Monday, January 16, 2012

Is Uganda ready to respect human rights?

Vincent Nuwagaba

On the 9th and 10th December, Uganda joined the rest of the world to commemorate International Anti-corruption Day and Human Rights Day respectively. Uganda has ratified core human rights instruments and the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), the African Union Convention for Preventing and Combating Corruption. We’ve also domesticated anti-corruption instruments by enacting the Anti-corruption Act 2009 and the Whistle Blowers Act 2010. Sadly, the Ugandan government is now a vehicle whose engine is fuelled and lubricated by corruption. This leads to erosion of human rights because corruption deprives the government of resources necessary to provide for positive rights and any agitation for those rights is met with excessive brutality. While Uganda has in place institutions meant to promote human rights and good governance, it is self-evident that these institutions are largely for window-dressing purposes. Accordingly, they neither promote human rights nor fight corruption effectively. At least, I haven’t seen a robust condemnation by the National Human Rights Institution of the phony treason charges against Sam Mugumya, Francis Mwijukye and Ingrid Turinawe.
Unfortunately while we commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, few of us understand what human rights mean. Ugandans relegate positive rights even when the government ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1987. Ironically, many human rights organisations also tend to be obsessed with civil liberties and political rights but few of them are forthright and upfront on socio-economic rights. Yet these are the critical rights since they address bread and butter issues. The 1993 Vienna World Conference on human rights affirmed that “human rights and fundamental freedoms are the birthright
of all human beings; their protection and promotion is the first responsibility of Governments”.
It further stressed the universality, indivisibility, interrelatedness and interdependence of all human rights and that all human rights must be treated in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing with the same emphasis. Talk about the suppression of protests, all the human rights groups will be up in arms; hike fees in public universities leading to the denial of access to higher education to the majority, none of them gets concerned.
The raison d’ĂȘtre for the human rights movement is human dignity. The cardinal principles of human rights - equality and nondiscrimination are aimed at ensuring human dignity. How can Ugandans live in dignity when they can hardly take their children to schools; when they hardly access health facilities; when they rarely get jobs on merit?
Look at the plight of teachers and the rank and file members of the police, military and prisons. Policemen who stay in asbestos roofed houses risk contracting lung cancer because of inhaling the air contaminated with asbestos. Policemen feed on posho and beans from December to December. They hardly afford fees for their children because the government remits less than Sh2,000 per pupil under “Universal Primary Education” (UPE) and a paltry Sh41,000 per student under “Universal Secondary Education” (USE). Yet, the NRM manifesto says in part that “The NRM Government will strictly observe the Education Act 2008 that outlaws payments of any kind of fees in UPE, USE and BTVET schools. NRM will not tolerate any charges imposed by head teachers or parents associations”. Three questions arise: 1) Doesn’t the NRM Government know that children pay huge sums in UPE and USE schools? 2) How does the government expect schools to run with token remittances? 3) If the government is not aware of this fact, doesn’t it portend the utter absence of the state from the lives of the citizens? Clearly, UPE and USE are pipedreams.
The Ugandan human rights crusade rarely attracts the full support of majority Ugandans because the message hardly dovetails with the interests of the masses. What do numerous civil society organisations (CSOs) that we have exactly do? Apart from writing accountability reports to the donors, do the numerous CSOs account to the citizens on whose behalf they get funding? How many organisations do public interest litigation? Do CSOs effectively hold government to account? Are human rights organisations transparent and accountable? As we commemorate the human rights day, we need to ask ourselves, as human rights defenders, are we up to the task?
The writer is a human rights defender
vnuwagaba@gmail.com

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