Gen. Aronda’s admission on camps exposes crimes against humanity

In the run-up to the African Union (AU) sponsored Special Summit on Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced People in Africa held in Kampala last month, Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, was quoted by The Observer to have declared that confining non-combatants to camps in conflict zones was “an effective military tool for counter-insurgency.”

A typical IDP camp in northern Uganda Gen. Nyakairima’s straight-faced revelation is surprising, coming after years of equally blatant denial that the government deliberately created the camps and drove civilians into them, as a conscious military strategy, and with full knowledge of what the strategic military, as well as social and economic consequences were for the northern and eastern Ugandan population. Other than strafing villages to drive the population into the camps and establishing military garrisons to restrict population movements in and out of the camps, the military and the Ugandan state did nothing to provide the basic needs of the population, but left them to the vagaries of filthy conditions, hungry, sick, unproductive and dependent on international humanitarian organisations.

Contrary to their steadfast denial until recently, the official decree ordering the creation of camps was announced by President Museveni to members of the Parliamentary Committee on Office of the President and Foreign Affairs, on September 27, 1996. As reported in The New Vision of September 29, 1996, forcible encampment of civilians would leave the countryside “open for UPDF confrontation with the marauding remnants of the (Lord’s Resistance Army-LRA) rebels (then) terrorising innocent people.”

Chua County MP Okello Okello recalls that members of the legislature from the northern region raised serious objections about the plan to move civilian population in eastern and northern Uganda to camps. In response, President Museveni agreed to consult with the military, and later informed the concerned legislators about the official government decision, but they never heard from him again.

Interestingly, in October 1996 the Presidential Advisor on Political Affairs, the notorious Maj. Kakooza Mutale, was deployed in Gulu. Maj. Mutale began to recruit and deploy a paramilitary force in Gulu called the Popular Intelligence Network (PIN) that reported directly to the President’s Office. One of their first assignments was to persuade people to move into camps. According to Maj. Mutale, President Museveni’s idea was that the camps would “enable the destruction of the intelligence centres of insurgency” (The Monitor, 30 October-1 November 1996). In their strategic thinking as elaborated by the Major: “The depopulation of the villages removes the soft targets and logistics for the survival of the rebels. They will lack food, information, and youth to abduct and people to kill. Desperation will drive them to attack the army and the camps. That will be their end”. [The New Vision, 13 November 1996].

With PIN state paramilitary partisans among the population, the resident Presidential Advisor on Military Affairs in charge of the northern insurgency, Gen. Salim Saleh, declared the end to any peace overtures and announced renewed military offensives against the LRA (New Vision, 20 June 1996; The Crusader, 18 July 1996). To break any reluctance, the army swiftly began to shell villages in Pabbo, Opit, Anaka, Cwero, Unyama, Awach, KocGoma, and Amuru (Human Rights Focus, 16-24; The Monitor, 20 November 1996). The shelling was supported with aerial bombardment. The then commander of the 4th Division, Lt. Col. James Kazini (RIP), denied this and said the shelling was from LRA (The New Vision, November 13, 1996).

The military approach to a “cleared area” was revealed by Gen. Saleh on August 7, 1996. He told journalists that, once the period covered by the military edict to civilians to leave the countryside had elapsed, the army and the state would take it for granted that “the people found in the countryside are rebels” (The Monitor, August 9-12, 1996).

Immediately, members of the Acholi Parliamentary Group (APG) sought audience with then Minister of State for Defence, Amama Mbabazi, to express concerns about the government and unconstitutional conduct of the army in the region. According to the Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiatives (ARLPI) report, Let My People Go, the Minister declared that: “Since the people in Acholi supported the rebels, the army had no choice but to move people away from their villages in order to deny the rebels food and information.” He is quoted to have further asserted that he “did not believe the reported atrocities committed by soldiers were true.” The minister later repeated the same statements to a delegation from the EU, who had visited Gulu and had in fact, voiced the same concerns (see Let My People Go, ARLPI 1990).

Once the camp policy was in place, the UPDF adopted and implemented a deliberate policy of not responding to LRA attacks on civilians, as a strategy to force those reluctant to leave their villages into camps. Moreover, the government later withdrew a large number of soldiers from the north, leaving the concentration camps unprotected.

In an attempt to shore up the security of the camps, the government came up with and accelerated a devious program that began under the stewardship of Minister Betty Bigombe of training Local Defence Units (LDU) home guards from among the camp population, to be deployed as frontline fighters against the insurgents.

By February 1995, up to 12,000 poorly trained Acholi youths had been conscripted into the LDU, given basic two weeks training and deployed to fight LRA insurgents (Sunday Vision, October 23, 1994; New Vision, December 1, 1994). Consequently, between January 7 and 12, 1997, LRA rebels allegedly murdered more than 412 men, women and children in Lokung, Padibe and Palabek, in Kitgum District. This first of a series of gruesome massacres in Acholi, triggered the first waves of flights to the so-called military detaches which were deliberately erected far away from the local villages and trading centres.

On October 4, 2002, UPDF announced a 48 - hour ultimatum to the entire Acholi population to move into camps. Those who moved into camps were put under strict movement orders enforced by the LDU and the regular UPDF. Those found outside the perimeters of the camps were treated as rebels, rebel collaborators, and sometimes shot.

The accusation of being a rebel collaborator became a convenient way of eliminating independent political organisation in the north. Thus, anti-civilian violence came to be used not just to prevent the population from building a political relationship with the rebels, but also to prevent the population from organising to demand an end to the war.

The LRA also attacked civilians they found outside the camps and the UPDF’s policy to treat anyone found outside camps as rebels or collaborators who would be killed, meant that people had no choice but to remain inside the camps. Caught in a catch-22 situation, the concentration camps thus became the deadliest killing centres and the most destructive manifestation of the Ugandan government’s anti-civilian counterinsurgency campaign.

The government policy of forced displacement and internment comprises a number of crimes under international humanitarian and human rights law. Determining the intent of a perpetrator of any crime is rarely an easy task but it can be “inferred from a systematic pattern of coordinated acts.”

Forced expulsion into harsh environments and deliberate none provision of basic amenities fall under such an interpretation. It is important to stress that intent is different from motive, and that the motivation of those committing the crime is irrelevant to determining responsibility. In the case of northern Uganda, intent has been established beyond doubt.

Article 7 (1) (d) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court 1998, declares that “[d]eportation or forcible transfer of population” constitutes a crime against humanity “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, directed against any civilian population”.

What about aid agencies?

There is a significant need to also expand the debate over post-conflict accountability in northern Uganda so as to include the complicity of humanitarian aid agencies and other external actors who were responsible for enabling and supporting the Ugandan government’s policy of forced displacement and internment. While the Ugandan government is the principal in committing these crimes, humanitarian aid agencies are accessories to those crimes and thus are also liable.

It appears that if the relief agencies had not intervened and had not continued to manage the internment camps to date, political pressure over internment would have combined with popular resistance among the people of northern Uganda to have rendered mass internment unsustainable. This leads to the conclusion that, because the humanitarian crisis was the product of displacement into the camps and because the camps could only be sustained by the massive presence of relief agencies, the relief agencies, instead of resolving the humanitarian crisis, contributed to its perpetuation.

The WFP, for instance, agreed to cooperate with forced displacement despite ‘the lack of reasonable steps taken by the Uganda government and UPDF first, to minimise displacement and second, to create conditions in which it can be brought to an end as quickly as possible’.

In continuing to manage the camps, even when inmates were dying at the rate of 1,500 per week, committing suicide at the rate of 3 inmates per day per camp, relief agencies continued to manage the internment camps making the long-term internment of the entire rural population a viable strategy for the Ugandan government, at the cost of tens upon tens of thousands of civilian lives. The excess mortality rates in the camps—deaths above the emergency-level death rate was “staggering—between 22,000 and 30,000 in the first seven and a half months of 2005, of which 8,000 to 12,000 are children under the age of five,” according to the Internally Displaced Persons Health and Mortality Survey Uganda 2005 (conducted by WHO, the International Rescue Committee and Uganda’s Ministry of Health).

Clearly, the creation and sustaining of the camps, and forced displacement and long term internment of civilian population in the camps, with little or no basic provisions, were clear violations of humanitarian laws and conventions. As much as the state and their actors are culpable for designing these policies, while knowing their consequences, aid agencies should also be held accountable for being complicit in committing crimes against humanity for sustaining the camps through providing aid to their inhabitants while knowing the state was violating international laws on internal displacement.

Samuel Olara is a human rights advocate This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Museveni succeded in deceiving the world.
written by Concerned Uganda, December 09, 2009

This government has succedded in deceiving the world about the atrocities they committed in Luwero, Northern Uganda, Teso sub region, and Congo.
The international community and media have decided on what they can call a genocide and what they will not call agenocide depending on whether the ruling president is Museveni for attrocities in Northern Uganda or Bashir for attrocities in darfur.
Mr Museveni much has you succeded in blindfolding the international community and the ugandans in central and western uganda who were asleep at that time as fellow country men and women were being butchered, But Museveni YOU WILL NOT SUCCED IN DECEIVING GOD and I will keep praying you die a very slow and painful death.

Museveni succeded in deceiving the world.
written by Concerned Uganda, December 09, 2009

To concerned Ugandan,, Low-rated comment [Show]

Let us be civilised
written by Mugwanya, December 10, 2009

Mr Olara's article is compelling and clearly illustrates that there is a case to answer by the Uganda government, how can they deny what this gentleman writes. On the other hand, i deplore the kind of attitude that both concerned Ugandan and stanley show here. Let us learn to be civilised and debate issues in a meaningful way, otherwise you loose meaning to anything good you might want to put accross. I would like to thank Mr Olara for his effort.

To Mr Stanley
written by Concerned Uganda, December 11, 2009

Mr Stanley unfortunately you are among the many that have bought Museveni's lies with out critical analysis.
Were the children recruited willingly by Kony or forcefully abducted?
Where was the updf as hundreds of ugandans were massacared in Barlonyo, the very camps that had been forcefully created to protect them?
Is it Kony that burnt the teso brothers and sisters in train wagons in mukura or it was musevenis NRA?
Hasn't it been proven that it is a Ugandan ammunition that brought down Habyarimanas plane and subsequently sparked off the Rwandan genocide?
The least can go on and on and on
Mr Stanely can you provide evidence against any of these facts.
The fact remains Museveni is a killer and I still pray for him to die a slow and painfull death.

To Mugwanya
written by Concerned Uganda, December 11, 2009

Unfortunately It is reaching a point were civilisation makes no sense to me anymore. Mother Uganda is bleeding seriously, these guyz are siphoning all the blood (read resources) that Uganda has.

Psalms 58
written by durbano, December 11, 2009

Do Not Destroy! (Luwero, Tesos, Rwanda, Congo and N Uganda, Somalia). 3 These wicked people are born sinners; even from birth they have lied and gone their own way 4 They spit poison like deadly snakes (check out presidential spechees "biological substances"); they are like cobras that refuse to listen,
5 ignoring the tunes of the snake charmers, no matter how skillfully they play (presidential term limits).
7 May they disappear like water into thirsty ground (slowly but surely - Kazini, Mayombo, etc).

Psalm 58
written by durbano, December 11, 2009

9 God will sweep them away, both young and old, faster than a pot heats on an open flame (they now have children, and grand children, didnt they say they want to rule for 50 years?).
10 The godly will rejoice when they see injustice avenged (farewell thee Kazini and mayombo). They will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked (blood in Namuwongo? not yet!! for it is writen!!!). "There truly is a reward for those who live for God; surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth."
"
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Get it right
written by Angelo, December 12, 2009

When i was young,i used to hear the then presidents ending their speeches by saying "FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY" but i have NEVER heard president M7 saying the words at the end of his speeches.That probably explains why sometimes he acts in a way that shows that he does not have the country in his heart.

Get it right
written by Angelo, December 12, 2009

Well put
written by Hajat, December 14, 2009

Mr Olara, excellent piece of work. God bless you and continue with the good work.

The MIGHTY of this WORLD!
written by OJA, December 14, 2009

M7 and his government are some of the few "mighty," "above the law" organisations and individuals of this world that can't be touched. As long as the Bushes, the Blairs etc are able to go free and account for nothing even if they have mowed and massacred thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, how can M7 account for that when he is supported by them and is one of them?The best solution in Uganda is truth and reconciliation commssion. The beginning of the NRA rebel activity up to the climax of the northern war has divided the country. To be called an Acholi, Karimojong, Lugbara, Munyankole, Westerner smells like faeces to a nose that doesn't want to receive it. I mean the prejudice bred in Uganda must be reduced otherwise the country sits on a time bomb.

International law is useless.
written by Mariusz Melniczuik, December 18, 2009

The same scenario this writer is talkings about was witnessed by many of us in Bosnia, much as Milosovic was in the Hague, we have not achieve much from his trial. The world is full of bloodthirsty individuals but because they are in most cases being supported by the west, they will always get away with murdering millions, because the very laws that were put in place to stop such activities are bent for the benefit of the west and at the expense of eastern europeans and africans.

The North needs to be reconcilled with the rest of the country
written by Matek, January 05, 2010

I have read Olara's article with keen interest and moved by the content - very true. Whilst running from the Barlonyo CAMP for my dear life towards Central Uganda (Kampala), all I could think of were the lives of those who could not make it to safety in Kampala. It was later to be true (two years down the line) that I ran away from the CAMP for a very good reason, when over 360 innocent civilians (former campmates) were deliberately murdered in cold blood. I say 'deliberately' because the general feeling among Ugandans, myself inclusive is that the millitary strategy under the guardianship of our president was designed with a hidden agenda (Read Olara's article).

The North and East need to be reconclied with the rest of the country
written by Matek, January 05, 2010

If the millitary strategy factored humanitarian suffering in it's design, not a single litre of blood would have been shed in Northern and Eastern Uganda to the scale witnessed. It can therefore be safe to conclude, even by a child born yesterday, that the intention of General Museveni was and is still questionable in the Northern and Eastern war. What General Museveni has done is to plant the seeds of hate among the children, grand children and great grand children of those who were murdered in the Museveni Northern millitary campaign. I think Museveni owes them everything for failing to protect them during the killing for he had everything under his power to do so.

The Northern war need to be seriously investigated
written by Matek, January 05, 2010

Having read the Olara's article, fresh memories of those painful deaths keeps me awake day and night. I think it will take a very long time to wipe away these memories, particularly from those who lost their dear ones, whilst Museveni and his children and grand children enjoy the proceeds of that war. I strongly believe that Uganda has got the creditentials of Olara Samuel who can stand up and defend the helpless (in Northern and Eastern Uganda) causing a proper investigation. There is a case that needs to be answered by our president (General Museveni) - failing to protect the vulnerable lives in the deliberate CAMPS he created in Northen Uganda. This can only be answered in the ICC.

The Northen war case needs to be taken to the ICC
written by Matek, January 05, 2010

Failure to take the northern war case to the ICC will make the victims of the war feel that the world including their countrymen from the rest of Uganda have let them down.