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U.S. Committee for Refugees Mid-Year Country Report 2001 - Uganda

Background

Despite relative peace and economic growth in large sections of Uganda, insurgencies and violent communal clashes have plagued three areas of the country for years. An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people have died in more than a decade of violence.

In northern Uganda, an insurgent force known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and counterinsurgency tactics by the Ugandan government army have forced approximately 400,000 persons from their homes. In northeastern Uganda, violence clashes over land use and cattle-raiding have displaced up to 80,000 residents in the past two years. In southwestern Uganda, a rebel force known as the Alliance for Democratic Forces (ADF) has uprooted as many as 100,000 people.

Insurgents have kidnapped thousands of women and children during the past ten years, pressing many of them into service as combatants, servants, and involuntary sexual partners. Insurgent attacks have killed more than 100 of the 200,000 refugees from Sudan who live in northern Uganda.

Political/Military/Human Rights Developments through September

Attacks by insurgents became less frequent during the first nine months of 2001 but did not disappear completely. Although some displaced Ugandans cautiously returned to their homes, the vast majority of uprooted people remained uprooted.

The LRA appeared to weaken in early 2001 because of stronger military actions by Ugandan government forces and deteriorating relations between the LRA and its main supporter, the Sudanese government. Uganda's military crossed into southern Sudan to hunt and attack LRA combatants. Ugandan officials met with LRA combatants in mid-year to discuss amnesty for the insurgents.

LRA troops – many of them children who were abducted and forced to become combatants – remained capable of launching several deadly raids during mid-2001. Insurgents ambushed a food convoy of the UN World Food Program (WFP) in May. An LRA attack in northern Uganda's Gulu District killed four persons in August. A pair of highway ambushes by the LRA in late August and early September killed 11 people, including at least one aid worker. The UN High Commission for Human Rights condemned continued abductions of women and children by the LRA. UNICEF and the government claimed that the LRA and other previous rebel groups have abducted 26,000 people during the past ten years.

In southwestern Uganda, government officials claimed that they had virtually eliminated ADF insurgents from the area. Isolated attacks by insurgents or bandits continued, but less frequently. A camp for displaced persons suffered an attack in August.

In northeastern Uganda, relative peace in the first three months of 2001 gave way to renewed communal violence in April that reportedly forced thousands of local residents to flee again.

New Uprooted Populations through September

The number of internally displaced Ugandans declined during the first nine months of 2001 because of slightly improved security in some areas and a new registration procedure in the north that enabled improved estimates of the displaced population. Ironically, some persons reportedly departed displacement camps in the north because they feared the LRA might attack the camps, as in previous years. New population displacement occurred in the northeast because of renewed communal clashes there over land use.

An estimated 500,000 Ugandans remained internally displaced nationwide as of September.

Thousands of new refugees from neighboring countries entered Uganda during the first nine months of 2001. Some 5,000 new refugees from Sudan reportedly arrived in northern Uganda, joining the estimated 200,000 Sudanese refugees already living in Uganda. About 5,000 new refugees from neighboring Congo-Kinshasa – and their 25,000 head of cattle – entered southwestern Uganda, bringing the Congolese refugee population in the country to nearly 15,000. Some 7,000 asylum seekers from Rwanda arrived in Uganda, many of them after living in Tanzania or after transiting through that country. Ugandan officials settled the Rwandan arrivals into refugee camps but expressed an interest in screening them individually to assess their claims to refugee status.

Humanitarian Conditions through September

Most displaced Ugandans in the north continued to live in what government officials called "protected villages" guarded by government troops. Many displaced families have lived in the protected villages involuntarily since 1996, while others have resided there voluntarily. A partial new census in mid-year concluded that the size of the uprooted population in the north was 20 percent smaller than officials and aid workers had previously reported.

Local religious leaders publicly criticized "appalling conditions" in the government's protected villages and complained that the living conditions among displaced populations had eroded family structures and encouraged prostitution. A new UN report warned that sexual violence and HIV/AIDS were problems at displacement sites. Ugandan President Yoweri Musevini acknowledged in July that poverty in the north has worsened during the past three years. A decade of insurgency, counterinsurgency, and widespread population upheaval in the north have crippled economic activity in what was previously regarded as an agriculturally rich area.

Government officials suggested moving uprooted families from large, crowded camps to smaller sites, but funding constraints posed a serious obstacle to the plan. A local official in northern Gulu District suggested that improved security in the region might enable tens of thousands of persons to return home by the end of 2001. Thousands of displaced farmers received seeds from the International Committee for the Red Cross in March in hopes that uprooted families would be able to farm. Schools in protected villages received food from WFP for 70,000 displaced children.

In southwestern Uganda, some displaced persons returned to their homes in and near the town of Bundibugyo. Many other uprooted families resided part-time at their homes and farms, and part-time in one of 50 displacement camps in the southwest. WFP suspended food distributions to some displacement sites because of doubts about the number of needy beneficiaries. A UN report in April suggested that the relief emergency in the southwest no longer existed and that humanitarian aid programs should emphasize long-term rehabilitation and development.

In northeastern Uganda, up to 90,000 displaced persons resided in 46 camps, according to UN aid officials. A mid-year UN report cited poor conditions at the isolated camps and charged that Ugandan authorities largely ignored the displaced population's humanitarian needs. Many northeastern camps offered no health care, leading to growing concerns about malaria and other diseases.