Forty-one years ago, the British government issued a statement in London in defence of the government of President Milton Obote. The June 19, 1985, statement claims that Obote’s rule until then was worse than that of former President, Idi Amin, was ‘unacceptable’.
Amin was at the time living in exile in the Saudi Arabian town of Jeddah, having been kicked out of power on April 11, 1979, after eight years in which anywhere between 100,000 and 500,000 people were reportedly killed, with 10,000 reportedly killed in his first year in power. Amin died in August 2003.
Obote, who had been ousted by Amin in January 1971, had lived in exile in Tanzania until he returned to Uganda on May 27, 1980, to lead the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) into the December 1980 elections.
He bounced back as president after his UPC party was declared the winner of the elections with 75 seats in Parliament, followed by the Democratic Party (DP) of Dr Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere, which had 50 seats.
Amnesty report
The British government’s statement was issued eight days after the global human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, released a 64-page report that accused the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) of committing serious atrocities against the civilian population in Luweero Triangle and other parts of the country in its war against the National Resistance Army (NRA) rebels and other rebel outfits that had taken up arms against it.
The report, which the watchdog said was the product of a compilation made over a four-and-a-half-year period, was issued on June 11, 1985. The report accused the UNLA of, among other crimes, torture, rape, murder and extortion.
The report detailed allegations of harassment of suspected sympathisers of the National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM/A) and supporters of the political opposition, especially those of the biggest Opposition party then, DP and those of the Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM), the party that rebel leader Yoweri Museveni had led into the controversial 1980 general elections.
Worth noting is the fact that Mr Museveni was also a candidate in the Mbarara North parliamentary elections, where Mr Sam Kuteesa was the DP candidate. Mr Guchwa Mingyi was the UPC candidate. Mr Kuteesa won the seat with 15,657 votes, followed by Mr Mingyi, who garnered 12,747 votes. Mr Museveni came last with 12,682 votes.
Torture
The report accused the UNLA of illegally detaining civilians in military garrisons where they would be subjected to torture.
‘For the past four and a half years, Amnesty International has been concerned about persistent reports of the widespread and systematic use of torture against detainees in Uganda. Those most at risk are civilians unlawfully imprisoned for political reasons in military barracks where the use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is routine,’ the report read in part.
It added that some of those who had been subjected to torture appeared ‘unconnected with the armed opposition to President Obote’s government’.
The report further claimed that many of the victims of torture had ‘disappeared’ in custody and were feared dead.
Whereas the government had consistently denied reports of widespread torture, the report said, a variety of sources, including torture victims who had been released, associates and members of families of some of the victims and former security operatives, had pointed the watchdog’s investigators and researchers to places where acts of torture were being carried out.
The report listed Makindye Military Police Barracks and the UNLA barracks of Lubiri and Kireka as some of the military installations that gained notoriety insofar as torture was concerned.
The watchdog reported that it had commissioned two medical doctors, a surgeon and a forensic pathologist to examine 16 people who had been held at different times between 1981 and 1985 and confirmed that all, but one, had been tortured.
‘One of these did not bear physical scars consistent with her account of ill-treatment. The remaining 15 displayed physical signs and described symptoms consistent with their accounts of being tortured,’ the report noted.
Torture methods
The report also accused the army and National Security Agency (Nasa) of employing an array of diabolical methods of torture, including deliberate congestion of cells, which had forced detainees to sleep in ‘squatting positions one behind the other’.
‘In or outside the ‘quarter guard’, new prisoners are usually beaten with iron bars, cable, pieces of wood into which nails have been driven, rifle butts, and pangas (machetes) or hammers. In some cases, prisoners are alleged to have died as a result,’ the report disclosed.
Other forms of torture include denying prisoners food and water, especially in a cell known as ‘go-down’ in Makindye.
‘People often begged for your urine because they had gone so long without water,’ a former detainee is said to have told the watchdog.
Some other methods include routine beatings and burning, which consisted of tying the victim down with a car tyre suspended over them and setting the tyre on fire so that the molten rubber could drip on the victims’ limbs; or by having a red-hot cooking-stove coil placed against their faces, necks, chests and thighs.
In other instances, the report said prisoners were descended upon with iron bars and gun butts, while others were killed by hitting their heads on walls.
Women, including pregnant ones, the report claimed, had been raped while in detention, which had in some cases led to miscarriages.
Unlawful detentions
The report also accused the UNLA and Nasa of holding political prisoners incommunicado in military barracks, intelligence headquarters or secret prisons run by Nasa. The detainees in military garrisons and installations, the report said, were always informed that they were either anti-government guerrillas or had knowledge of the guerrillas.
The Nile Mansions Hotel, Park Hotel, Kamukuzi in Mbarara, Ihungu in Masindi, Mpoma Earth Satellite Station in Mukono and some Nasa-run ‘safe houses’ were listed as some of the other places where people were being unlawfully detained.
The watchdog also accused the army of having set up within the Luweero Triangle, camps where suspects who had been arrested in the capital, Kampala, and Bunyoro, where widespread arrests had been reported in May 1985, were being detained. The detention camps had reportedly been set up in Katikamu, Bowa, Mityana, Bukomero and Kabunyata.
The detention camps, the report stated, did not have basic amenities like toilet facilities. Detainees were being forced to use either buckets or empty oil drums that were said to be located within the same rooms where they were being held.
Deaths
The report further claimed that many detainees had died in Kireka and Makindye barracks.
‘It is reported that many prisoners die in the ‘go-down’, either from starvation or as a result of their beatings. Their bodies may not be removed for up to two weeks,’ said the report.
The watchdog claimed that mass graves had been dug up near some military installations, adding that it had been informed by some former detainees that they had on several occasions been forced to go out at night and load dead bodies onto lorry trucks and Land Rover trucks, which would then ferry the bodies to mass graves for burial.
‘In 1984, an Australian television crew filmed an open mass grave within a few hundred yards of an army barracks. Interviewed by the television reporter, a Ugandan Government representative said that he did not know who was responsible,’ the report said.
The report, which claimed that there were other mass graves in Namanve and Luweero, did not name the government official who was quoted by the Australian television crew.
The report also listed cases where children or members of families that were considered to be well off would be arrested and taken to those military detention facilities for purposes of extorting their families, who would be forced to pay some kind of ransom to obtain their release.
Conclusions
The report concluded by calling on the government to investigate the allegations of torture; state where those who had reportedly ‘disappeared’ were; ensure that confessions obtained through torture are never used in law; compensation of victims of torture and dependents of those who had ‘disappeared’ and; prosecution of perpetrators of rights abuses.