Amnesty International Report 1995 - Uganda

More than 160 people, many of whom appeared to be prisoners of conscience, were unlawfully detained without charge or trial in areas affected by insurgency. Two members of an opposition party and a journalist were detained briefly in the capital; they were prisoners of conscience. There were reports of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners. Courts continued to impose sentences of caning. At least seven civilians may have been victims of extrajudicial execution by the security forces. At least 22 death sentences were passed and there was one execution. An armed opposition group was responsible for serious human rights abuses. Armed opposition to the government of President Yoweri Museveni continued to decline. In January the armed opposition Uganda People's Army announced that it had abandoned its insurgency. However, negotiations between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the largest armed opposition group active in the north, and the government failed to produce a settlement. The government armed thousands of members of local militias and there were numerous reports of forced conscription into these militias. In March elections were held for a Constituent Assembly. The Assembly had the task of promulgating a new constitution, but it had not done so by the end of 1994. A commission of inquiry into the administration of justice, established in 1993, and the Uganda Human Rights Commission, established in 1986 to investigate human rights abuses before President Museveni's government came to power, were reported to have handed in final reports to the government during the year. Neither had been published by the end of 1994. Between September and November at least 168 people were unlawfully detained without charge or trial in Gulu military barracks in northern Uganda. They were taken into military custody for "screening" after being identified as "rebel coordinators" by former members of the LRA now working as informers for the army. Many of those detained appeared to be prisoners of conscience, imprisoned for the political views they held, or were assumed to hold by virtue of their ethnic origin. All the detainees were members of the Acholi ethnic group. Tobias Ali, who had been studying in Jinja, was arrested by army officers in Gulu town while visiting his family. He was arrested because an army informer arbitrarily pointed him out on the street as a "rebel coordinator". He was released without charge after four days in detention after relatives and local officials interceded on his behalf. Patrick Okot, a teacher at Pece primary school, was detained for five weeks before being released without charge on condition that he report to the authorities every two weeks. By the end of the year at least 100 of those detained had been released without charge and none of those who remained in detention appeared to have been charged. Two members of an opposition party and a journalist were detained briefly in the capital, Kampala. They were prisoners of conscience. In March the National Chairman of the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), Haji Badru Kendo Wegulo, and one of his colleagues, Patrick Rubaihayo, were charged with publishing and printing seditious material. The charges related to the upc's manifesto for the Constituent Assembly elections in March, which alleged that Uganda was being ruled by Tutsi of Rwandese origin. A court threatened to dismiss the charges in September after repeated prosecution requests for adjournments, but had not done so by the end of the year. Also in October, the editor-in-chief of The Monitor newspaper, Wafula Oguttu, was arrested and detained for 18 hours on charges of defamation and publishing false statements. The charges were quickly dropped. No further official action appeared to have been taken in relation to a sedition charge lodged in October 1993 against two journalists on The Shariat newspaper. Teddy Sseze Cheeye, editor of the Uganda Confidential newsletter, was also charged with sedition in October 1993 and again in December 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994). The first charge was dropped but trial proceedings began in relation to the second. In contrast to 1993, there were no reported releases from custody of political prisoners who had been detained without trial for prolonged periods on the capital charge of treason. There continued to be long delays in bringing political prisoners to trial. Sergeant Kabanda, charged with treason in June 1993 after having been held for three years in military custody without charge or trial, had still not been brought to trial by the end of the year. There were continued reports of torture and ill-treatment of criminal suspects by soldiers, members of paramilitary groups and police. For example, in June police officers in Mukono District were accused of having tortured Fred Mukisa during more than a year's detention without trial. It was not known whether he was charged with an offence or what official action had been taken by the end of the year regarding the allegations of torture against the police. Courts, particularly Resistance Committee courts, continued to impose sentences of caning – a cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. For example, in July a Resistance Committee court in Bweyogerere, composed of local councillors with no legal training, imposed sentences of eight strokes of the cane upon a man and a 12-year-old girl after they were found guilty of having had sexual intercourse. There were reports of extrajudicial executions by army personnel in March in Gulu District in the context of military operations against the LRA. Soldiers based in a detachment in Binya village were reported to have killed at least seven civilians. For example, Lino Okot and Janani Oywello of neighbouring Layoko village were reported to have hidden in the bush during fighting between soldiers and LRA combatants. According to witnesses, the two men encountered soldiers after the fighting had died down and were asked to show identification. Although they did so, they were shot and killed on the spot. The soldiers were also reported to have tortured and ill-treated other inhabitants of Binya village and neighbouring villages. There were unconfirmed reports that the officer in charge of the army unit concerned was subsequently detained, but no information was made available about official investigations by the end of the year. The Army General Court Martial began the task of hearing appeals from over 100 individuals under sentence of death whose trials by army tribunals in previous years had been declared "illegal and incompetent" in September 1993 by the Minister of State for Defence (see Amnesty International Report 1994). At least 15 people had their death sentences quashed. In September the Court Martial found that a unit disciplinary committee had wrongly sentenced to death three army corporals on charges of aggravated robbery. The Court Martial found that they should have been charged with a lesser, non-capital offence. Professor Isaac Newton Ojok, who was arrested in 1988 for alleged links to the armed opposition Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Lakwena, was acquitted by the High Court after a retrial in January on the grounds of insufficient evidence. He had been charged with treason in 1990 and sentenced to death in 1991 (see Amnesty International Report 1992). In November, two men charged with treason in 1990, Brigadier Smith Opon Acak and Ahmed Ogeny, were acquitted by the High Court and released. There was one execution. In December a soldier was executed by firing-squad after being found guilty by an Army Field Court Martial in Gulu District of killing three people at a night club. The High Court sentenced at least 14 people to death, including two soldiers, for a variety of offences. The Army General Court Martial sentenced to death at least eight soldiers on charges of robbery and murder. In May it was reported that there were over 200 prisoners on death row in Luzira Maximum Security Prison. The LRA was responsible for serious human rights abuses, including rape and deliberate and arbitrary killings. Joyce Maku was captured in February in Moyo District along with five other women. She escaped in April after having been sexually abused by three LRA combatants. She was pregnant on her escape. Civilians were deliberately killed in raids by the LRA on buses and villages in the north. Sixteen people were reported to have died after a bus was attacked on the Gulu-Kitgum road in April. It was reported in March that at least 20 people had been killed after the LRA attacked and burned homes in Abulu village in Apac District. Amnesty International condemned the abuses of human rights by the LRA and urged it to abide by basic humanitarian standards. During the year Amnesty International continued to urge the government to investigate past and recent killings by the security forces which might have been extrajudicial executions. In August Amnesty International published a report, Uganda: Recommendations for safeguarding human rights in the new constitution, expressing concern that the draft constitution failed to meet the requirements of international standards in the safeguarding of human rights. In December it published a report, Uganda: Detentions of suspected government opponents without charge or trial in the north, in which it called for the immediate release of prisoners of conscience being detained in Gulu military barracks and for all uncharged political detainees in custody to be released if they were not promptly to be charged and brought to trial.