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New Vision (Kampala)February 3, 2004
Posted to the web February 3, 2004
Joyce Namutebi
Kampala UPDF soldiers have been named among the people who are raping girls in internally displaced people's (IDPs) camps in Kitgum district.Joyce Namutebi reports that the claims were made by a group of MPs yesterday following a fact-finding visit to the district last week
Parliamentary commissioner and Kampala Woman MP, Margaret Zziwa, led the team that included 10 MPs, two representatives from civil society organisations and four development partners.Addressing a press conference at Parliament, the MPs said sexual abuse was very high in the area.
They said reports showed that girls were raped by their peers, men from the camps, rebels and UPDF soldiers.The MPs said some girls were waylaid on their way to places where they take refuge, such as St. Joseph Hospital."It has increased HIV prevalence in the north to 9.5% away from the national figure of 6%," said Amon Muzora, who was part of the team.Army spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza told The New Vision, "We need to scrutinise the report."
He said he was not dismissing the fact that rape and defilement happen but, "I was in Gulu for two years and I found out that what was called rape and defilement was not so."He said he received cases where parents let their girls get married but if a soldier failed to pay dowry then he was considered a defiler or rapist until he paid.
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
