Uganda: Civil Society Seeks Independent Inquiry into April Killings

15 June 2011

IFEX

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni should ensure independent and transparent investigations into killings which occurred during the "Walk to Work" protests and hold security forces accountable, a coalition of 105 human rights, media, and development organizations said in a letter to the president today. The coalition, including civil society groups from every corner of Uganda, urged the president to invite the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions. 

During the April 2011 protests over the rising costs of commodities and the arrest of opposition leaders, police and military responded to protesters with live ammunition in Kampala, Gulu, Mbale, and Masaka, leaving at least nine unarmed people dead. The known circumstances of the deaths to date indicate that the use of lethal force was unnecessary and unjustified. The government has arrested hundreds of protesters and put significant resources into investigating alleged acts of looting, arson, and destruction of property, but little effort has gone into investigating killings by security forces, the groups said. 

Some government officials have contended that those killed were violent protesters. One victim's family was told at the morgue that they were not permitted to retrieve the body because "all these people died while attempting to overthrow the government." 

"Blaming the victims is a weak ploy to distract attention from the actions of the security forces," said Arthur Larok of the Uganda National NGO Forum. "The government needs to determine what really happened and to make sure that those responsible are held responsible." 

One police officer has been arrested in the shooting of 2-year-old Julian Nalwanga by police in Masaka. In a May 17 opinion article by Museveni in several Ugandan newspapers, he referred to the shooting as a "criminal killing." The government has said the police officer will face trial before military courts, despite a 2009 ruling by the Constitutional Court barring prosecution of civilians before military jurisdictions. No one else has been arrested in connection with the other deaths of unarmed civilians. 

Impunity for serious crimes by members of the security forces, especially during political demonstrations, persists in Uganda, the coalition, which includes 95 Ugandan organizations, said. Ugandan law guarantees the right to free assembly, speech, and association, but in practice the government has often responded to the exercise of these rights with firearms and lethal force. 

In September 2009, at least 40 people were killed by security forces during two days of protests in Kampala after the authorities sought to restrict the movement of Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, the cultural leader of the Buganda ethnic group. Human Rights Watch documented numerous instances in which unarmed protesters and bystanders died after police and military police used live ammunition to scare people off the streets or shot into people's homes. Despite numerous commitments by government ministers and Uganda's parliament to investigate those events, no one has been held accountable for those killings, and the police and soldiers responsible have never been punished. 

"We have seen the government promise investigations before, but in the end, nothing happens and perpetrators remain in active service," said Maria Burnett, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The president should show that things will be different this time and listen to civil society by ensuring an independent investigation with international expertise." 

The groups also called upon Uganda, as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, to cooperate fully with the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression and invite these international experts to Uganda. In 1986 Museveni's government extended an invitation and was host to the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions. Uganda should issue standing invitations to all special rapporteurs and UN working groups to visit Uganda, the groups said. This engagement with the UN would facilitate the necessary investigations and help ensure present and future accountability. 

"An invitation to the Special Rapporteurs would demonstrate that Uganda is committed to rule of law and understands the importance of accountability," said Mohammed Ndifuna, chief executive officer at HURINET-Uganda. "It is time for the government to stop ignoring killings during demonstrations." 

Click here to read the letter to the President and to see the full list of signatories

Uganda's Human Rights Record Under Fire

31 May 2011

IFEX

19 calls on the East African Community (EAC) to hold a special session on Uganda to discuss the country's ongoing grave human right violations, including frequent attacks on freedom of expression. ARTICLE 19 believes that the seriousness of the current situation requires the East African Legislative Assembly to immediately convene a special session to address attacks on journalists, human rights defenders and the media in the country. During May 2011 alone, at least nine people died in Uganda following brutal attacks by state security agents, and many more were injured, including journalists. 

"While it is laudable that the East African Community is in the last stages of developing a Framework on Governance and a Bill of Rights, it is critical that member states hasten their adoption, in order to provide the secretariat and other EAC agencies with necessary tools to safeguard fundamental freedoms in the region," says Dr Agnes Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. 

"Current attacks on the media and activists cannot be tolerated, and there must be no impunity for the perpetrators of these attacks," continued Dr Callamard. 

Similarly, the new EAC Secretary General should sanction the EAC secretariat to convene a meeting of all National Human Rights Institutions in the five member states in order to hold a hearing on the issue of violations committed during the walk-to-work protests. Furthermore, the EAC and African Commission on Human and People's Rights must impose pressure and other measures on Uganda to initiate independent and effective investigations into the ongoing large scale violations of rights, including the right to life and right to freedom of expression. 

ARTICLE 19 urges the Ugandan authorities to provide a standing invitation to the UN and the African Commission on Human and People's Rights Special Rapporteurs on freedom of opinion and expression and freedom of assembly, to conduct visits and issue reports on the state of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly in the country. 

Journalists under Attack 

Journalists' cameras and notebooks were confiscated by security agents as they sought to recently stop peaceful demonstrations in Uganda. An estimated 20 journalists and bloggers are on bail facing different criminal charges and risk attending to their charges while in jail if the recent proposal by the president to amend the constitution to ensure that journalists and other suspects thought to be enemies of the state do not receive bail for six months after arrest. Recently, police raided the offices of a local newspaper; Ggwanga, and arrested four employees allegedly for filming the police and military while brutally breaking a peaceful demonstration and President Yoweri Museveni publicly singled out Al-Jazeera, the BBC, NTV and the Daily Monitor as the "the enemies of Uganda's recovery" for their consistent coverage of State atrocities. 

Ugandan Journalists Targeted During Entebbe March

13th May 2011 

Committee to Protect Journalists

Security and military personnel attacked local and foreign journalists and confiscated their equipment on Thursday as they covered the return of opposition leader Kizza Besigye to Uganda.  Besigye returned to Uganda Thursday from Nairobi, where he was treated for injuries received when security forces assaulted him and his colleagues during demonstrations on April 28 in Kampala. 

Crowds of Besigye's supporters marched with him in a nine-hour procession from Entebbe airport to the Nsambya park in Kampala. Besigye had returned to protest Thursday's swearing-in ceremony of incumbent President Yoweri Museveni. Rumors that Besigye would be returning to Kampala provoked a mass deployment of military, security forces, and police around the Kabuye roundabout, local and foreign journalists told CPJ. Military police and other security personnel beat journalists with sticks and gun butts as they took photos of them indiscriminately attacking Besigye supporters, local journalists told CPJ.

"Ugandan authorities are becoming increasingly hostile toward the press, even accusing the media of siding with the opposition," CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes said. "The government must thoroughly investigate these brutal attacks against the press and ensure all equipment confiscated from journalists during the attacks is returned immediately."

Authorities pulled journalists out of a truck belonging to the state-owned daily New Visionnewspaper and beat them, local journalists said. Authorities severely beat reporter Raymond Abbare from the independent weekly Razor newspaper on the back of the head, Editor Robert Mukasa told CPJ. Abbare received medical treatment and has reported the assault to the police. At least six other journalists who had been riding in the truck--from the New Vision, the independent Daily Monitor, the private weekly Red Pepper, and the private Wavah Broadcasting Service--were assaulted, according to local journalists. All received minor injuries but were discharged after treatment. 

Other journalists assaulted include reporter Patrick Ogwango from the vernacular weekly newspaper Rupiny and Yusuf Kavuma, a photojournalist for Sky Magazine, local journalists said. Some journalists have now gone into hiding after being tipped off by government sources that they were being accused of maintaining links with Besigye's opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change.

Thursday's violence came just two days after Museveni criticized the media at a press conference, accusing them of supporting demonstrations organized by the opposition, according to local reports.

Ugandan journalists have decided to boycott press conferences held by the police and security forces, the Ugandan Human Rights Network for Journalists reported. The boycott will remain in force until the government apologizes and returns confiscated cameras and pays the medical bills of injured journalists, the organization announced at a press conference in Kampala today. 

Uganda: Kampala on security alert as opposition rejects results

22 February 2011

Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi

AfricaNews reporter in Kampala, Uganda

Two hours before the results of the Feb. 18 Ugandan presidential election were declared, the main opposition candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye rejected the final outcome and vowed not to recognise the government President Yoweri Museveni would form on re-election. This followed accusations of rigging, bribery and poor organisation of the electoral process which the opposition says "subverted the will of the people of Uganda."

 

About a month to the general election, Parliament passed a supplementary budget of about $ 300 million, about $ 50 of which went to State House, the President’s official residence. This was the biggest supplementary budget in Uganda’s history and the supplementary budget for State House, the opposition say, was meant to bribe voters.

In the run-up to the election, the President’s son-in-law and his brother former bush war fighter Gen. Salim Saleh were accused of attempting to bribe opposition leaders at the local level in deals worth about $ 1 million each.

So widespread was the use of state resources in campaign-related work that Finance Minister Syda Bbumba admitted last month that “government is broke”. Work in ministries and other government departments stalled because their recurrent budgets were wiped out.

The opposition now say such an environment couldn’t have allowed for the expression of the will of Ugandans. One of the candidates, former UN undersecretary Dr. Olara Otunnu, went through the campaigns but skipped the voting and later told the press he couldn’t participate in a “fraud”.

Otunnu particularly spent the entire three-month campaign vilifying the Electoral Commission and calling for its removal. Opposition candidates agree that the current Commission, appointed by the President and liable to dismissal at his pleasure, cannot organise free and fair elections in a multi-party setting. They called for its reconstitution to give rise to one to which the various political players nominate members to no avail.

The Commission has come under fresh attack especially over the voters roll and late commencement of polling especially in places where the opposition enjoys sizeable support.

In some parts of Kampala, the capital, voting started at 11 am yet it was supposed to commence at 7 am due to late delivery of election materials. Throngs of voters were turned away since their names were missing on the register while others had to move back-and-forth trying to locate the polling stations where they were supposed to cast their ballots.

The opposition say this was calculated to frustrate their supporters and advantage the incumbent. The opposition coalition that fronted Besigye, the Interparty Cooperation, says it sampled 80 districts and found that there was unacceptable disenfranchisement of voters in 61 districts.

In 66 out of the 80 districts sampled, claimed the IPC, their polling agents were denied results declaration forms, which is their right, while in 34 out of the 80 districts the IPC’s polling agents were allegedly arrested, detained or turned away from polling stations.

Another irregularity the opposition cite is ballot-box stuffing. Besigye presented to the press copies of ballots pre-ticked in Museveni’s favour which he said were stuffed in the ballot boxes across the country.

Asked to comment about the pre-ticked ballots in Besigye’s possession shortly after declaring the final results, the Electoral Commission chairman Dr. Badru Kiggundu called on police to arrest Besigye to explain where he got the ballots from. Besigye says he got them from one of his agents who was mistaken to be Museveni’s supporter and was given the ballots for stuffing.

The military and police heavily deployed in the capital and other areas partly in anticipation of election-related violence, but the move was also criticised as calculated to abet rigging. In the eastern Uganda district of Sironko, a journalist who was travelling with Budadiri West MP Nandala Mafabi was shot in the ribs on Election Day as chaos erupted between Mafabi’s camp and the soldiers guarding his rival, Minister in charge of the Presidency Beatrice Wabudeya.

The soldiers were accused of attempting to rig out Mafabi, who eventually beat the minister. The presidential and parliamentary elections in Uganda take place simultaneously.

Museveni, declared winner on Feb. 20 with 68 percent, beat seven challengers. Besigye, his closest challenger, polled 26 percent of the vote while the rest polled less than 3 percent apiece. Notably, about 4 percent of the votes cast were invalid.

Museveni’s win earns him another five years that would extend his rule to 30 years. He shot to power in 1986 following a five-year bush war that claimed at least 300,000 lives. The war was sparked off by the botched 1980 general elections, which former president Milton Obote is believed to have rigged.

Now the opposition, led by Besigye, says Museveni has over the past four elections surpassed Obote’s limits. The opposition have been ambiguous on how to proceed, but security is not leaving anything to chance. They fear Ugandans would erupt into a Tunisia/Egypt scenario.

Uganda: Heavy military deployed ahead of vote counting

18 February 2011

By Ephraim Kasozi

Military Police personnel were this afternoon deployed in Mityana Town ahead of vote counting. The soldiers, who were ferried in three full trucks, arrived in the township in the afternoon. Witnesses say that the military police trucks headed to Mityana Police Station upon their arrival.

Mityana DPC Alfred Bangambaki, however, declined to comment on the presence of the soldiers in the area, saying he was in villages and was not aware of the new entrants. He said the exercise was peaceful and there were no reports of violence nor arrests. “We have had minor issues in Sekanyonyi and Namungo Sub-counties where some voters’ names were found in registers of a neighbouring sub-county but it is a mistake by the Electoral Commission (EC). We have called the District Registrar to guide in order to rectify the anomaly,” Mr Bangambaki told Daily Monitor.

Many people braved scotching sun and long distances from one polling centre to another looking for their names in vain. “I have been a voter in this area since 2001 but I am surprised to find my name missing even after checking my names during the exercise,” said Joseph Kiberu of Busujju Constituency.

Rain also disrupted voting in Manyi Sub-county. It fell for about one hour. District Registrar Peninna Nuwagaba said the voting exercise was going on well. “The issue of missing names is largely a result of those who did not turn up to check their names on register. You find that many of the complaints come from people who cannot tell their polling stations. Now how can you help that person to locate their right areas?” she wondered.