From Witness:
Two decades of armed conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government in Northern Uganda have displaced nearly two million civilians from their homes. Ordered into so-called protected camps, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) face heightened insecurity, appalling living conditions and lack the basic means of subsistence. Human Rights Focus (HURIFO) and WITNESS have co-produced "Between Two Fires: Torture and Displacement in Northern Uganda" to address the issue of torture committed against the IDP communities of Northern Uganda. Through the personal stories of torture survivors, the video advocates for official acknowledgement of these abuses, redress for torture victims, and strengthened national mechanisms against the use of torture.
Abuses against the IDP communities are rampant: the LRA has committed war crimes and gross violations of human rights including the abduction of over twenty thousand children, widespread maiming, rape and murder. These attacks have led to secondary displacement in which up to forty thousand children commute nightly from the camps to sleep in the relative safety of town centers.
While the LRA has committed these atrocities, the Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF), the national army, has also committed human rights violations against civilians that include arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killing, torture and rape. The UPDF whose mandate is to protect civilians, has not only failed to prevent attacks and abductions by the LRA, but has also perpetrated grave abuses against civilians in a climate of impunity.
Please join us in this campaign to end torture against IDPs in Northern Uganda by taking action.
The issues of torture in the name of investigation or interrogation in no long acceptable. Investigator must look for other means of extracting information without necessary causing bodily or psycological harm.
Come to think of it, why the personal wars which some general call national interest or war? Whose interest really? It is a needless waste of human beings. The African Union and good African leaders, not the sit tight one, work to stop these wars and the attendant rights violations.
Paul onwude, is of the CIVIL LIBERTIES ORGANISATION, NIGERIA.
Posted by: paul onwude at March 12, 2006 10:48 AM