Amnesty hands East Africa a poor grade for its rights record

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU
Daily Nation
June 13 2010
 

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC to answer charges of human rights violations. Photo/FILE.
 
The East African Community, with a market of 130 million people, may be doing well in business, but all the five member countries get a thumbs-down for their human rights record.

This year’s international survey by Amnesty International, the global human rights watchdog, paints the region as not only intolerant to free expression, but also one in which impunity flourishes. The quest for justice and reconciliation seems to be a running theme in all the member countries, apart from Tanzania.

Kenya and Uganda are, for now, focal points in international justice. While in Kenya, those wanted by the International Criminal Court at The Hague are yet to be identified, Uganda is battling with an image problem, not only for failing to hand over rebel leader Joseph Kony, but also President Yoweri Museveni’s remark declaring that Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir won’t be arrested if he landed in Kampala. Mr al Bashir is wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity.

The ICC issued a warrant for the arrest for Mr Kony and three of his top commanders in the Lord’s Resistance Army in 2005, but then Uganda and her neighbours, despite being signatories to the Rome Statute, had not carried out the arrests. Rwanda is the only member in the regional trading bloc that has not domesticated the Rome Statute.

Rwanda, on its part, is still smarting from the effects of the 1994 genocide, even as its international tribunal sitting in Arusha enters its twilight years. The report by Amnesty now points accusing fingers at the world-acclaimed Gacaca courts in Rwanda for having “procedures that fail to meet international fair trial standards”.

“Some Gacaca trials were reportedly marred by false accusations, corruption and difficulties in calling defence witnesses,” this year’s Amnesty report released last May 27 noted. But the word impunity rings from all corners of the regional bloc, from the coalition government mandarins in Kenya to President Museveni’s government in Uganda. Burundian and Rwandan regimes also have that word hanging over their necks. Only Tanzania escapes.

In Kenya, it is for failing to apprehend the perpetrators of the post-poll violence now in government, among them top politicians and police officers. Never mind that the Attorney General Amos Wako, whom a United Nations special rapporteur on human rights, Prof Philip Alston, termed as “the embodiment in Kenya of the phenomenon of impunity” is still in office and overseeing the country’s quest for a new constitution.

In Uganda, the violent riots that saw 27 people killed are cited as among the cases in which the government is dithering in having the police officers apprehended for human rights violations. Torture and detention without trial are also in Uganda’s basket of human rights violations.


Rwanda’s record in impunity arises from the clamour to have the generals in the ruling party Rwanda Patriotic Front and the Rwanda Patriotic Army brought to book for war crimes committed during the genocide 16 years ago. The Rwandan Government prosecuted some in its ranks, but Amnesty insists, it only went for the small fry as “those who directed the killings were not prosecuted.”

Burundi too has its share of incompetence with the justice system. Not only are judges termed as corrupt and poorly trained, but also, there’s a lot of Executive interference in judicial matters. Burundi’s quest for transitional justice, given its “violent” past is also reported to be on course. The country is still toying with the idea of setting up a special tribunal to investigate the 1994 genocide and prosecute “crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Burundi refugees

Perhaps, only Tanzania seems to be the “clean” country according to Amnesty International’s human rights audit as far as impunity is concerned. For apart from the harsh prison conditions and punitive treatment of detainees, the other blot in its record is the looming threat of evicting 36,000 Burundi refugees from Tanzania and sending them back to their country.

The obvious blot in the regional trading bloc is a shrinking space for the people to exercise free expression. With each one of the countries facing elections in the next three years, the charge is that the ruling regimes are limiting this space to crack down on their political competitors.

In Burundi, the targets are journalists and trade unionists, in Kenya it is the media, and so is the case in Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. The governments of these countries have either enacted a law to limit press freedom; or arrested individual journalists; or closed down media houses for hard-hitting reports against the government; or are still drafting laws to rein in the media.

Violence against women is also a blot in the human rights record of all countries in the EAC. But there are unique problems for each country as well. Kenya’s headache is with the internally displaced who are still languishing in camps over two years since the bloody political crisis in early 2008. Then there is the housing crisis and the evictions from road and railway reserves, plus the Mau Forest evictions. The slow-coach that is the beleaguered Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission also gets an unfavourable mention in Amnesty’s report, more so, when it comes to witness protection and reparations for victims.


For Tanzania, the international lobby predicts “political violence” especially in Zanzibar in the light of the impasse over electoral reforms between the two main parties — the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi and the opposition Civic United Front. Elections are coming up later this year; will this predictions hold? Apart from that, there’s the albino killings that the Tanzanian Government is battling with.

Burundi is quietly sorting out its violent land disputes that are rampant in the south of the country, in the provinces of Bururi and Makamba. It is also struggling to set up an independent national human rights commission. A draft law to govern the same came out late last year. Uganda joins Burundi in battling homosexuality, while Rwanda seems to have declared it a “private matter” and decided to live with it, Amnesty International says.

But the tirade against EAC also roped in the continental political unit, the African Union, which stands indicted over its move not to work with the International Criminal Court in arresting Sudan’s President al Bashir. The charge against the continent’s regimes came within the week that Mr al Bashir was sworn in as president after last month’s elections.

The global lobby says that while the disconnect between leaders’ “human rights rhetoric” and “action” was not new, the strong push to bar the ICC from going for President al Bashir was a akin to a conspiracy to perpetuate impunity. The report is titled “Amnesty International Report 2010: The State of the World’s Human Rights.”

— ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com