.

My mother (RIP) was one of the few survivors; she had been shot across the face, cut with machetes on the back and other parts of her body. For some unexplained reason, she survived the carnage.

When I ran back to see what had happened five hours later, I found her silently wriggling on the ground. Another villager who survived came and found me trying to save my mother. We tied her wounds, carried her into the woods and started to nurse.

The next day, we returned and buried the dead. My mother was paralysed after that and sadly died earlier this year in Gulu. Her tormentors and killers of the countless villagers have never been arrested, not even talked about by the Ugandan government, Amnesty International or even the so called International Criminal Court (ICC).

As the plunder, killing and everything else was going on, another rebel group emerged in the name of the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Lakwena, a woman who claimed she had mystic and spiritual power to fight and lead an army to topple Museveni. Lakwena's was a formidable force that threatened to take over the government.

She was eventually defeated in Iganga. After her defeat, Kony appeared on the scene, a man who also claimed mystic and spiritual power.

Kony's armies have expanded in number, changed identities and even names. They have been the longest headache to the government of Museveni since 1987. The group was formally known as the Holy Spirit and later changed its name to the LRA.

There have been many attempts to talk peace with the LRA going way back into the 1990s. Most of the attempts failed. The main reasons for these failures have been because the Ugandan government has always pressed to continue fighting instead of talking peace.

Also, individuals involved in coordinating peace talks, especially those with interests or connection with Uganda have had the desire to earn money, popularity or disorganise the process. The latter want the war to continue because it is a lucrative source of revenues to them and their commanders.

Every time peace efforts have failed with the LRA, the Uganda movement and its backers around the world look for someone to blame.

Traditionally, they would blame local Acholi people in the villages and their leaders.

Now that the LRA rebels have relocated into Sudan and DR. Congo, the blame has been switched to Acholi who live in the Diaspora, mostly in USA, Canada, UK, and other Western European countries.

The most recent case of accusation of the Acholi Diaspora has been orchestrated by Uganda government agents. The Resident District Commissioner for Gulu, retired Col. Walter Ochora, who himself was a rebel leader in the UPDA and later served with the Uganda army, went on local FM radio station and declared that Mr Obonyo Olweny, Mr Joshua Otukene, Mr Alex Oloya, Col. Wilson Owiny Omoya, Dr. Ocan Otim and a Mr Peter Oola as spoilers of the peace process.

Ironically, some of these mentioned individuals have been the ones promoting the peace process around the world. Now they are accusing them of destroying the very things they are fighting for?

Many people inside Uganda and even within the international community and donors had high hopes that finally this war would come to an end.

It almost did and it still might. The Final Peace Agreement (FPA) was supposed to be signed in April 2008 but Kony refused to sign it claiming he did not agree with some of the components.

The outstanding disagreement was on the question of International Criminal Court, which together with Uganda government, have sued the LRA leaders for crimes against humanity. Interestingly, the Uganda army has also been accused of committing the same crimes in and outside Uganda.

According to an online communiqué that was emailed to members of the Acholi Community by Obonyo Olweny, the Juba Peace Process failed due to a number of reasons. According to him, on April 3, Kony telephoned him with two important messages regarding the peace process.

A couple of days earlier he had done the same to Alex Oloya in London. The first message from the LRA leader was that he would not sign the FPA that he was expected to sign on April 10.

Olweny claimed Kony, however, did not ask their opinion or advice on whether he should sign the agreement or not. He simply stated what he (and members of the LRA High Command) had already decided: that he was not going to sign the agreement.

In the second message, Kony requested Obonyo Olweny and Alex Oloya to constitute a new delegation of LRA representatives for a fresh round of peace talks. Kony blamed the intention of certain participants in the peace talks who he said harboured anti-LRA and pro-Uganda government sentiments. Corruption among the LRA delegates, who had been bribed and compromised.

Kony cited the secret meeting in Mombasa in early 2007 between a clique of LRA delegates and Uganda government officials led by Museveni's brother, Gen. Salim Saleh. Kony demanded that the IDP camps in Acholi must first be disbanded and the displaced people returned to their lands. Meaningful peace must begin with the displaced people being resettled. Any peace agreement should be signed in Uganda, not in a foreign land.

And that parts of the FPA calling for the prosecution of LRA leaders by a special division of the High Court of Uganda are unacceptable.

Kony said that since he was prepared to make peace with the Ugandan government and end the long war, why would the government he had fought and made peace with again prosecute him and his commanders.

What peace and reconciliation would that be?

He added that Kony blamed the insistence by the ICC to pursue the arrest and prosecution of LRA leaders. He also demanded that the Uganda government troops first withdraw from the Northern Uganda sector designated for LRA troops to assemble.

Among other things also, Kony said that President Yoweri Museveni has not sufficiently demonstrated that he accepts all people of Uganda, particularly the Nilotes of northern Uganda, as full citizens of the Republic of Uganda equal before the law and the Constitution and with rights to fully participate in the social, economic and political mainstream activities of the nation.

The LRA have suggested the way forward now that Juba has not yielded the fruits that many have been waiting for. Even Vice President of Southern Sudan, Dr Riek Machar has called upon the Ugandan government, LRA rebels and the international community not to give up on the peace process.

Dr Machar wants the peace talks to continue and has condemned intentions of the Uganda government to declare renewed war. The LRA on the other hand have suggested, a start on a Juba II peace process to continue with what Juba I has done so far.

Being an Acholi myself, I must stress that the Acholi people need unity but also, to appreciate our diversity of persons, thoughts,
identities and ideas. Acholi is an egalitarian society and in many ways, this is exemplified in the way they interact.

In many ways, people confuse variation of views and opinions as division among us. This is not true. But we also have to recognise our differences and appreciate it as our strengths. We are not any good or considered successful unless we embraced the society and diversity of where we come from.

We should stop making this war an Acholi war. This is a national problem that needs national solutions. The more we claim we want to solve it alone, the more we prove that it's only an Acholi problem.

This war started as a national problem and Ugandan government must solve it as a national problem.

Anyone trying to address it as an Acholi problem that needs Acholi solutions is being unfair and dishonest. We should stop thinking that one person is representative of the entire Acholi society. This is the case both inside Uganda and in the Diaspora. Those who claim they represent Acholi Diaspora or entire Acholi in Uganda are lying.

The door to the peace talks should be left open. Uganda government and the international community have to be patient with the process. It took South Africa, Northern Ireland and is taking Israel decades to achieve peace. Why are we in such a hurry to call it quits?

Why are we so fast to point fingers at each other as being spoilers?

We will have to learn from these experiences and make future engagements more open, honest, with clear agendas, respectful and more accommodating.

Otherwise, we will not succeed in what we claim to be doing. Remember, this is not the first time we are talking peace. So, let's not be dumb and feel exclusive in the roles each of us play.

We should be free to disagree to agree as long we all know what we want to achieve and work towards getting there. Unity doesn't mean just engaging with only those that agree with you, in many ways, it means engaging those you don't agree with.

The donor community and backers of both the LRA and the Uganda government have to learn to be patient, stop being greedy, and focus on the better future of Ugandans. Equally, we must ask the donor community, backers of the rebels and Uganda government to start employing honesty, and fairness.

Email the writer at: peterotika@hotmail.com

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