Page 2798 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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Every State parliament, together with the ACT Legislative Assembly, is being asked to pass a motion in a similar form to the one which appears on the notice paper today. I am not sure about this, but the ACT may be the first parliament to in fact do this. I understand that the New South Wales Parliament will be considering a motion very soon, but I think that the ACT is the very first parliament to do so. This motion will also mesh with activities of non-parliamentary members of Amnesty International, and it is designed to demonstrate the wide concern across Australia about the position of human rights in Uganda and hopefully to persuade the authorities of Uganda that abuses are indeed very much in the international consciousness, in the international spotlight, and should not be allowed to continue.
What is the general position in Uganda at the present time? Uganda, of course, is a small landlocked country in east Africa. It was formerly a British colony and, since 1962, has been a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was once a very rich country, a veritable breadbasket of Africa. It was stable and it had a great deal of promise. It had a very high level of missionary activity in earlier decades, and as a result some 60 per cent of Ugandans are Christian. It also contained some of Africa's very best universities. The situation today, unfortunately, is less happy.
Since Uganda's independence in 1962 it has experienced a succession of repressive governments. The most notorious perhaps is the Government of General Idi Amin from 1971 to 1979 but unfortunately, in many respects, that has not been the worst government that Uganda has experienced. Indeed, until recently, in terms of human rights abuses, each government appeared to be worse than its predecessor. In 1986 Yoweri Museveni came to power, and he heads a government called the National Resistance Movement Government. Ostensibly, this Government has managed to improve the situation in Uganda with respect to human rights. It consists, at least ostensibly, of members of all four main political parties in that country. The Government has articulated on several occasions its commitment towards the maintenance and promotion of human rights in that country.
Madam Speaker, Uganda is very anxious to improve its position in the perception of the rest of the world in order to at least improve its position with respect to the granting of aid, but I regret to say that a disturbing pattern of human rights abuses in that country remains. If we examine the situation, we see a position which is not at all encouraging. In many places in Uganda at the present time fighting occurs between government and insurgency forces. There is a consistent pattern of extrajudicial executions by troops of the National Resistance Army of armed civilians and prisoners who have been involved in counterinsurgency operations over the past six years. There has been, and continues to be, unlawful detention of civilians without charge or trial. There have been persistent reports of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners in military custody. Torture, unfortunately, is apparently a very widespread and commonly used device by security forces in that country. Some victims are reported to have been tortured to the point of death. There is a widespread use within the judicial system of the charge of treason against prisoners of the Government. That charge appears to be in common use, particularly where it is not apparent that any other more specific charge is available against members of the community. The death penalty is also widely used in Uganda.
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