Uganda: Uganda failing civil war victims

Amnesty International accused Uganda's government on Monday of "miserably failing" to care for hundreds of thousands of victims of a two-decade civil war and urged it to grant reparations, Reuters reported.

The war between Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and Uganda saw mass abductions of children, thousands killed by fighting and murder, as well as nearly 2 million people driven from their homes.

"Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children ... remain destitute and physically and mentally traumatised due to the government's failure to put in place a comprehensive reparations programme," Amnesty said in a report.

"International human rights law is clear that the obligation to provide reparation to victims rests primarily with the state," said the report, entitled "Left to Their Own Devices".
Ugandan officials were not immediately available to comment.

Since a ceasefire between the government and rebels two years ago, peace has slowly returned to northern Uganda, but hopes of a final deal were put on hold in April after LRA leader Joseph Kony failed to show up to ink the pact.

The elusive guerrilla chief has since snubbed attempts to coax him out of the bush, and in frustration, mediators said earlier this month he had until the end of November to sign.
The rebels are notorious for hacking off limbs and lips and other forms of brutality. Kony and two of his deputies are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes such as abducting children to use as soldiers and porters.

Rights groups also accused government soldiers of abuses during the 22-year civil war.
Amnesty said that victims wanted compensation for burned homes and crops, killed livestock and mass displacement.

The survivors also needed medical and psychological care, access to education, and compensation for deaths and injuries, it said.

While the rebels have been driven from Uganda, Kony's soldiers have been destabilising swathes of south Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Insurgents say they will not come out of the bush until the arrest warrants for Kony and his two lieutenants are scrapped.

Amnesty said that Uganda should still move ahead with reparations despite the absence of a final deal.

"Thousands of Ugandans still bear the physical and mental scars of the abuses they suffered," Amnesty's Uganda researcher Godfrey Odongo in a statement.

"They are unable to go forward with their lives. They desperately need government assistance to help them come to terms with the ordeals they survived and rebuild their lives."

Republished permission FOCUS Information Agency

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