Ugandan army's human rights record criticised

[BiLaaL]

With the deployment of the Ugandan troops now underway, the TFG has once again overlooked the welfare of its own people. Uganda's army is infamous for its human rights wherever it has operated, most notably in the Congo. Human rights monitoring groups across the world have unanimously voiced their concerns over the deployment of Ugandan troops to Somalia. This concern was so great that it has prompted some groups to urge that funds not be made available for the mission. As the report indicates, in 2005 the ICJ found the Ugandan army guilty of abuses committed against Congolese civilians.

 

Somalia: UPDF human rights record criticised

 

By KEVIN J. KELLEY

Special Correspondent

The East African

 

Past human rights abuses committed by Ugandan troops are leading some analysts to warn that the African Union’s difficult peacekeeping mission in Somalia could fail to meet its objectives.

 

Critics of Uganda’s leading role in the Somalia operation point to international monitoring groups’ condemnations of the Ugandan army’s mistreatment of civilians in the Congo.

 

The International Court of Justice, better known as the World Court, ruled in 2005 that Uganda was liable for $10 billion in damages as a result of its intervention in the Congo. The court found that civilians had been tortured and killed during the course of Uganda’s 5-year occupation of eastern sections of the Congo .

 

Human rights groups have also accused the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF) of brutalising displaced persons in northern Uganda as part of the counterinsurgency campaign against the Kony rebels.

 

These criticisms of the Ugandan military recently led Black Star News, a New York-based African-American newspaper, to urge that the United States not provide funds to facilitate the UPDF’s deployment in Somalia .

 

American lawmakers should ensure that “the US plays no role in this mind-boggling, ill-fated participation by Uganda’s army in the Somali mission,” Black Star News declared in a February 27 editorial.

 

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said earlier in February that the United States would provide $2 million to transport and $8 million to equip Ugandan soldiers to be deployed in Somalia.

 

The Bush administration views stability in Somalia as crucial to US interests in the Horn and to the outcome of the “global war on terror.”

 

“The White House is so desperate,” Black Star News observed, “that it has anointed Uganda, a country whose army was found liable for serious human rights abuses and is currently being investigated by the International Criminal Court, as regional policeman.”

 

Doubts are also being raised as to whether Somalis will view the Ugandan troops as honest brokers.

 

A United Nations report late last year charged that Uganda was helping to arm Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government at a time when Islamist militias were taking control of large sections of the country.

 

The report also said that a small number of Ugandan soldiers had been sent to Somalia to help defend the transitional government.

 

Leaders of some human rights organisations based in the US have privately expressed their own concerns about the possibility of abusive treatment of Somalis by Ugandan troops .

 

But none of these groups has publicly opposed Ugandan involvement in the peacekeeping initiative, which has been endorsed by the African Union.

 

One leading human rights monitor with an office in the US suggests that the UPDF may actually behave respectfully in Somalia.

 

“This is going to be a very high profile operation,” notes the monitor, who asked that his name not be used because his organisation has made no formal comment on the Somalia peacekeeping mission. “All the eyes of Africa and of the world will be on this peacekeeping force, and Uganda will be at the centre of it because its troops are to be stationed in Mogadishu. So I think there will be considerable pressure on the Ugandans to show proper conduct.”

 

The UPDF is expected to account for 1,500 of the African troops to be deployed in Somalia. The African Union has authorised a total contingent of 8,000 peacekeepers, but only half have so far been pledged. In addition to Uganda, four African nations — Nigeria, Ghana, Burundi and Malawi — have promised to assign troops to the mission.

[BiLaaL]

Here are some highlights of abuses committed against the Somali population in the past by so-called "peacekeepers". I'm sure more abuses would be uncovered with a more thorough investigation.

 

•“…A Belgian soldier was accused of forcing a young Somali to eat pork, drink salt water and then eat his own vomit…”

 

•“…Another sergeant is suspected of having murdered a Somali whom he was photographed urinating upon…”

 

•“…A child, accused of stealing food from the paratroopers' base, died after being locked in a storage container for 48 hours. Fifteen other members of the same regiment were investigated in 1995 for "acts of sadism and torture" against Somali civilians…”

 

•“…In 1995, a group of Canadian paratroopers were investigated for torturing a Somali to death and killing three others…”

 

•“…In June 1995 gruesome photos were published in a Milan magazine of Italian soldiers torturing a Somali youth and abusing and raping a Somali girl. Paratroopers claim they were specifically trained in methods of torture to aid interrogation. According to one witness, Italian soldiers tied a young Somali girl to the front of an armored personnel carrier and raped her while officers looked on…”

 

•“…The South China Morning Post published an AFP report about an Italian battalion commander who sexually abused and strangled a 13-year-old Somali boy. There are also allegations that, in 1993, Italian soldiers beat seven suspected Somali thieves, killing one; that they beat to death a 14-year-old boy who sold a false medal and beat a couple in a car…the Italian paratrooper was quoted as saying: "What's the big deal? They are just niggers anyway…”

 

•“…In 1997, the London Telegraph, in a combined dispatch with AFP, reported that Belgian troops roasted a Somali boy. Roasted him! And what was the sentence for this peace crime committed during an operation dubbed ironically "Restore Hope"? A military court sentenced two paratroopers to a month in jail and a fine of 200 pounds…”

 

UN peacekeepers have also committed atrocities in other war torn African nations. Here are but a few of their many crimes:

 

•“…A French U.N. logistics expert in the Congo shot pornographic videos in his home, in which he had converted his bedroom into a photo studio for videotaping his sexual abuse of young girls. When police raided his home, the man was allegedly about to rape a 12-year-old girl sent to him in a law enforcement sting operation. As the Times reported, a senior Congolese police officer confirmed the bed was surrounded by large mirrors on three sides, with a remote control camera on the fourth side...”

 

•“…Two Russian pilots paid young girls with jars of mayonnaise and jam to have sex with them…”

 

•“…U.N. "peacekeepers" from Morocco based in Kisangani – a secluded town on the Congo River – are notorious for impregnating local women and girls. In March, an international group probing the scandal found 82 women and girls had been made pregnant by Moroccan U.N. staffers and 59 others by Uruguayan staffers. One U.N. soldier accused of rape was apparently hidden in the barracks for a year…”

 

Somalia: AU Forces will bring more deaths and destruction

 

Bush: Don’t Send Uganda To Somalia

 

Court orders Uganda to pay Congo damages

[Wisdom_Seeker]

They aren’t concerned for the Somali people. There interest is to fully create a puppet regime which controls the civilians at gunpoint.

[BiLaaL]

^We've all run out of patience with this "government". The only way to avert the horrors ahead is to frustrate their outrageously evil albeit naive designs at every opportunity.

[Wisdom_Seeker]

We were silent when Said Barre took power, we saw the results

 

We were silent when Aideed and his fellow warlords took power, we saw the results

 

We can’t remain silent today, for we will be making the same mistakes. Staying silent about the crimes and misconduct being committed by these devious people, will only leaves us asking what have we done to deserve the wrath of Allah in the future.

[BiLaaL]

The list of documented abuses in my previous post has once again returned to Somali soil since the current invasion. Walaahi every child and woman who've had to endure such abuses at the hands of outside forces will hold us all accountable. Reading that list makes one sick to the stomach. How can anyone, while aware that such abuses will occur, allow the deployment of an army with a well-documented human rights abuses against civilians? The TFG are either incompetent beyond belief for not knowing the track-record of the Ugandan army or they are blinded by their pursuit of power.

[-Nomadique-]

^They are blinded by their pursit of power. They have already demonstrated that they have little regard for the wellbeing of the people. I am not suprised at all.

[Taliban]

Originally posted by BiLaaL:

The TFG are either incompetent beyond belief for not knowing the track-record of the Ugandan army or they are blinded by their pursuit of power.

It's not like that TFG has a choice or a saying on what kind of foreign troops can come to Somalia. Afterall, it's a puppet transitional government that owes its survival to the US and Ethiopia.

[BiLaaL]

^They are a puppet government, but even such governments display a sense of patriotism in regards to their country. This puppet transitional government (PTG) as you call them, seems to have no real patriot among them. They are made of fools ready to sell even their own mother if that would facilitate reaching their goals. Its even hard to speak of 'goals' with this bunch. I would have preferred for them to be ruthless dictators or something, atleast then one could identify their goals and devise plans to counteract them. It seems like some in the TFG have realised the magnitude of their mistakes but don't have the courage to change course and do what is right for their country.

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

What Musaveni doesn't like the world to see at his backyard that seems to never end.

 

A man who cannot help and defend his own massacred, raped, kidnapped and victimized people for decades and still on, has absolutely no business to be and meddle in Soomaaliya.

 

Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), formed in 1987, is a paramilitary group operating mainly in northern Uganda and parts of Sudan.

The group is engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in what is now one of Africa's longest-running conflicts

.

 

[sNIP]

 

The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations, including mutilation, torture, rape, the abduction of civilians, the use of child soldiers and a number of massacres.

 

[sNIP]

 

Two weeks after Museveni delivered his ultimatum of 6 February 1994, it was reported that LRA fighters had crossed the northern border and established bases in southern Sudan with the approval of the Khartoum government. Sudanese aid was a response to Ugandan support for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) fighting in the civil war in the south of the country. Also, convinced that the Acholi were now collaborating with the Museveni government, Kony began to target civilians with his increased military strength. Mutilations became commonplace, and 1994 saw the first mass abduction of children and youth. The most famous of these was the Aboke abductions of 139 female students in October 1996.

As most of the LRA combatants are abducted children, a military solution is widely perceived by the Acholi as a massacre of victims

. Government attempts to destroy the rebels are thus viewed as another cause for grievance by the Acholi. The moral ambiguity of this situation, in which abducted young rebels are both the victims and perpetrators of brutal acts, is vital to understanding the current conflict.

 

The creation of the government "protected villages" beginning in 1996 further deepened the antagonistic attitude that many Acholi have toward the government, especially as the population continues to be attacked by the LRA even within the "protected camps."

The camps are also crowded, unsanitary, and miserable places to live. Meanwhile, in 1997 the Sudanese government of the National Islamic Front began to recede from its previous hard-line stance. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S., the relationship between Sudan and Uganda abruptly changed. Cross-border tensions eased as support to proxy forces fell. Some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the war began to return to their homes. The number of people displaced by the conflict declined to about half a million, and people began to talk openly of the day when the "protected camps" would be disbanded.

 

Night Commuters

 

Each night, children between the ages of 3 and 17, referred to as "Night Commuters" or "Night Dwellers" walk up to 20 kilometres (12 miles) from IDP camps to larger towns, especially Gulu, in search of safety.

 

Initiatives to raise international awareness for these children include the "Gulu Walks" and the work of the Uganda Conflict Action Network. Night commuters are also the subject of documentaries such as Stolen Children, Wardance, and Invisible Children.

 

Gulu has been the location of much of the insurgent fighting by the Lord's Resistance Army and was the birthplace of both Alice Auma and Joseph Kony. Over 90% of the population has been displaced, mostly into camps clustered around towns and trading centers. To avoid abduction by the LRA thousands of children travel from rural areas to seek refuge in towns every night.

 

Xigasho I

Xigasho II