IV. Cases of Torture and Arbitrary Detention
International law forbids the use of torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
27 According to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment:âtortureâ means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.28
Uganda has ratified both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). It has not, however, made a declaration under Article 22 of the CAT allowing the Committee Against Torture, the United Nations (U.N.) body which monitors compliance with the CAT, to consider complaints by individuals from Uganda. Nor has it ratified the new Optional Protocol to the CAT allowing visits to Uganda by the Committee against Tortureâs Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.29 The Ugandan constitution also outlaws torture.30Despite these government commitments in international and national law, the Ugandan Human Rights Commission (UHRC), a government-created body,31 says, âtorture is on the increase and, during the period under review [January 2001-September 2002], more cases than ever had been receivedâ by the Commission.32 According to the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), a Ugandan human rights group, âsince 2001, many human rights violations in breach of the rights to life, liberty and security of person have been recorded.â33 Human Rights Watchâs recent interviews with prisoners and others in Uganda confirm these conclusions.The types of torture being now committed in Ugandan ungazetted illegal detention places (âsafe housesâ) include kandoya (tying hands and feet behind the victim); suspension from the ceiling while tied kandoya; water torture or âLiverpoolâ (forcing the victim to lie face up, mouth open, while the spigot is turned on into his mouth); severe beatings with hands, fists, pistols, metal rods, and wooden sticks with nails protruding; death threats, including putting the nozzle of a pistol into the victimâs mouth, showing him fresh graves, dead bodies, or snakes; putting the victim in the back of a vehicle where his captors sit or put their boots on him; abusive language and threats; and kicking with boots all parts of the body.The torture includes the gang rape of females; and mutilating the male genitalia of suspects, through kicking, beating with sticks, puncturing with hypodermic needles, and tying the penis with wire or weights. The male genital torture cases that Human Rights Watch found are far from the only ones: the UHRC ordered the government to pay damages to a man who was tortured for ninety-three days and who âis not a man anymore.â34 In many cases, victims are refused medical treatment. Some have died as a result of these and other acts.
Alleged Political Cases
The majority of cases of torture reported to Human Rights Watch concerned prisoners picked up for their actual or alleged political activitiesâthough torture is also practiced against people suspected of ordinary crimes and in cases of personal vendetta (see below, under âOperation Wembleyâ). Many of the political cases concern supporters or alleged supporters of 2001 opposition presidential candidate Kizza Besigye, the coalition that supported him known after the election as Reform Agenda, or the alleged rebel group some of his supporters are supposed to have formed, the Peopleâs Redemption Army.Other cases concern the rebel groups Allied Democratic Forces and the National Democratic Army, and their alleged followers. In several cases the individuals concerned were simply accused of treason or terrorism with no named allegiance to a particular rebel group. Many who end up bleeding in UPDF barracks and CMI offices are not combatants, but civilians. These may be persons suspected of providing money, information, goods, and/or services to the rebels, such as finding recruits. These people have been captured in their homes or fields in rural areas, often their workplaces, quite apart from any hostilities. In many cases, suspects believe they were detained only because they personally knew those alleged to be fomenting rebellion, whether from place of origin, school, living abroad, marriage, or other relationship.35Alleged Besigye Supporters/Peopleâs Redemption Army (PRA)
James36James was forcefully pulled from a bus by three uniformed men and four civilians, all armed, in October 2001. The men bundled him onto the floor of a double cabin pickup and stepped on him.âI live under fear. I have nothing to do, only to bear this. I have nothing to hide,â he said almost two years later, having lived through terrible torture, including âLiverpool,â kandoya, strangulation, and severe beatings, requiring hospitalization. He was released without charges at the end of October 2001, although the army described him in comments to the press as a âterrorist.â James had been a mobilizer for candidate Kizza Besigye in early 2001.37 A few months later he worked in the political campaign of another reform candidate for local office. At his arrest in October 1, 2001, he was taken to the Masaka UPDF barracks. He was interrogated about the whereabouts of another candidate whose election he had worked for, but mostly he was asked about Kizza Besigye: what was discussed with him, what plans did he have for activities after the elections, who helped Besigye leave the country, and so on.Then a sergeant told the soldiers, âTake him to the theatre.â He was placed on the floor, blindfolded, of what he imagined was the âtheatre.â They poured water over him and beat him with wire cables. They beat him all over his body, stepped on him with their boots, and hit him in the head with a board with nails on it; he has three scars on his head. They took off his blindfold, said, âLook here,â and slapped red peppers on his eyes. He was in tears and briefly lost consciousness. They tied his hands and his legs behind him with a sisal rope, beat him more, and poured water on him. A sergeant and a major took James out behind the barracks and told him he should say his last words before he was killed, showing him graves planted with grass, and saying, âThere are people down there, you will be one if you do not cooperate.â They told him that Kizza Besigye was a rebel and demanded that he give them details about this. He told them he had never heard anything about this but the soldiers were obviously dissatisfied with his answer. Although he could not walk because he had been beaten on the ankles and his hands and legs were still tied together with the rope, they pulled him by the rope into another room, where there was a TV and three soldiers. They put him on his stomach on the floor and stepped on his legs and hit him in the right buttocks with a hammer. He started to bleed and there was blood all over him. He could taste blood in his mouth as well. His chief tormentor strangled him until James felt he would die; the torturer put his hands around his windpipe and strangled him from behind while James was still on his stomach. They finally untied him and moved him to another room, remarking that since he had not cooperated they would let him âface the consequences.âJames wanted to run away but could not. He had cuts on his right knee, and a large bruise. His right thigh and his lower left leg were cut and later required stitches. He was taken to a uniport 38 where three other men, also badly beaten, were kept. He was ordered to touch two wires and he felt a great shock. He âfelt that I was not on earth,â and cried. After five minutes they asked if he had anything to tell them.Later he was put in a fortified room with a vent above the door, at the entrance to the barracks; he thought it was the quarter guard room.39 They pushed him inside and left him without food or waterâbut first they poured six basins of water over him as he lay on the ground. They untied his hands. His eyes pained him and he washed his eyes and tried to wash the blood off his face and body. He had no cover to sleep under and no clean water. He drank water that was left on the floor to survive. Several days later he was called to an office and given a paper to write out his statement. He protested that he did not know anything. After he spent two and a half weeks in the Masaka barracks, his mother went there to look for him, and was turned away by the soldiers. The next day she returned, with two women, insisting on seeing him, and the soldiers cocked their guns at the women to make them go away. His captors took him in a special hire car to the Kampala headquarters of CMI where he met a captain, who was shocked at the prisonerâs appearance. âI was rotting so the captain sent me to Mbuyo military hospital,â he said.He was first put in a hospital room with lice; he had to lie on the cement floor where he slept for two days on a torn rubber poncho. He heard a doctor tell someone to take him back to the barracks, as they had many casualties coming in. He was moved to a cell at the hospital gate instead, and kept in handcuffs on a small bed. He stayed there for ten or twelve days, with food at lunch, and water. He could not tell from inside the room whether it was day or night.He was released without charges later that month, but the army told him that he would be rearrested if he told anyone that he was tortured. They also told him not to move from his house. He was put under surveillance and when he left his house, he was tailed.He was afraid to go to the hospital for treatment; he went to a doctor and has medical statements and affidavits about his condition. He thought of suing, but has not. He has no faith in the system. Although he is a young man, he still cannot lift anything and has trouble bending over, writing, and when he stands up there is a pain in his chest.Adele and Ezekiel
"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
