Army 'killed, tortured civilians'
2007-09-11 12:01
Kampala - The Ugandan army tortured and unlawfully killed civilians while carrying out a disarmament programme in the country's troubled Karamoja region, said an international human rights group on Tuesday.
According to a report based on 50 interviews with witnesses by the United States-based Human Rights Watch, Ugandan soldiers opened fire on children - killing three - crushed homesteads with armoured personnel carriers and severely beat men during the army's law enforcement operations.
One child who the group said fled during a cordon-and-search-operation said: "We came out of the village with our parents. I was following my mother and father, and I got shot. My mother was shot in front of me and fell down. Then I was shot."
The child's name was not given in line with usual human rights guidelines intended to protect witnesses from potential reprisals.
Aggressive campaign
The army denied abusing human rights. Karamoja was an impoverished, drought-ridden area along Uganda's northeast border with Kenya plagued by constant insecurity.
It had been a trafficking point for small arms from war-ravaged Somalia. Many of these weapons were bought by cattle rustlers who carried out raids in neighbouring villages.
For several years, President Yoweri Museveni's government had been carrying out an aggressive campaign to disarm the Karamojong people, but those efforts had only increased tensions.
Last year, the United Nations Development Programme halted a voluntary disarmament programme in the region amid reports of rampant rights abuses by government troops.
Elizabeth Evenson, a researcher for the report in Human Rights Watch's Africa division, said: "The Ugandan government has every right to get guns out of the hands of ordinary citizens, but its soldiers must still obey the law."
'Abuses are still taking place'
The report acknowledged that in recent months, operations by the army had been less violent with far fewer cases of human rights violations reported. But it urged the government to prosecute more soldiers accused of committing abuses in the line of duty.
Evenson said: "It's good that the Ugandan army is trying to control its soldiers during disarmament operations, but abuses are still taking place. If these abuses continue to go unacknowledged and unpunished, future abuses are inevitable."
However, Ugandan army spokesperson Major Felix Kulayigye said that some of the witness accounts in the report had been fabricated.
He said: "We are not the kind of fellows to open fire on children. Our soldiers receive training on human rights issues, and anyone found in violation of these is punished accordingly."
Rebels in northern Uganda signed a truce last year with the government aimed at ending a brutal 19-year conflict that claimed tens of thousands of lives.
- AP