Kivumbi Earnest Benjamin: June 2009

The soldiers kept shoting at him three times,

but failed to hit him. "I started rolling and then raised my hands in surrender, so the commander ordered them to stop shooting."The UPDF beat him badly. "They started beating me in the barracks, loaded me on a vehicle and took me to Miajakulu detachment" where he said he was kicked and beaten "until they were sure my backbone was broken. I was tied in the three-point ‘‘kandoya’’ way and kicked.Arrests of Alleged Rebel CollaboratorsThe Gulu branch of the Legal Aid Project received complaints that Ugandan government authorities, mostly the UPDF, had arbitrarily detained people on treason charges, illegally detained persons in UPDF military barracks, conducted arrests without warrants, and denied detainees access to the judiciary.
Suspected civilians were arrested and kept in military barrack instead of police detention, investigations and collection of evidence were rare, torture and ill-treatment of suspects were rampant, living conditions were unsanitary and overcrowded in many cases, and some of the persons carrying out the arrests had no authority to do so. Suspects have been arrested by the UPDF, the LDUs, the police, the KAP, the CMI, and officers from various intelligence agencies connected to the Internal Security Organization (ISO). Many people arrested for alleged rebel collaboration in northern Uganda were arrested in their villages or fields, pursuant to an order whereby the government restricted movement from the internally displaced persons camps as described above.
This order resulted into a precarious situation for the population of northern Uganda. They were restricted to camps where they were vulnerable to UPDF and LRA attacks and famine (food shortages due to little space in which to garden and LRA attacks on relief food convoys), or they risked arrest for alleged rebel collaboration for trying to return to their homes and fields to plant or harvest food crops.UPDF soldiers also on many occasions go to people gardens or plantation and destroy their crops, claiming they are doing that because people in the villages are growing crops for rebels.
They also claim most Acholis are rebel collaborators.Many supporters of the political opposition are arrested, detained or killed, depending on God luck. In a region where the support for President Museveni in the last presidential elections allegedly did not exceed 20 percent, the arbitrary practice of the UPDF and security organs of arresting and incarcerating civilians created an atmosphere of fear and political repression.
According to one of the Gulu prisoners,I was politically outspoken and I had told the president [Museveni] during a rally in Gulu that he will not win 87 percent of the votes in Gulu as his campaigners promised. I had been in and out of prison for my political convictions since Museveni's NRM and political organization came to Gulu in 1986.Others are detained for treason or on rebel collaboration charges and others belong to political opposition organizations. Some were reportedly members of Uganda Young Democrats, campaigners for Kiiza Besigye's losing presidential campaign, supporters of opposition candidate Lt. Col. Okot Alenysio in his electoral campaign for local councilor-V, or campaigners for government opponent Kerobino Uma for the district chairmanship elections.
A credible source from Palatjera IDP camp reported that more than sixty people from that camp were arrested on allegations of rebel collaboration. According to him there was an arrest list in circulation with an additional 400 names on it. A human rights defender from the Ulwal IDP camp in Lamogi sub county told Human Rights Watch that arrests from the camp increased after Operation Iron Fist started, and that there were ten Luwal people charged with treason being held in the Fourth Division barracks in Gulu. The ten, all males, were arrested and some were killed and others upto now some of them are still missing. According to a credible source from Atiak camp, "In Atiak and Anaka camps every week somebody is picked up as a rebel collaborator.
Some are released, others remain in the military barracks."Rape and Sexual Abuse inflicted on mothers, sisters and young girls by UPDF soldiers.Sexual violence, including rape and defilement, appear to have risen in the north as a result of the current conflict, with adolescent girls at greatest risk. A survey found that in Gulu, girls identified "rape and defilement" as their third most important concern behind "insecurity, abduction and murder" and "displacement."
The apparent increased incidence of rape is associated with the increased presence of the UPDF and the vulnerability of the displaced population. Girls are vulnerable to sexual assault when traveling from IDP camps to work in the fields of their original homes, and when traveling into town in the evenings as "night commuters." Young boys are also at risk.There is a social stigma attached to being raped.
The perception that abused women should feel guilty and might have seduced the rapists is still prevalent in Acholiland, according to the program coordinator of Caritas' women's desk, Sister Margaret Aceng. People's Voice for Peace reports documented several cases where women were abandoned by their husbands or communities after they reported being raped to the police.
The case of Mrs. Paska, forty-eight years old, mother of eleven, and a widow, exemplifies the dilemma of many raped women. She found herself grief-stricken over being raped by UPDF soldiers and also over the death of one of the twins born as a result of the rape.
She was painted by her in-laws' comments that "`I knew the soldier or else how could he come to me.'" She stated, "My in-laws do not want this child and even my older children do not want this child."Even when the family of the rape victim is supportive, the perpetrators identified, and the case reported to the police, the result is discouraging because many women do not want to draw more attention to themselves. In addition, women may be discouraged from reporting cases of rape by soldiers because most reports are not followed through, the violators are transferred to another unit, and the case might be stuck at the local police or army detachment where it was reported.
Also two young girls who are cousins, ages thirteen years and nineteen years, were raped by two UPDF soldiers. Joanna A. and Alice O. went with Joanna's mother from the displaced persons camp where they lived to their garden in the early morning to work. Returning to the camp at about ten o'clock in the morning, they met two uniformed UPDF soldiers at a junction in the road. The soldiers told them to sit on the ground. Then they asked if they had chickens at home. The mother replied in the affirmative, and one soldier then said, "If they are there, let's go and get them."Although the mother wanted to return to the camp on the regular path, the soldiers wanted to move through the bush.
At a certain point, one of the soldiers stopped and began to prepare the ground, stepping on the grass. According to one of the teenagers, Joanna A.,‘‘He said to sit down and then ordered us to take off our clothes. First we refused, and one of the soldiers said that if we didn't, he would shoot us. Then he told us to lie down. When Alice [her cousin] didn't, one of the soldiers kicked her in the chest. My mother said "don't mistreat my children; they are very young." The darker soldier took Alice a short distance away, while the other one stayed with me. He threatened me with a gun and raped me. I was just crying.
The other soldier raped Alice. Then the darker soldier who had raped Alice called me to him and raped me too, while the other one raped Alice.’’Upon release, Joanna A., Alice O., and Joanna's mother immediately reported the rape to the camp's local councillor, the local army commander, and the local police. One of the soldiers was apprehended and taken back to the barracks, where he was reportedly beaten.
The other returned to the barracks that night and family members of the rape victims were told he was beaten also. However, two days later, the unit was transferred out of the area. That is what they normally do. They transfer the rapist and killers as a means of punishment.The soldiers don’t use condoms, and both survivors were fearful that they were infected with the HIV virus. Joanna said, "People tell us we will die.
They say the soldiers may be infected. I think about it a lot."Both Joanna and Alice were tested for the HIV virus after the rape, and the results were positive.Lt. Paddy Ankunda, the public relations officer (PRO) for the Fourth Division of the UPDF in Gulu, denied that there was a lack of legal redress for the rape victims. He insisted that, "In all cases of harassment of civilians by the army the culprits are brought to the book. We take action and follow the case. There are no cases where rapists were transferred."In Matere, Kitgum district, according to a women's rights activist, a group of women visiting a mother and her newborn were gang-raped by twenty UPDF soldiers. They had been followed to the home of the new mother by the group of soldiers.
The soldiers entered the compound and ordered the women to lie down, at gunpoint. They raped the women there and threatened them with death if the women reported the rapes: "Should we hear anything about you, you are all dead."The local councillor (LC-I) of the area witnessed and reported the case, but no identification of the soldiers was made.

http://kivumbi25.blogspot.com/2009/03/necessity-and-imperatives-of-specific.html