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New report pins UPDF on human rights abuse
Posted in: News
By Tabu Butagira
Nov 17, 2008 - 1:41:19 AM
Kampala
UPDF soldiers deployed to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels in northern Uganda often turned their guns against unarmed civilians during counter-insurgency operations, human rights group Amnesty International claims in a new report to be unveiled today.
But Maj. Paddy Ankunda, the Ugandan defence and military spokesman, who for many years served as the spokesman for the Gulu-based UPDF 4th Division, then responsible for the anti-LRA offensives, said the fresh allegations of human rights abuses by the UPDF chronicled by Amnesty International are “outrageous and indefensible.”
Amnesty International, a UK-based human rights group, is to report findings of studies conducted in five northern Uganda districts of Gulu, Amuru, Kitgum, Pader and Lira in the months of May and August this year.
It claims that widespread sexual and physical abuses perpetrated by both the government soldiers and rebels has left behind a traumatised and impaired population, unable to fend for itself yet discriminated by relatives and State authorities. “There was general impunity for soldiers who committed Human Rights violations against civilians,” Amnesty International says in its report to be officially released today.
“Many years on, victims and survivors of human rights violations still bear the scars of these violations [and] little has been done to ensure that they access effective reparations to address their continued suffering and help them to rebuild their lives.”
Mr Martin Abit, 38, a resident of Pader District told Amnesty International that UPDF soldiers arrested his elder brother, a non-combatant, during a counter-attack on LRA and he was later killed together with “several other people”.
“The UPDF battalion [in the area] took his body with them and promised to give the body to the family for burial but to this day, the body has never been returned to our family for burial,” he said.
It is not clear if the government army took the corpse away to destroy evidence that would otherwise incriminate them in committing murder or for ritual purposes, a common practice in some parts of the country. “That report cannot be taken seriously because people who should have given the side of the UPDF account were available but never contacted,” said Maj. Ankunda, “Otherwise, if our soldier kills anyone, there is no shortcut; they face the law.”
Maj. Ankunda questioned why no Amnesty International investigator bothered to corroborate their information with the army.
Dr Godfrey Odongo, the Amnesty International researcher for East Africa and lead author of the report, said they did not contact the Ugandan military because, “The report was forward looking; about reparations rather than what happened or the violations suffered.”
Daily Monitor has learnt that the government declined to reply a September 9 letter authored by Erwin Van Der Borght, the Amnesty International programme director for Africa, seeking government plans on the nature and amount of reparation to war victims in northern Uganda.
Mr Geoffrey Okumu, a war victim, said sometime in May 1990, government soldiers stormed their neighbourhood, arrested and eliminated his father and brother on allegations of being rebel collaborators and possessing illegal guns. “My father and brother denied the accusations but the soldiers took them away,” Mr Okumu is quoted to have said, “Not very far from where I remained I heard gunshots and later realised they had been killed. We had lost a bread winner [so] I dropped out of school to fend for my siblings.”
In Amuru district, Ms Rose Apio said she watched four of her relatives die after being shot by government soldiers, and is now struggling to raise four orphans left by her eldest brother killed in the bizarre shooting.
“Survivors need medical attention, counselling and psychological support. Formerly abducted children need access to education. Families need compensation for the deaths and injuries that occurred, restitution for their destroyed land and property, an apology for the violations and proper reburials for their loved ones. The government needs to start acting on these needs now,” the Human Rights body said.
The chairman of the Acholi Parliamentary Group, Livingstone Okello-Okello (UPC, Chwa), however, told Daily Monitor in a separate interview yesterday that what the rigts body highlighted is just a “tip of the iceberg.” “For instance, during the government-initiated ‘Operation North’, UPDF soldiers huddled 12 people in Pajimu Sub-county [Pader District]into a hut, which they bombed but one person survived and is still alive to tell the story,” said Mr Okello-Okello.
While this is not the first report to question the conduct of the UPDF in the north, it will put government under renewed international pressure to roll out the post-conflict recovery plan faster and likely reignite debate about the need to hold all parties to the conflict accountable for their actions while ensuring that the peace efforts do not fail.
© Copyright 2008 by Monitor Online
New report pins UPDF on human rights abuse
Posted in: News
By Tabu Butagira
Nov 17, 2008 - 1:41:19 AM
Kampala
UPDF soldiers deployed to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels in northern Uganda often turned their guns against unarmed civilians during counter-insurgency operations, human rights group Amnesty International claims in a new report to be unveiled today.
But Maj. Paddy Ankunda, the Ugandan defence and military spokesman, who for many years served as the spokesman for the Gulu-based UPDF 4th Division, then responsible for the anti-LRA offensives, said the fresh allegations of human rights abuses by the UPDF chronicled by Amnesty International are “outrageous and indefensible.”
Amnesty International, a UK-based human rights group, is to report findings of studies conducted in five northern Uganda districts of Gulu, Amuru, Kitgum, Pader and Lira in the months of May and August this year.
It claims that widespread sexual and physical abuses perpetrated by both the government soldiers and rebels has left behind a traumatised and impaired population, unable to fend for itself yet discriminated by relatives and State authorities. “There was general impunity for soldiers who committed Human Rights violations against civilians,” Amnesty International says in its report to be officially released today.
“Many years on, victims and survivors of human rights violations still bear the scars of these violations [and] little has been done to ensure that they access effective reparations to address their continued suffering and help them to rebuild their lives.”
Mr Martin Abit, 38, a resident of Pader District told Amnesty International that UPDF soldiers arrested his elder brother, a non-combatant, during a counter-attack on LRA and he was later killed together with “several other people”.
“The UPDF battalion [in the area] took his body with them and promised to give the body to the family for burial but to this day, the body has never been returned to our family for burial,” he said.
It is not clear if the government army took the corpse away to destroy evidence that would otherwise incriminate them in committing murder or for ritual purposes, a common practice in some parts of the country. “That report cannot be taken seriously because people who should have given the side of the UPDF account were available but never contacted,” said Maj. Ankunda, “Otherwise, if our soldier kills anyone, there is no shortcut; they face the law.”
Maj. Ankunda questioned why no Amnesty International investigator bothered to corroborate their information with the army.
Dr Godfrey Odongo, the Amnesty International researcher for East Africa and lead author of the report, said they did not contact the Ugandan military because, “The report was forward looking; about reparations rather than what happened or the violations suffered.”
Daily Monitor has learnt that the government declined to reply a September 9 letter authored by Erwin Van Der Borght, the Amnesty International programme director for Africa, seeking government plans on the nature and amount of reparation to war victims in northern Uganda.
Mr Geoffrey Okumu, a war victim, said sometime in May 1990, government soldiers stormed their neighbourhood, arrested and eliminated his father and brother on allegations of being rebel collaborators and possessing illegal guns. “My father and brother denied the accusations but the soldiers took them away,” Mr Okumu is quoted to have said, “Not very far from where I remained I heard gunshots and later realised they had been killed. We had lost a bread winner [so] I dropped out of school to fend for my siblings.”
In Amuru district, Ms Rose Apio said she watched four of her relatives die after being shot by government soldiers, and is now struggling to raise four orphans left by her eldest brother killed in the bizarre shooting.
“Survivors need medical attention, counselling and psychological support. Formerly abducted children need access to education. Families need compensation for the deaths and injuries that occurred, restitution for their destroyed land and property, an apology for the violations and proper reburials for their loved ones. The government needs to start acting on these needs now,” the Human Rights body said.
The chairman of the Acholi Parliamentary Group, Livingstone Okello-Okello (UPC, Chwa), however, told Daily Monitor in a separate interview yesterday that what the rigts body highlighted is just a “tip of the iceberg.” “For instance, during the government-initiated ‘Operation North’, UPDF soldiers huddled 12 people in Pajimu Sub-county [Pader District]into a hut, which they bombed but one person survived and is still alive to tell the story,” said Mr Okello-Okello.
While this is not the first report to question the conduct of the UPDF in the north, it will put government under renewed international pressure to roll out the post-conflict recovery plan faster and likely reignite debate about the need to hold all parties to the conflict accountable for their actions while ensuring that the peace efforts do not fail.
© Copyright 2008 by Monitor Online
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