UGANDA

World Report 2000 Entry

World Report 1999 Entry

Not a Level Playing Field:
Government Violations in the Lead-Up to the Election
There are serious human rights concerns in the lead-up to Uganda's March 12, 2001 presidential elections that shed doubt on whether the election will be free and fair. Not only is President Yoweri Museveni relying on a biased legal framework, but he is also using the state machinery to obstruct a transparent and fair electoral process. In addition to its financial and structural advantage, arbitrary arrests, attacks, and intimidation have been directed against the political opposition and its supporters, and campaign agents. Since the start of the electoral campaign on January 11, reported cases of violence and arbitrary arrests implicate army soldiers, military intelligence officers, the police, and the Presidential Protection Unit (PPU), as well as local defense units that are trained and armed by the government. Members of the local administration are also involved in harassment and intimidation of the opposition and its supporters. 
(A1301), 02/01, 12pp, $3.00
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 Hostile to Democracy The Movement System and Political Repression in Uganda
October 1999      (2394)
Government harassment and discriminatory legislation are suppressing independent political activity in Uganda, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today. President Yoweri Museveni and his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) are likely to entrench this restrictive system even further in a referendum scheduled for June 2000. This report, entitled "Hostile to Democracy: The Movement System and Political Repression in Uganda," charges that Museveni's NRM has outlawed most activities of political parties, including holding meetings and public rallies and sponsoring candidates for election. At the same time, the report recognizes that Uganda had made significant progress in many reas of human rights. Although police and army abuses persist, the NRM has forged an army which is more disciplined than its predecessors. Uganda has also established a credible Human Rights Commission. But the progressive policies pursued by the Ugandan government in some areas of human rights protection contrast sharply with its policies in the political arena.
(2394), 10/99, 163 pp., ISBN 1-56432-239-4, $15.00
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The Scars of Death
Children Abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda
The Scars of Death documents the abduction and killing of children in northern Uganda by a rebel group calling itself the Lord's Resistance Army. The heavily-armed rebels abduct children as young as eight from their schools and homes. The children are forced to carry heavy loads,act as personal servants to the rebels, and, in the case of girls, serve as "wives" to rebel commanders. Once abducted, the children undergo a brutal initiation into rebel life: they are forced to participate in acts of extreme violence, often compelled to help beat or hack to death fellow child captives who have attempted to escape. The rebels march their child captives to base camps in neighboring southern Sudan, and many children die of disease or starvation during the march. Thosewho survive the journey are given rudimentary military training and then forced into combat against the Ugandan army and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army. Many of the children are killed during the fighting.Children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army become virtual slaves: their labor, the bodies and their lives are all at the disposal of their rebel captors. The Scars of Death tells the children's stories, in their own words. The Lord's Resistance Army's abduction of children presents an extreme example of a global trend toward an increased reliance on child soldiers. Human Rights Watch calls on the Lord's Resistance Army,the government of Sudan and the government of Uganda to end the continued abduction and killing of children, and calls on the international community to take concrete steps to end the use of child soldiers throughout the world.
(221-1) 09/97, 152 pp., ISBN 1-56432-221-1, $10.00
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