Northern Uganda Messenger Post

From 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 bo...

Nobody seems to notice, or only cursorily and disinterestedly if at all, that Ojul and Dr. Obita et al are embarrassing themselves and have completely forgotten the Terms of Reference of their so called consultations. And they seem to make statements that they did not have authority to make at any one session of the Juba talks. But now, they seem to have very wide latitude to act without sprinting back to Garamba for debriefing and guidance and delegation on each and every line of contention. Now they seem possessed with their apologies that seem to undoubtedly propel them very openly and unguardely along the paddocks of the ICC tribunals. I have no doubt that Ocampo and the political and diplomatic powerbrokers are smiling and requisitioning bunkbeds for those cells for Joseph et al. Why not, with their heads of delegation making those confessions? The peace negotiation is yet to be concluded and responsibility and accountability is still a contentious agenda, for crying out loud. If ...