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Between Two Fires Torture and Displacement in Northern Uganda

A civil war has been raging in northern Uganda for the past 20 years, creating an unparalleled humanitarian crisis. The conflict waged between a rebel group known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan military (Ugandan Peoples' Defense Force - UPDF) has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, mutilated scores of others and forced the internal displacement of over 90% of the Acholi population into so-called 'protected camps' set up by the Ugandan government. The number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in such camps has peaked to between 1.6 and 1.9 million. The World Health Organization estimates that one thousand people die every week from curable diseases, doubling the mortality rate of Darfur. With limited access to health care, water, education and agricultural subsistence, the camps have a mortality rate above emergency thresholds and have created a complete dependence upon food aid for the whole region. U.N. Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland described Northern Uganda as "the world's most neglected humanitarian crisis."

Torture

Convention Against Torture, Article 1: Definition of torture

"1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

Through the voices of torture survivors, Between Two Fires tells the story of civilians caught between the war crimes committed by the LRA and the abuses committed by the UPDF in an environment of increasing impunity. Notably, both the LRA and the UPDF have been accused of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment. Despite the ratification of the Convention Against Torture by the Ugandan State in November 1986, the UPDF continues to use torture as due course to extract information or confession, to punish, intimidate and coerce. Reports of sexual violence, rape, beating and other forms of violence inflicted against Internally Displaced Persons led the Committee Against Torture, in its May 2005 recommendations to the Ugandan government, to express its concern over "The continued allegations of widespread torture and ill-treatment by the State's security forces and agencies, together with the apparent impunity enjoyed by its perpetrators" and "The pervasive problem of sexual violence, including in places of detention and in camps for internally displaced persons." "Furthermore, the Committee regrets that the State party has not taken sufficient steps to ensure the protection of persons affected by the armed conflict in northern Uganda, in particular internally displaced persons currently confined in camps."

War on Children

"Northern Uganda is pretty much the worst place on Earth to be a child," Carol Bellamy, the former Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The principal victims in northern Uganda are the women and children in the region - rarely has a war so systematically targeted the youth. Today, more than 20,000 children have been abducted by the LRA to serve as child soldiers and sex slaves. It is believed that more than 85% of the rebel army combatants are abducted children who were forced to commit atrocities against civilians, often from their own families or communities. Every night more than 40,000 children commonly known as "night commuters" walk for miles from the protective camps to the closest northern towns of Gulu, Kalongo and Kitgum because they fear raids, abduction or death by the LRA. Neither are children shielded from the abuse of the military with reported cases of defilement (the rape of minors) and other forms of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment by the armed forces. While the government has relentlessly pursued a military solution to the conflict, it has less than adequately provided for the protection of civilians.Maintaining a culture of secrecy, cover up and denial with the armed forces, military personnel are rarely held accountable for the crimes and operate with impunity in the camps.

National justice

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Northern Uganda and has issued its first ever arrest warrants in October 2005 against five top LRA leaders. While the ICC prosecutions progress, there must also be national mechanisms in place to end the current impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of human rights violations, and torture in particular. In conformity with the ICC's principle of complementarity, national mechanisms in Uganda must be strengthened to address the widespread and systematic use of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment used against the displaced population. Not least the silence must be broken - both the government and military in Uganda must officially acknowledge, and act to end, these violations. In addition, torture must be defined and criminalized in national statutes, thus allowing for prompt, impartial and exhaustive investigations, trials and, convictions of perpetrators of torture and ill-treatment. While the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of Uganda has condemned all forms of torture and ill-treatment, it faces a backlog of two to three years of cases due to inadequate resources. In addition, its recommendations on compensation for torture victims and survivors and, in the minority of cases, on prosecution of perpetrators, are rarely enforced by the government. The NHRC's work must be strengthened so that it is able to carry out its mission as an entity for the protection and promotion of human rights throughout Uganda. Victims of torture should have recourse to justice and redress through the national courts. In Northern Uganda, the national judicial system is in tatters with only one sitting high court judge in the region. With victims finding little solace within national courts that are overflowing with cases of abuses, the military is prone to taking justice into their own hands by either transferring perpetrators to different locations or holding closed, secret trials with undisclosed outcomes. This behavior has resulted in continued impunity and an increase in abuses.

International attention

International media coverage of the two decade long conflict and the plight of nearly two million displaced persons continues to be sparse. Recently, the ICC arrest warrants have drawn some much-needed attention to the international forum. But as predicted by many humanitarian organizations the arrest warrants have also brought upon an alarming increase in violence in the region. For the first time since the beginning of the conflict, the LRA has killed foreign tourists and aid workers in recent months, prompting relief agencies to suspend operations in a region where the population is desperately dependent upon aid.

Although agencies such as UNICEF and OCHA are moving to expand protection and monitoring presence in the north and will increase financial aid to the region by next year these positive decisions remain belated and insufficient in their scope. In resolution 1653, passed in January 2006, the Security Council expressed "its deep concern at the devastating impact of conflict and insecurity on the humanitarian situation throughout the Great Lakes region and their implications for regional peace and security, especially where arms and armed groups move across borders, such as the long-running and brutal insurgency by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda which has caused the death, abduction and displacement of thousands of innocent civilians in Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo". Yet, over the two decades of armed conflict in Northern Uganda and despite the recent increase in violence, the UN Security Council has yet to pass any resolution consecrated to Northern Uganda.

In February 2006, presidential elections reinstated President Museveni who legalized his third term through a controversial constitutional amendment and, during the campaign period, imprisoned his main opposition candidate on charges of treason and rape. In response to these erosions of democracy, the UK and Norway withdrew aid to Uganda. Norway funneled this withdrawn money to humanitarian aid in the North. With election fervor settling nationally, the Northern crisis may once again sit on the back burner of international attention. Yet, it is this precise moment in time that President Museveni may be amenable to creating change in the situation and ending the impunity of the military. With the UK as its primary donors, and with good standing among other European community states, the Ugandan government is particularly susceptible to European Union policy. The European Parliament should reissue its condemnation of LRA attacks against civilians but also address the issue of military abuses. The EU should provide resources toward strengthening national judicial mechanisms and contribute toward compensation for torture survivors in Northern Uganda.

The United States passed the Northern Uganda Crisis Response Act (S.2264) in 2004. This was an important step toward assuming its international responsibility to address the unparalleled humanitarian crisis in Northern Uganda, yet no practical measures have yet been taken for the implementation of the provisions of the act, which calls on the US administration to support efforts for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in northern Uganda and urges "the Government of Uganda and the international community to assume greater responsibility for the protection of civilians and economic development in regions in Uganda affected by the conflict" and "to improve the professionalism of Ugandan military personnel currently stationed in northern and eastern Uganda, with an emphasis on respect for human rights and civilian protection."

The US should ensure accountability for all perpetrators of torture and other cruel and degrading punishment and use its international standing to pressure the Ugandan government to take immediate steps to strengthen its national judicial mechanisms to prosecute perpetrators of these crimes including those within the UPDF. In providing military aid to Uganda, the US administration and UK government must not ignore the Ugandan Army's human rights record. The U.S government should officially acknowledge and denounce the use of torture by the Ugandan military and provide resources to assist the government in prioritizing measures to strengthen national judicial mechanisms and to define and criminalize torture in national statutes.