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The East African (Nairobi)
December 22, 2003
Posted to the web December 23, 2003
David Musoke And Barbara Among
Nairobi
A NEW ARMY Bill under debate in the Uganda parliament has been criticised by the opposition, which says that it is aimed at giving President Yoweri Museveni powers to create a personal and partisan army to help him hang on to power.
James Rwanyarare, leader of the opposition Uganda People's Congress (UPC), said clause 49(4) of the Bill contradicts article 210(b) of the constitution, while clause 49(1)(2) and (3) authorises the president to recruit army personnel from either a particular ethnic group or even non-citizens and to unleash such a partisan army on the citizens of Uganda.
"This is how a huge group of Rwandese refugees, who formed the bulk of the National Resistance Army (NRA), were recruited only to return to their own country later," said Dr Rwanyarare, who last week declared his intention of contesting for the presidency in 2006.
Human rights activists, on the other hand, said the Bill tries to entrench the death penalty for serious crimes committed by soldiers.
"Although we all want to have a modern and disciplined army, we believe that this can be achieved without the application of the capital punishment," a senior official of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FRI) told The EastAfrican.
The 167-page Uganda People's Defence Forces Bill, 2003, tabled before parliament by Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi, is part of the government's efforts to modernise the once rebel army and enhance its discipline.
The minister said that the object of the Bill was to make provisions for regulation of the UPDF. In particular, said Mr Mbabazi, it makes provision for the organs and structures of the UPDF, recruitment, appointment, promotion, discipline and the removal of members of the force.
Under clause 36(1) (2) and (3) of the Bill, the president is given unchecked authority by use of a notice in the official gazette to attach or second any unit of the defence forces to military forces in East Africa.
Clause 37(1) of the bill gives unqualified powers to the president to deploy troops outside Uganda. There is no requirement for parliamentary approval before such foreign deployment; the president is only required to report the decision to parliament within four days for ratification.
Said Dr Rwanyarare: "In this sense, if the Bill is to be enacted into law, parliament will be reduced to the helpless rubber-stamp of one man's misadventures."
In 1998, without first consulting parliament, the army deployed troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to fight alongside rebels to topple the Kinshasa government.
There was an uproar in parliament as the MPs demanded the immediate withdrawal of the Ugandan troops from foreign lands.
Last year, the army again deployed deep into southern Sudan to fight Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army rebels; this too without the approval of parliament.
Among the measures the Bill introduces is the issue of drunkenness and childbearing among soldiers.
Drunkenness is an offence punishable by a prison term not exceeding seven years, while women officers are not supposed to give birth until they have served for four years. Thereafter, they can only bear children at a three-year interval.
For the first time, a code of conduct for the army has been incorporated as part of the law. It expects members of the UPDF to help members of the public in productive work and offer emergency medical treatment or other forms of assistance to the public.
One article of the code that may not go down well with multiparty supporters is the proposal that political education be mandatory for soldiers. "The education would help them understand reasons for the struggle as well as the dynamics of the world, taking into consideration the fact that conscious discipline is better than mechanical discipline," says the Bill. The Bill, the product of a three-year study on how to set up new structures suitable for a modern, disciplined and professional army, comes in the wake of a major purge in the army in which a large number of top officers and commanders were suspended pending investigations into their conduct.
They face allegations of subversion, corruption, embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds. Those found guilty will be court-martialled.
There have also been allegations that army commanders have been employing and paying salaries to "ghost" soldiers.
However, critics of the Bill say that unless the president's powers in making appointments in the armed forces are trimmed, it will be difficult to delink the army from politics and its allegiance to the nation will remain compromised.
More than half of the Bill spells out measures on how to deal with offending soldiers and the kinds of punishment they will face. However, civilians who work in the army in any capacity are also subject to military rules.
Of the 50 offences spelt out in the Bill, 15 carry the death penalty. These include cowardice in action, breaching concealment in operation, failure to protect war materials or brief troops properly in a war zone. Other capital offences are treachery, failure to command troops, disclosing confidential information, mutiny and disobeying lawful orders, failure to execute ones duties, spreading harmful propaganda, desertion, selling army vessels or failure to defend them.
