Amnesty International Report 1998 - Uganda

(This report covers the period January-December 1997)

Prisoners of conscience were among hundreds of prisoners detained for short periods without charge or trial. Over 900 alleged members of armed opposition groups were charged with treason, but there was little progress in bringing them to trial. Torture, including rape, and ill-treatment were widespread, resulting in at least seven deaths. Prison conditions were harsh; more than 60 prisoners died as a result. Courts imposed sentences of caning. Soldiers and police were responsible for extrajudicial executions. More than 1,000 prisoners were under sentence of death, including 15 sentenced during the year. Armed opposition groups were responsible for abuses of human rights, including the abduction of hundreds of children, torture including rape, and hundreds of deliberate and arbitrary killings.

Fighting between the Uganda People's Defence Forces (updf) and armed opposition movements backed by the Sudanese Government caused the internal displacement of more than 400,000 people in the north, northwest and west. In January more than 60,000 people in the northern district of Kitgum fled assaults by the armed opposition Lord's Resistance Army (lra), joining 200,000 others already displaced. In the west, the Allied Democratic Front (adf) attacked both military and civilian targets from bases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; more than 170,000 people were displaced. In the northwest, there was a reduction in fighting after military action in February and March against bases in Sudan used by the West Nile Bank Front (wnbf) and the Uganda National Rescue Front-Two (unrf-ii).

Prisoners of conscience were among hundreds of people briefly detained without charge or trial. Most, but not all, detentions took place in the war zones and involved suspected members of armed opposition movements or "rebel collaborators". Kagwe Lawrence p'Owot, a teacher, was detained in Gulu military barracks between February and April, when he was released without charge. In the north detainees were periodically detained in army bases in remote rural areas. In May, three men were detained for two weeks in a pit dug in an army base in Paicho in Gulu District. The men, one of whom had been tortured by having a plastic jerrycan melted onto his body, were freed after the intervention of a visiting Amnesty International team. The soldiers alleged to be responsible were arrested.

Hundreds of alleged members of the wnbf and unrf-ii captured in March and April were detained without charge for several weeks. In June, 234 alleged former members of the wnbf were released. More than 900 other alleged combatants were charged with treason, but trials had not begun by the end of the year. In the past, treason charges – which preclude the granting of bail for 360 days – have been used to hold suspected opponents of the government for long periods without trial.

Torture and ill-treatment were common, especially immediately after arrest; those responsible included police, soldiers, prison warders and government militia. In at least seven cases, torture resulted in death. In May Paulo Kolo died in police custody in Gulu 24 hours after he was arrested and beaten by soldiers. In July Sabiiti Ivan Kisembo died after he was beaten by police. His body was dumped in a Kampala mortuary without identification. In August, nine men were hospitalized in Gulu after soldiers, who were subsequently arrested, beat 21 civilians while searching for a updf deserter. In September police and soldiers in Gulu beat and ill-treated at least 20 men during identity checks, including a journalist whose ears were cut with a bayonet.

In northern Uganda soldiers were res-ponsible for raping dozens of women. For example, in March and April soldiers in Awach raped five women, one of whom was forced into marriage with the rapist. Most incidents of rape went unreported because of the social consequences for women.

Courts imposed sentences of caning – a cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. In February a man received 12 strokes after being convicted of sexually abusing children.

Prison conditions continued to be harsh, with serious overcrowding in many jails. Food shortages, overcrowding and inadequate medical services led to the deaths of 57 prisoners in Arua Prison during the year. An investigation was ordered in December. Nine prisoners in Marokatipe prison died of starvation in July and August. One starving prisoner in the jail died after he was beaten for stealing groundnuts from a prison warder's garden.

Police and soldiers were responsible for at least 20 extrajudicial executions. In July police in Kampala arrested two suspected thieves and shot them dead a few hours later. In August police in Lira tortured Alex Okello, who they claimed was an armed robber, to make him reveal where he had hidden his weapon. They then took him outside the town and shot him dead. In September, four civilians in Omoro, who soldiers claimed were lra members, were shot dead.

Fifteen men were sentenced to death, including a soldier convicted of murdering a civilian detained in Lubiri military barracks in 1995. By the end of the year more than 1,000 prisoners were under sentence of death.

Armed opposition groups were responsible for gross abuses of human rights, including child abduction, torture including rape, and deliberate and arbitrary killings. In the north, the lra abducted hundreds of children and forced them to become soldiers; many were held in camps in Sudan. Children were beaten and forced to kill unarmed civilians and captured government soldiers. Hundreds of abducted girls were raped in forced marriages. In January the lra deliberately and arbitrarily killed more than 490 civilians in Lamwo as punishment for lack of support. Hundreds of civilians were killed in other incidents, in which scores of women were raped. The adf was also responsible for killings and abductions. For example, in July at least 60 unarmed villagers were killed in villages around Bundibugyo. Nineteen boys studying in a seminary in Kasese were abducted in August and taken to adf bases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In May an Amnesty International delegation visited northern Uganda to research human rights abuses in the northern war zone. In meetings with military officers and government officials, the delegates raised concerns about the detention without charge or trial and torture of suspected rebel collaborators in rural military outposts. In July a second Amnesty International delegation visited the north to participate in a meeting organized by Ugandan human rights organizations. In September Amnesty International issued a report, Uganda: ‘Breaking God's commands' –the destruction of childhood by the Lord's Resistance Army, which condemned gross abuses by the lra and called on it to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights standards. The report also called on the Sudanese Government to end its military and logistical support for the lra and to intervene to free abducted children. Amnesty International lobbied the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child meeting to discuss Uganda's report on its progress towards implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In December Amnesty International raised its human rights concerns in northern Uganda with Ugandan exiles, including government opponents, in the United Kingdom.