Stakeholder Dialogue in Support of Victims/Survivors of Torture in Northern Uganda

On Wednesday, 25^th July I, along with internship supervisors from the Centre for Rehabilitation and Reconciliation and fellow students William Shows and Elliot Bertasi observed the 25^th Anniversary of the Convention Against Torture by attending the Stakeholder Dialogue in Support of Victims/Survivors of Torture in Northern Uganda held at the Bomah Hotel, Gulu Municipality. The occasion was moderated by Patrick Amihere, Team Leader and UN Human Rights Officer for Gulu District, in conjunction with the resident judge of Gulu District. Sponsored attendees included victims/survivors of torture who provided personal testimonies, the Regional UPDF Commander, representatives from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Local Council V (LCV) representative for Gulu District, the Regional District Commissioner (RDC) for Gulu District, and representatives from the UN Human Rights Council (UHRC), the African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (ACTV) and Human Rights Focus (HURIFO).

According to the UHRC,“Torture is still an everyday problem for victims,” but he admitted to not having concrete statistics due to late notice of the conference.  Although there was recognition that perpetrators of torture are broad in spectrum, the overwhelming majority of victims/ survivors identify the police or the military as the perpetrators. The LCV Representative provided the opening remarks for Uganda’s Anti-Torture Bill 2010 [The Prohibition and Prevention of Torture Bill, 2009] that, modeled after the human rights legislature used in the Philippines, is pending presidential consent. The Deputy Country Representative for OHCHR provided a brief overview of the history and milestones in the development of the bill. Following the overview, a representative for ACTV highlighted its key pillars: 1) it adheres to the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT)’s definition of torture 2) criminalizes torture, assesses complicity and addresses repatriation 3) examines accessories to torture to assign accountability [members of household and domestic violence are excluded] and incorporate mechanisms for assigning individual responsibility 4) provides witness protection for persons reporting torture 5) states that information derived from torture will not be used in court 6) assigns cases involving torture to the Chief Magistrate Courts and 7) addresses the role of the courts in providing compensation, rehabilitation and/or restitution for victims/survivors of torture.

An interesting and unexpected turn of the conference was the focus on Uganda’s high rate of domestic violence. The honoured guest and resident judge gave a speech on the obligations of the state in “promoting and protecting human-rights mechanisms in place and with respect to the domestication of CAT,” which he extended to domestic violence. His immediate objective was to alert police, army and other public officials to not only the frequency, but severity of domestic violence cases, some of which qualify as torture under the new bill. Referencing two domestic homicide cases over which he presided this spring, he outlined how domestic violence led to the death of a spouse in one case, and torture prior to death in the other. Currently, there is a bill for the prohibition and prevention of domestic violence that is awaiting presidential endorsement. Once both bills pass into law, domestic violence will carry a maximum 2 year prison sentence and torture will carry a maximum sentence of 18.  The lawyer from CRR with whom I was attending the conference asked the Deputy Country Representative for Human Rights how the courts will proceed with domestic violence cases that also qualify as torture. Although her question went unanswered, a reading of both bills points to the potential for dual-conviction and joint prison sentencing.   

The broader point that the resident judge made dealt with issues of causality. He said that violence in any form was not born out of war, but rather amplified and that it has eroded the moral fabric of Ugandan social and cultural society. He cited the preponderance of land disputes that resulted from war-generated dispossession, displacement and generational gaps. He also cited the disproportionate and appalling nature of domestic violence following petty martial disputes (examples given were power struggles over gender roles, household spending, and the leading culprit—accusations of adultery) is often the physical manifestation of deeper, untreated psychosocial trauma whether directly or indirectly caused by the war. Indeed, the details of each case—both from districts in northern Uganda— indicate that the war, though ended, left a scarred society in its wake. Torture is a horrible historical reality in Uganda that the Anti-Torture Bill strives to cease.  Unfortunately, the courts and NGOs like CRR confirm that torture is still part and parcel of the everyday fabric of life; in this patriarchal society, this is particularly the case for women and children.

There seemed to be a lot of confusion regarding issues of causality, which poses challenges to finding a productive way forward with the implementation and domestication of both bills. ACTV felt that psychosocial issues, which they holistically treat, are the unambiguous bi-product of two decades of war.  Others, namely representatives from the military and police force felt that community, family, and individual problems, underscored by a lack of education and a youthful population that is “drunk on freedom” were the root causes of violence in the home and in society at large. According to the police and the military, the general population is undisciplined and fails to respect the rule of law. According to victims/survivors and third party organizations dedicated to their medical and psychosocial rehabilitation, the police and military rank number one on the list of perpetrators, the courts fail to follow through with financial compensation and there is an overall struggle to assign accountability to anyone.  The courts would like to see perpetrators dispense financial compensation to their victims, a responsibility currently assumed by the state. The only statistics that were given by the UHRC stated that  of the 20 cases before the court this year, 19 out of 20 ruled in favor of the victims and 7 were awarded governmental compensation. However, there have been consistent struggles with the appropriation of state/ governmental compensation due to a lack of transparency and accountability. Several of the victims present were awarded compensation in the form of millions of shillings but never received the money. In short, there was a lot of rhetorical finger-pointing. Four of the five victims who gave their testimonies identified the UPDF, the police and/or government- prison staff as their perpetrators. The UPDF and police representatives present felt marginalized as the only parties blamed for committing acts of torture, defilement, cruel or inhumane treatment. Several questioned the validity of victim’s testimonies, claimed that war is fraught with confusion and one of the RDCs present, a former UPDF soldier, suggested that some of the victims were bribed. 

Amidst resounding condemnation of torture, the conference illuminated some of the challenges of extricating one aspect of a conflict that has slowly become embedded in post-conflict civil society. This bill may be a milestone, but it is reactive. To break the cycle of violence requires what one LC representative termed, “societal reconstruction,” or the proactive integration of more psychosocial support services at the community level (ACTV is a good role model ) and better, more accessible education for the rising generations.