Human rights defenders: Let us use the Human rights day to give accountability to donors and citizens

By Vincent Nuwagaba
This article was first published by 256news.com on 10th December 2009

The world is commemorating the human rights day today to mark sixty one years of the Universal Declaration of Human rights. We indeed, have come a long way and a number of people and institutions deserve a pat on the back for the promotion, defence and protection of human rights. I exhort the human rights defenders to use this as an opportunity not for chest- thumping but to assess their efficacy and possibly adjust their strategies.
This should also be used as an opportunity to give accountability to both the donor community and citizens on whose behalf the human rights groups get donor funding. I have been in the human rights field for some time now and while those outside may feel that the human rights groups do quite a big and good job, I strongly feel that we are not yet up to the mark as a lot is still desired.

Since the beginning of this year alone, I have come across innumerable cases of human rights abuses which are never reported. There are very many people who are detained without trial; many are tortured using all the sophisticated means and they are never helped. To make matters worse even the International human rights organisations operating from here are to some extent inefficient. In November, I went to Amnesty International – Africa regional office to report a violation which occurred in August and I was told by the research officer that nothing could be done about it. This begs the question, are we in human rights defence as a passion or we are doing it as a job?
If we are to do human rights work we needn’t do it as a job because if we do it as a job we are bound to be bored or target at the pay cheque at the end of the month. In fact, this explains the reason as to why some organisations choose to leave out some cases because they feel they have enough cases to fill their reports.
The accountability that many civil society organisations give is more in form of the reports than the actual cases they have handled. I have with my naked eye seen organisations which receive donor funds to provide legal aid to the indigent dropping the clients’ cases without explanation to the clients. This is utterly wrong for I have a hunch that the organisations should give accountability both to the donors and to clients on whose behalf they get the funds.

Human rights advocacy like politics should not be used as an avenue for self-enrichment. Rather it should be an avenue through which the actors and practitioners can touch the lives of the underprivileged; human rights defenders should be the voices of the voiceless, the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. Whoever is a human rights defender or politician and aspires to be the richest person in the country can as well start a profit-making company or business and quit politics or human rights work. Genuine politicians and human rights defenders gain by uplifting the welfare of many people not by primitively amassing personal wealth.

Sadly, there are many people who form Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) for self-enrichment and this largely seems to be the trend in Uganda. This partly explains why many organisations no longer talk of constructive criticism of the government but constructive engagement with the government as if criticism in itself is wrong.

We have human rights organisations where you find two people with similar academic credentials with person A earning 5 million shillings while person B earns less than 0.5m. The irony is that the least paid in Uganda are the beasts of burden. Those that spend time in the field and do donkey work are paid peanuts while those who spend time in air-conditioned offices earn a fortune. There are some human rights organisations which don’t respect the ILO conventions that Uganda has ratified and continue to abuse their workers’ rights with impunity.

It is a fact that civil society groups keep the government on its toes and help government sometimes refrain from excesses. Nevertheless, it is also important that government puts in place a mechanism to check the practices of the civil society organisations. Otherwise, it would sound imprudent for civil society organisations to continue blaming the government for being corrupt when the civil society organisations are equally corrupt through inter alia nontransparent recruitments and unjustified wage differentials. In fact there is a difference between human rights workers and activists. Human rights workers can leave a human rights organisation and join a company such as a telecommunication company. All the human rights workers need is money but human rights activists and/or defenders want to see social change. Activists talk, write and use all platforms to address human rights issues. If society is to benefit from the work of human rights organisations we must urge them to hire activists and not merely workers.

Finally, Ugandan human rights activists ought to start advocating for good roads, jobs on meritocracy basis, health facilities, right to food, quality education which I have unceasingly argued that it is a critical tool for social transformation. Education must exhibit the following interrelated and essential features as identified by the UN special Rapporteur on the right to education:
a) Availability which underscores the need for functioning educational institutions to be available in sufficient quantity
b) Accessibility which underpin the need for educational institutions to be accessible to everyone. Accessibility highlights three dimensions namely, non-discrimination, physical accessibility and economic accessibility.
c) Acceptability whereby the form and substance of education have to be acceptable
d) Adaptability which means education must be flexible so it can adapt to the needs of the changing societies
Emphasis on civil liberties and the political rights at the expense of socio-economic rights (which in an actual sense are bread and butter issues) is counterproductive in the very short run. We ought to pause a bit and ask ourselves how many people would have the time to criticize the government if they were gainfully employed? To the human rights defenders, if human rights defence is not our passion, we can as well look for where we belong. The writing is clearly on the wall. For God and my country!

Vincent Nuwagaba is a human rights defender and can be reached via vnuwagaba@gmail.com or +256702843552

The leading human rights defender is a kid – Part 2

Children are very interesting people. They don’t mince their words and will tell you exactly what they think about you. Our neighbor one day owed my grandmother some little money. He knew that my grandmother was going to demand her money and either he didn’t want to pay or he never had the money. So he told his five year kid - Kasapuli, when Suzanna comes, tell her that I have gone to Kashenshero (some seven kilometers away) and the man got into his bed. When my grandmother arrived for her money and asked where the kid’s father had gone, the kid said, “Dad told me to tell you that he had gone to Kashenshero and went into his bedroom”. Another child, my cousin Byaruhanga also said it all in 1991. My grandfather Ruhindi (RIP) who had two big hills of land, a big plantation of Matoke and coffee and a number of cattle told the Census enumerator that his land was ½ an acre and that he had no cow and no coffee plantation. This he said because he thought his property would be used as a basis for levying graduated tax on him. His grandchild said immediately, “Shwenkuru arabeiha” Rukiga for “grandpa is telling a lie” and the child said all that my grandfather owned. In 2006, on a livelihood study in Kiyanga in the new Mitooma district, I asked a certain parent how often his family ate meat, the man told me twice a week. Immediately a four year kid said, we last ate meat on Chrismas and this was in August.This is how sincere children are. This is how truthful children can be.
This explains why Jesus had this to say, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” (Matthew 19: 14, Luke 18:16). The sincerity of the NBS kid renewed my undying love I have for children. While the NBS kid might have made those remarks out of sheer love for humanity and justice, there are other children who have been orphaned by the Police during the walk-to-work protests. The newspapers, radios and televisions have reported some nine others ten but someone posted a picture on my face book showing many dead bodies. Anyhow, whether people who died were nine or ten or more than that, they have families to which they were bread winners. Their children are now suffering for no good reason. I would expect the government to mount investigation into the matter of the people who died during the Walk-to-Work campaign and compensate their families.
We don’t even have to waste time apportioning responsibility. We know who caused those deaths. If the deaths were caused by the people who were walking, they should also be brought to book. But the culture of impunity must stop and stop now. I would want to believe that ours is a society anchored on the rule of law. And rule of law means that nobody is above the law – not even the king or an elected president. Rule of law brooks no impunity. We must be like Kasapuli and the NBS kid who takes my accolade as Uganda’s leading human rights defender. Accordingly, when our leaders propose the introduction of constitutional viruses as Professor Kanyeihamba calls them, we stand to say no. We must not infest our cherished constitution with bad amendments. We must also stand to tell off the police when they deviate from their constitutional obligation. We must tell the political leaders that they are our servants and not our bosses. We must not be subservient when they abuse our taxes for personal aggrandizement. We have seen the increase of ministerial posts and our leaders tell us it is for the public good; after one year, we must ask for results. We must not tire to ask for social services and political goods– jobs, quality education, a functioning healthcare system; good roads and freedom. I am quite sure, if you neglect your children, because of their truthful nature, if a neighbor interviews them, they will say the truth as it is. Unfortunately, we get morally depraved when we grow up and the situation becomes worse after attaining our education. How I wish our education could impel us to learn the good practices from children –especially compassion and truthfulness.
vnuwagaba@gmail.com
Mr. Nuwagaba is a human rights defender