By Alfred Wasike
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has ordered the Police to arrest politicians threatening violence as Uganda transits towards change of political systems.




Museveni also urged the army, the Police, Prisons and other armed forces to be neutral during the July 28 referendum but remain “partisan against crime like violence and other anarchic elements who are bent on destroying our achievements so far.”

Addressing senior Police officers on “Crime Management & Surveillance” in Kampala yesterday, Museveni directed, “Lock them up. That language they are using is not good for attracting investment. Those threats worry people for nothing.”

Others present were the Director of Public Prosecutions, Richard Buteera, the Inspector General of Police, Maj. Gen. Edward Katumba Wamala and CID Director Elizabeth Kuteesa (right).

“There is no trouble in the country. The politics of Uganda is stable. I keep hearing some of these confused politicians threatening that there is a crisis. All Uganda’s problems were addressed in the 1995 Constitution,” he said.

“That is just greed. They tell me that I have not prepared a successor. But the Constitution takes care of that. While we wanted to kill off sectarianism, we championed for individual merit. We later took the initiative to open up so that those who want can leave the NRM and find new political homes. Now we are going for the referendum to let our people decide,” he said.

Museveni urged the police to “read the Constitution. It will help you to be firm in dealing with those anarchists. We have now built up a stable system. Ensure that their disruptive acts or talks stop. Discipline them. We can’t have this indiscipline any more. Be on the side of the Constitution.”

HUSSEIN BOGERE, KABONA ESIARA, AL MAHDI SENKABIRWA
KAMPALA
Riot police yesterday fired tear gas and water canons to disperse hundreds of demonstrators protesting against the move to lift presidential term limits.

The demonstration was organised by the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). It also included members of the Democratic Party, Uganda People’s Congress, JEEMA, The Free Movement and the Conservative Party.

Police deployed heavily at all the spots where the demonstrators were expected to gather or pass.

Work along Kampala Road and Parliament Avenue was interrupted for the entire morning as police battled the demonstrators.

The demonstration was meant to coincide with the first vote in Parliament on the proposal to remove term limits, a move that is widely believed will pave the way for President Yoweri Museveni to stand for re-election in 2006.
Mr Museveni’s last constitutional term expires next year.

The demonstration was planned to start from the Constitution Square at 10:00 pm.
However, police deployed more than 20 officials at the venue who confiscated the demonstrators’ placards and arrested two men from the Uganda Freedom Party (UFP).

Police claimed that the organisers of the demonstration had not informed them in advance. “The order is immediate; there is no demonstration, they should go away,” a police officer, who declined to be named, told Daily Monitor as the demonstrators were dispersed.
Kampala Regional Police Commander, Mr Oyo Nyeko, defended the police action.

“The opposition wrote to the Inspector General of Police but he wrote back calling off the demonstration,” Oyo told journalists at his office. “Parliament has to be informed 48 hours while the police have to be informed 72 hours before the demonstration can take place,” he added.

The demonstrators shouted anti-third term slogans and carried several placards denouncing the no-term limits proponents. Some of them read, “253 MPs cannot decide for 24 million Ugandans. Please say no to third term;” “MPs, don’t murder our constitution, yours peasants;” “US and the donor community, come and save us;” “Pearl of Africa is Pearl of Mafia;” and “What shall we tell the children in the north born in camps?”

Realising that they had been outnumbered, the demonstrators, mostly male youths, retreated to Crest House along Station Road singing anti-third term songs.

From there the procession comprising boda boda riders and seven mini buses moved along Nkrumah Road, to Owino, Ben Kiwanuka Street, past CPS, Speke Road before joining Kampala Road.

Battle begins
What had progressed as a peaceful march suddenly became violent when police deployed five pick-up truckloads of riot police and a spray truck at the junction of Kampala Road and Parliament Avenue. The demonstrators now numbering over 100 were sprayed with peppered water. A pick-up truck carrying some of the demonstrators was abandoned in the main road.

But the protestors did not take the punishment lying down. They threw stones at the police.
The crowd soon melted, only to re-emerge in front of Parliament.

But the police were there too. One parked car’s windshield was left shattered after a police rubber bullet blasted through it. Workers at Stanbic Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Nile Bank and other nearby offices were seen inhaling through their handkerchiefs as the area around Parliament Avenue was filled with tear gas.
The scuffle also attracted several MPs from Parliament where business too came to a brief halt.

As time went by, the crowd grew smaller and eventually disappeared by 2:00 pm.
Conspicuously, apart from the FDC’s Beti Kamya and James Musinguzi, there were no other opposition leaders in sight.

Reposted from Monitor Media

BBC:




Mark Doyle follows in the footsteps of revolutionary Che Guevara in Uvira, in the south-east of the country.
Almost 40 years ago, the mountains towering above this lakeside town in South Kivu province were the scene of some of the opening shots in DR Congo's post-colonial wars.

In 1965, with the world on a tense Cold War footing, the Latin American revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara came here to try to spark a left-wing revolution.
Che aimed to pit himself against what he called the "Yankee Imperialists" whom he saw as backing compliant pro-western candidates for power in DR Congo.

Kabila encounter

Among Che's would-be Congolese allies was the then 26-year-old Laurent Kabila, who he met in the Fizi Baraka mountains, now soaring up above me from the Ruzizi River Plain which empties into Lake Tanganyika at the town of Uvira.

Laurent Kabila did eventually come to power, in 1997. But the revolution he headed was far from left-wing.
He ousted the ailing President Mobutu Sese Seko after forming a tactical alliance with neighbouring Rwanda.

Rwanda wanted Mobutu deposed because he had hosted the defeated Hutu army which had orchestrated the genocide of Tutsis and other government opponents in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Che diaries

But Rwanda lived to regret its choice of Kabila as an ally in the 1996 invasion of DR Congo.

He turned against them after coming to power in 1997, a switch which rekindled the war in DR Congo as Rwanda attacked again - not with Kabila this time, but against him.

Che's recently published personal diaries make it clear that he was unimpressed by Kabila.

Perhaps if the Rwandans and their American advisers had had better intelligence from the Cold War period, they would not have made such a costly mistake.

Unmitigated disaster

Che Guevara's seven-month stay in the Fizi Baraka mountains was, as he admits himself, an "unmitigated disaster".

The mercenary Colonel "Mad Mike" Hoare, who had been contracted by the American-influenced government in Kinshasa, squeezed Che's small Cuban force into an ever smaller area until he had to escape back across Lake Tanganyika into the then-friendly territory of revolutionary Tanzania.
Today, this region is no less pivotal to the war, and potentially the peace process, in the DR Congo.

I drove, with a military escort of UN soldiers from Uruguay, up the Ruzizi River plain from the town of Uvira to the village of Kamanyola which is on the border with Rwanda.

Rebel complaints

Along just 50km of road I encountered such a variety of armed groups that I began to think of the Ruzizi Plains as the theatre of a wider Congolese war, but in miniature.

The first roadblock (ostensibly to denote territory but also to levy illegal taxes) was near the village of Kiliba.

The armed men there were polite to their surprise BBC guest, but uninformative.

They belonged to the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD).

Originally backed by Rwanda, the rebel RCD controlled Uvira until June when they were ousted by forces loyal to the government.

A young RCD major in uniform broke off from a meeting of officers to complain to me about his conditions in the bush.

Protected warriors

The RCD is now a major component of the coalition transitional government in Kinshasa - although it is regularly accused of still taking orders from Rwanda.

A few more kilometres up the road, past the village of Sange, was another checkpoint.

This was ostensibly manned by the pro-Congolese government militia known as the Mai Mai after the water they douse themselves with to create a magical, bullet-proof shield.

A young man - who said he was 25 but looked no more than 17 - said he was the commander of the post.

A well-informed source in the area told me that this checkpoint was in fact shared between the Mai Mai and anti-Rwandan government rebels that have a base in DR Congo in the hills above the Ruzizi Plain.

"They share the loot", said the source, who asked not to be named.

There were numerous other checkpoints - at least a dozen in total - but many of these were quickly dismantled as the men with guns saw the small Uruguayan army convoy approach.

It would have been very different if we had been ordinary Congolese civilians.

Sane comment

Along the road, I came across a village which had been attacked by one of the groups because they were perceived to support another.

The villagers were clearly terrified, hungry and desperate.
My last stop was the village of Kamanyola, on the border with Rwanda.

Tired now of men with guns, I was relieved to do something ordinary.

I bought some tomatoes and pineapples for a snack and visited a school.

A teacher there said one of the sanest things I had heard all day: "The situation here is very bad", he explained, "because we fear war at any moment."

Joram Jojo:

Play Video

People's media:




Brothers and Sisters:

First and Only - We are informing you that, since the middle of 2002, the EZLN has been engaged in a process of reorganizing its political-military structure. This internal reorganization has now been completed.

We have the necessary conditions in place to survive an attack or enemy action that would do away with our current leadership or which would attempt to annihilate us completely.

The chains of command and the succession of responsibilities have been clearly established, as well as those actions and measures to be taken in the event of being attacked by government forces and their paramilitaries.

The CCRI-CG of the EZLN is letting it be known that conditions are in place to continue leading the zapatista struggle even if it were to lose – be it through jail, through death or through forced disappearance – some or all of its publicly known current leadership.





To National and International Civil Society:

Señora, señorita, señor, young person, boy, girl:

This is not a letter of farewell. At times it is going to seem as if it is, that it is a farewell, but it is not. It is a letter of explanation. Well, that is what we shall attempt. This was originally going to go out as a communiqué, but we have chosen this form because, for good or for bad, when we have spoken with you we have almost always done so in this most personal tone.

We are the men, women, children and old ones of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Perhaps you remember us - we rose up in arms on January 1, 1994, and ever since then we have kept up our war against the forgetting, and we have resisted the war of extermination which the different governments have waged, unsuccessfully, against us. We live in the furthest corner of this country which is called Mexico. In that corner which is called "Indian Peoples." Yes, like that, plural. Because, for reasons we shall not give here, the plural is used in this corner for everything: we suffer, we die, we fight, we resist.

Now, as you know quite well, it so happens that, ever since that dawn of the beginning of '94, we have dedicated our struggle - first with fire and then with the word - our efforts, our life and our death, exclusively to the Indian peoples of Mexico for the recognition of their rights and their culture. It was natural - we zapatistas are overwhelmingly indigenous. Mayan indigenous, to be more precise. But, in addition, the indigenous in this country - despite having been the foundation of this Nation's great transformations - are still the social group which has been the most attacked and the most exploited. If they have shown no mercy against anyone with their military wars and the wars disguised as "political", the wars of usurpation, of conquest, of annihilation, of marginalization, of ignorance - it has been against the indigenous. The war against us has been so intense and brutal that it has become routine to think that the indigenous will only be able to escape from their conditions of marginalization and poverty if they stop being indigenous...or if they are dead. We have been fighting to not die and to not cease being indigenous. We have fought to be - alive and indigenous - part of this nation which has been lifted up over our backs. The Nation for whom we have been the feet (almost always unshod) with which it has walked in its decisive moments. The Nation for whom we have been the arms and hands which have made the earth bear fruit and which have erected the large buildings, edifices, churches and palaces that those who have everything take such pride in. The Nation of which - through word, look and manner, that is, through culture - we are the root.

Are we raining insult upon injury? Perhaps it's because we are in June, the sixth month of the year. Well, we just wanted to point out that the beginning of our uprising was not just a "Here we are", shouted to a Nation that was deaf and dumb because of the authoritarianism above. It was also a "This is what we are and shall continue to be...but now with dignity, with democracy, with justice, with liberty." You know this quite well, because, among other things, you have been accompanying us since then.

Unfortunately, after more than 7 years committed to that path, in April of 2001, politicians from all the parties (primarily the PRI, PAN and PRD) and the self-styled "three branches of the Union" (the presidency, the congress and the courts) formed an alliance in order to deny the Indian peoples of Mexico the constitutional recognition of their rights and culture. And they did so without caring about the great national and international movement which had arisen and joined together for that purpose. The great majority, including the media, were in agreement that that debt should be settled. But the politicians don't care about anything that doesn't get them money, and they rejected the same proposal that they had approved years before when the San Andrés Accords were signed and the Cocopa drafted a proposal for constitutional reform. They did so because they thought that, after a little time had passed, everyone would forget. And perhaps many people forgot, but we did not. We have memory, and it was they: the PRI, the PAN, the PRD, the President of the Republic, the deputies and senators and the justices of the Supreme Court of the Nation. Yes, the Indian peoples continue today in the underbelly of this Nation, and they continue to suffer the same racism they have for 500 years. It doesn't matter what they are saying now, when they are preparing for the elections (in other words, to secure positions that will make them profits): they are not going to do anything for the good of the majority, nor are they going to listen to anything that isn't money.

If we zapatistas pride ourselves on anything it's honoring the word, the honest and principled word. All this time we have been telling you that we will try the path of dialogue and negotiation in order to achieve our demands. We told you that we would make great efforts in the peaceful struggle. We told you that we would focus on the indigenous struggle. And so it has been. We have not deceived you.

All the help which you have so generously contributed to this noble cause and through those means has been for that and for nothing else. We have used nothing for anything else. All the humanitarian help and aid which we have received from Mexico and from throughout the world has been used only for improving the living conditions of the zapatista indigenous communities and in peaceful initiatives for the recognition of indigenous rights and culture. Nothing of what was received has been used for the acquisition of arms or for any war preparations. Not only because we haven't needed it (the EZLN has maintained its military capacity intact since 1994), but above all because it wouldn't have been honest to tell you that your help was for one thing and to use it for another. Not one centavo of the help received for peace with justice and dignity has been used for war. We have not needed help for making war. For peace, yes.

We have, of course, used our word to refer to (and in some cases to express our solidarity with) other struggles in Mexico and the world, but just that far. And many times, knowing that we could do more, we had to contain ourselves, because our efforts - as we had told you - were exclusively by and for the indigenous.

It has not been easy. Do you remember the March of the1,111? The Consulta of 5000 in 1999? The March of the Color of the Earth in 2001? Well, imagine then what we felt when we saw and heard the injustices and the hatred directed against campesinos, workers, students, teachers, working persons, homosexuals and lesbians, young people, women, old ones, children. Imagine what our heart felt.

We were touched by a pain, a fury, an indignation which we already knew because it has been, and is, ours. But now we were touched by it in the other. And we heard the "we" which inspires us wanting to become larger, to make itself more collective, more national. But no, we had said just the indigenous, and we had to honor that. I believe it's because of our way - in other words, that we would prefer to die before we would betray our word.

Now we are consulting with our heart in order to see if we are going to say and do something else. If the majority says yes, then we are going to do everything possible to honor it. Everything, even dying if it's necessary. We do not want to appear dramatic. We are only saying it in order to make it clear how far we are willing to go.. In other words, not "until they give us a position, an amount of money, a promise, a candidacy."

Perhaps some may remember how, six months ago, we started with the "what is missing is missing." Then fine, as is obvious, the hour has arrived to decide whether we are going to proceed to find what is missing. Not to find, to build. Yes, to build "something else."

In some of the communiqués of the past few days, we let you know that we have entered into an internal consulta. We shall soon have the results, and we will inform you of them. Meanwhile then, we are taking the opportunity to write you. We have always spoken to you with sincerity, and also to those who are our heart and guardian, our Votan Zapata, the zapatista communities, our collective command.

It will be a difficult and hard decision, just as our life and our struggle have been. For four years we have been preparing the conditions in order to present our peoples with doors and windows so that, when the moment comes, everyone had all the ingredients in place for choosing which window to peer through and which door to open. And that is our way. In other words, the EZLN leadership does not lead, rather it seeks paths, steps, company, direction, pace, destination. Several. And then they present the peoples with those paths, and they analyze with them what would happen if we follow one or the other course. Because, depending on the path we travel, there are things which will be good and things which will be bad. And then they - the zapatista communities - speak their thoughts and decide, after discussing and by majority, where we are all going. And then they give the order, and then the EZLN leadership has to organize the work or prepare what is needed to walk that path. Of course the EZLN leadership doesn't just look at what happens only to them, but they have to be bound to the peoples and to touch their hearts and to make themselves, as they say, the same thing. Then it becomes all our gazes, all our ear, all our thoughts, all our heart. But what if, for whatever reason, the leadership does not look, or hear, or think, or feel like all of us. Or some parts aren't seen or something else isn't heard or other thoughts aren't thought or felt. Well, then, that is why everyone is consulted. That is why everyone is asked. That is why agreement is taken among everyone. If the majority says no, then the leadership has to seek another way, and to present another way to the peoples in order to propose until we collectively reach a decision. In other words, the people govern.

Now the collective which we are will make a decision. They are weighing the pros and cons. They are carefully making the calculations, what is lost and what is gained. And, seeing that there is not a little to be lost, it will be decided whether it is worth it.

Perhaps, in some people's scales, there will be much weight given to what we have achieved. Perhaps, in other people's scales, there will be more weight given to the indignation and shame caused by seeing our earth and skies destroyed by the stupid avarice of Power. In any event, we cannot remain passive, just contemplating, as a gang of ruffians strips our Patria of everything that gives it and everyone existence: dignity.

Ah, well, many turns now. We are writing you for what may be the last time in order to give you back your promised word of support. It is not little that we have achieved in the indigenous struggle, and that has been - as we have told you in public and in private - because of your help. We believe you can be proud, without any shame, of all the good that we zapatistas, along with you, have built up to this point. And know that it has been an honor, undeserved in any light, that people like you have walked at our side.

Now we shall decide whether we are going to do something else, and we will make the results public at the proper time. We are now making clear - in order to end the speculations - that this "other thing" does not entail any offensive military action on our part. We are not, on our part, planning nor discussing reinitiating offensive military combat. Ever since February-March of 1994 our entire military presence has been, and is, defensive. The government should say whether, on its part, there are any offensive war preparations, whether by the federal forces or by their paramilitaries. And the PRI and the PRD should say if they are planning any attack against us with the paramilitaries they are supporting in Chiapas.

If it is the decision of the zapatista majority, those who have helped us up to now in the exclusively indigenous struggle can, without any shame or regret, distance themselves from the "other thing" to which Comandante Tacho referred in the San Cristóbal de Las Casas plaza in January of 2003, two and a half years ago. In addition, there is a communiqué which establishes, from here out, that release and which can be presented in a job application, curriculum vitae, coffee klatch, editorial office, roundtable, grandstand, forum, stage, book jacket, footnote, colloquium, candidacy, book of regrets or newspaper column and which, in addition, has the advantage of being able to be exhibited as defense evidence in any court (don't laugh, there's a precedent: in 1994, some indigenous detained by the bad government - and who weren't zapatistas - were released by a judge, validating a letter from the CCRI-CG in which it released those persons from what the EZLN had done. In other words, as the lawyers say, "there is legal precedent").

But those who find in their heart an echo, even if it is small, of our new word and who feel themselves called by the path, step, pace, company and destination which we have chosen, may perhaps decide to renew their help (or to participate directly)...knowing that it will be "another thing". Like that, without tricks, without deceit, without hypocrisy, without lies.

We thank the women. All the girls, teenagers, young women, señoritas, señoras and old ones (and those who were changing from one to the other of those calendars throughout these 12 years) who helped us, who accompanied us and who, not a few times, made our pain and our steps their own. To all of them, Mexicans and from other countries, who helped us and who walked with us. In everything we did you were the huge majority. Perhaps because we share along with you, although each in their own way and place, discrimination, contempt...and death.

We thank the national indigenous movement, which did not sell itself for government posts, for travel allowances, for the flattery that the powerful classify as "fit for indigenous and animals." The one which listened to our word and gave us theirs. The one which opened its heart, its home, to us. The one which resisted and resists with dignity, raising very high the color we are of the earth.

We thank the young men and women of Mexico and of the world. Those who were boys, girls or teenagers that '94 and who nobly grew up without holding back their eyes or their ears. Those who reached youth or, despite the pages torn from the calendar, remained there, extending the hand of their rebellion to our dark hand. Those who chose to come and share days, weeks, months, years, our dignified poverty, our struggle, our hope and our foolish endeavor.

We thank the homosexuals, lesbians, transsexuals, transgender persons and "everyone in their own way." Those who shared with us their struggle for respect for difference, knowing that it is not a defect to be hidden. Those who demonstrated that courage has nothing to do with testosterone and who, time and again, gave us some of the most beautiful lessons of dignity and nobility we have received.

We thank the intellectuals, artists and scientists, from Mexico and the world, who helped us in the struggle for the indigenous. Few movements or organizations can pride themselves on having had the backing (always critical, and we thank them for that) of so much intelligence, ingenuity and creativity. You already know that we always listened to you with respect and attention, even when we didn't share your points of view and that something of the light you shone helped to illuminate our dark paths.

We thank the honest workers of the press and the decent media who showed, truthfully and to the entire world, what they saw and heard, and who respected, without distorting, our voice and path. We extend you our solidarity in these hard moments you are going through in the exercise of your profession, where you are risking your lives, you are attacked and, like us, you find no justice.

And, so that no one is missed, we thank everyone who, honestly and sincerely, helped us.

I said, at the beginning of this letter, that it was not a farewell. Well, it so happens that for some people it is. Although for others it will be what is, in reality, a promise...Because what is missing can now be seen...

Vale. Salud and, from heart to heart, thank you for everything.

In the name of all the zapatistas of the EZLN.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

By Joram Jojo:
"They would just pretend to be paying, sign nowhere and carry the money back, leaving those present crying for their money. They would chase me and my group and tell us to go away."




Full Report
Part2
Part3
Part4

90% of UPDF officers are naturally thieves. Major Gen Kazini at the tender age of seven, he used to steal tomatoes from the local market.

A model of the Virunga Mountains, Gorillas in the Mist' nature preserve, straddling the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.The elevation data is from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), which was designed to produce the first detailed near-global elevation model. The SRTM data was acquired in February 2000 during a flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.







We thought the Marathon project would be a very interesting experiment: No one knows how this Clandestine radio project might become. Recycling green technology, Kisoro anarchists came-up with this idea that new-media could be recycled into a clandestine radio stream and we could broadcast a people's radio from Muhavura(Virunga) mountains.

Project proposal: Alluta
24hr Live radio

Project Duration: 1 month

Content:Global community magazine, political sound-bites & Music

Participants: Open to all freedom fighters Mail:

Cost: energy & dedication

After Week 1
Free itunes download:
After Week 2





Week three: An experiment with a tabloid newspaper

By Cyprian Musoke
MAJOR Roland Kakooza Mutale’s Kalangala Action Plan (KAP) and other soldiers have been warned not to get involved in land evictions that have rocked Kiboga district, leaving a number of people dead.
State minister for lands Baguma Isoke said it is the duty of the Police, LCs and the district security committee to oversee eviction of any unlawful occupants.
Addressing Kiboga district leaders at the council hall over the land matters yesterday, Baguma said land disputes were a civil not a military matter.
“Kakooza Mutale comes here yet you (pointing at Police officers) are here? What is your role? Have you failed to protect the citizens and their property? This nonsense and abuse of office must stop. They (Mutale’s group) have caused disorder and breach of peace. My heart is bleeding!” said Baguma passionately.
The meeting had earlier been informed by the Kiboga district chairman, Siraje Nkugwa, that Mutale and ‘men in military uniform’ were to blame for the vicious land upheavals in the district.
“Kakooza Mutale came here, purporting to solve land disputes. Men from his office have come twice to my office, asking to intervene in land disputes and I told them to proceed only if the law covers them,” Nkugwa said.
He said he later heard that the ‘army men’ were causing havoc and that when the civil
ians realised that the Police was not protecting them, they picked their machetes (pangas) to wage war.
He said there was a group of notorious rich land dealers in Kampala who forge court orders, buy military and private security groups in town and pay area LCs to allow them evict people.
He pointed out a man only identified as Ssanyu, now in Luzira prison, who was arrested with a fake court order while enforcing an eviction.
Speaking in a mixture of Runyoro and English, a visibly vexed Baguma, who called the leaders by their first names, repeatedly banged the table to express disgust at the anarchy in his mother district.
“In Uganda, Kiboga is number one in being disorderly. You don’t know the rule of law and you don’t follow hierarchy. Nowhere in Uganda is such anarchy as is in your district, my mother district,” he said, looking at the chairman Nkugwa (right) and the RDC behind him.
He said while Kibaale district had more land cases, there was no anarchy as was the case in Kiboga.
“Your district does not have a good name in government. The President yesterday showed me files and files. When I told him that this meeting would try to solve some cases, he reluctantly said ‘may be’,” Baguma said.
He criticised the district leaders for not making the land a priority, by obtaining land titles that they could use to acquire credit to develop themselves.
He said they were sleeping on their riches while the people in western Uganda, who acquired titles to every piece of land, have left them behind.
The minister said he was shocked to learn that the district lacks a valuer, a physical planner and a land committee.
“Why are you sleeping here? I want you to become rich. Does any one of you here have a full suit?” he asked, looking around the room in which no one wore a suit or looked exquisitely dressed

Human Rights Watch

Detainees Must Not Be Held in Clandestine 'Safe Houses'

The Ugandan government must prosecute perpetrators of torture, said Human Rights Watch and the Ugandan-based Foundation for Human Rights Initiative today.

Last week during its session in Geneva, the United Nations Committee Against Torture reviewed Uganda's initial report. In its report, the Ugandan government explained measures it has taken against torture to comply with its obligations under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. On Friday this week, the U.N. committee is scheduled to publish its conclusions and recommendations to Uganda.

In a 14 dossier
submitted to the U.N. committee, Human Rights Watch and the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative documented recent cases of torture by Ugandan security forces against political opponents, alleged rebels and criminal suspects.

"Torture persists in Uganda because no one is investigated or punished for it," said Livingstone Sewanyana, director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, based in the capital Kampala. "If the government were serious about stopping torture, it would end this state of impunity."

The briefing paper shows that torture frequently occurs when suspects are held by agencies other than the regular police. These bodies notably include the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JAT), the army, Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), and the Violent Crime Crack Unit (VCCU).

"Suspects are sometimes held in 'safe houses' by military and intelligence agents," said Juliane Kippenberg, researcher in the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "The use of such shadowy, unofficial places of detention makes torture much more likely."

Human Rights Watch said that the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force uses a large house in Kampala's upscale Kololo neighborhood for interrogating and torturing detainees. This clandestine "safe house" is located next to an ambassador's residence.

Last week, in the presentation of its report to the Committee Against Torture, the Ugandan government described current legislation and administrative measures on arrest and detention. However, the report made little reference to how Ugandan security forces apply these laws in practice.

"Practices of torture erode government credibility, traumatize society and cause fear," said Sewanyana. "The United Nations should urge the Ugandan government to tackle the roots of torture head-on."

In a written response to Human Rights Watch and the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, the Ugandan government denied allegations that its security agents practice torture and stated:

"Allegations concerning mistreatment of opposition politicians, e.g. FDC and Reform Agenda are unfounded."

"The alleged JAT detention centre in Kololo is actually an office block used by the JAT and is neither used for torture nor detention of suspects."

"Access to prison and military facilities has often been granted to the Uganda Human Rights Commission, the ICRC and Parliamentary Committees whenever they have expressed interest in visiting. However, there are regulations world-wide on visits to security installations due to the nature of activities in such places."

"There is no confusing array of security organs in Uganda as alleged by the report. Different security organs have different roles and responsibilities as defined under their statutes Under Ugandan laws it is not only the police that have powers to arrest and even private citizens may arrest and hand over culprits to the police."

"We believe that dialogue with the Ugandan government about torture is critical to ending it," said Juliane Kippenberg. "However, we take issue with the government's denial of the fact that torture is widely practiced by Ugandan security forces."

Human Rights Watch and the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative called on the Ugandan government to enact legislation to punish perpetrators of torture and those who maintain and use "safe houses" and to change legal provisions that mandate detention of treason and terrorism suspects for 360 days after preliminary charges are filed, without bail.

"The Ugandan authorities need to close down unofficial places of detention and make criminal prosecution of torture a priority," Kippenberg said.

Uganda should also ratify the U.N. Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, which allows national and international monitors to conduct regular visits to all places of detention.