Page 2801 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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One of the tools used to maintain a power base in many regimes that I have been made aware of since joining Amnesty is that of detention without charge and using serious charges as an excuse to detain opponents. In Australia we recognise that these practices are unacceptable. While silencing opposition may be seen as desirable at times, in Australia dissent is tolerated. We must urge other governments to accept this view, and we can do this to an extent with the passage of this motion. By allowing such measures as summary trial of military personnel to be used against its citizens, the Ugandan Government is not showing a commitment to human rights practice, regardless of its stated commitment to human rights education.
Madam Speaker, by supporting this motion, we are urging the Ugandan Government to "fully implement the international human rights treaties which it has acceded to, and to submit periodic reports on the implementation of those treaties", and we are further calling on it to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In carrying out these obligations under international human rights conventions, Uganda would signal its intention to live up to the expectations raised by President Yoweri Museveni when addressing the forty-second General Assembly of the United Nations in 1987. He said:
The Uganda Government under the National Resistance Movement begins first and foremost with an unswerving commitment to the respect of human rights and to the sanctity of life.
Those were proud words. However, the evidence put forward by Amnesty has shown what a hard task that has been, and that in fact in the five years since that speech was made the aim has not been met. What we, as one parliament of many thousands around the world, are doing by passing this motion is acknowledging that the change was always going to be a large and difficult one. We acknowledge that there has been progress in the Ugandan human rights record in the recent past and that we support the Ugandan Government's efforts to further improve conditions for the Ugandan people. But there needs to be real and tangible change, and democratic governments around the world should urge and support the implementation of these changes as soon as is possible.
With Ugandan elections scheduled for 1995, the greatest variety of political views needs to be nurtured and allowed to be expressed. Elections have already been delayed once and should not be delayed any further. Planning for elections takes time and, for the Ugandan people to have their say, they need to be exposed to the fullest range of views. Opposition cannot be allowed to be quashed. Abuse of human rights only breeds fear and opposition among the people. As members of this Assembly, we need to join with our parliamentary colleagues elsewhere in urging the Ugandan Government to recognise that its best interests internationally will be served by ensuring that human rights are both observed and developed as intrinsic rights. Madam Speaker, I commend the motion to the Assembly.
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