Disarmament Abuse in Uganda Blamed on UNDP, Still Silent on Finance
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee, Senior Reporter
June 26, 2006 --
Three days after Secretary General Kofi Annan said that budget information
should be immediately available, and six days after such information was
requested, the UN Development Programme has still not disclosed how much it has
spent in Uganda, including on controversial programs in the northeast where
Karamojong villages and women and children have been attacked in the name of
disarmament.
On June
20, Inner City Press asked UNDP for financial information about its involvement
in and awareness of disarmament programs in Uganda. On June 23, Inner City Press
asked the Secretary General about UNDP's failure to provide information. The
Secretary General replied that such data is or should be public information, for
the public. Later on Friday, among with much invective, UNDP's spokesman William
Orme stated that he had to contact Kampala for the data, to be expected Monday.
As of
press time on Monday, despite communications to UNDP by telephone and email, the
data has not been provided. In the interim this has arrived, from the office of
the Prime Minister in Uganda, noting a rumor that the program may end, and
blaming UNDP for the abuse:
Subject: Uganda's Involuntary Disarmament
To: editorial [at] innercitypress.com
From: [Name withheld in this format]
Sent: Mon, 26 Jun 2006
Thanks for highlighting this issue of
great concern to our community. I write with grave concern about the recent
rumours that the Karamoja UNDP supported project might be closed down following
concerns raised in NY regarding forceful disarmament activities by the UPDF.
Before such a decision is taken it would
only be fair to review why the $1million UNDP support to the Karamoja Integrated
Disarmament and Development Programme (KIDDP) "Creating Conditions for Promoting
Human Security and Recovery in Karamoja" has failed to take off. We at the
office of the Prime Minister have serious concerns about UNDP management of this
and other related projects. The continued deployment of incompetent "technical
advisors" in the name of national capacity building continues to frustrate
otherwise well intended programmes.
Karamoja needs this support, let's
address the source of the problem. I believe UPDF and Government of Uganda have
their cases to answer but so does UNDP in getting inexperienced advisors...
Whether
these issues explain UNDP's failure to provide information requested six days
ago, information that the Secretary General has said should be available to the
public, presumably immediately, is not yet known. Nor despite six days has UNDP
provided a figure such as above, $1 million. Inner City Press has asked the
correspondent above to name the "incompetent 'technical advisors.'" On
UNDP's web site,
there is a May 25, 2006,
speech by UNDP's Cornelis Klein,
acknowledging UNDP's support to the Government of Uganda and praising the
Ugandan People's Defense Force.
UNDP's
Klein in Uganda
Here is UNDP's
spokesman's most recent communication to Inner City Press, on Friday after
deadline:
Subject: RE: Message to UNDP spokesman
from Inner City Press
"To clarify: You asked us this afternoon,
for the first time, for a copy of a project document describing the small UNDP-managed
community development project in the region of Eastern Uganda populated by the
Karamajong, of which, as I explained, voluntary disarmament is one relatively
minor though important component. You also asked today about the overall cost of
the UNDP project. I said I would request the information from our country office
in Kampala and that given the time difference and weekend the earliest we could
provide a response would be Monday, and we would try to do so... you have
additionally asked whether our project is active in a several specific villages
that you identify; again, we will seek confirming information from the project
manager in Uganda, and will provide it as soon as we have it...You have
reiterated your original request for information on / confirmation of reported
abuses committed by Ugandan troops under the Ugandan’s military’s own
disarmament program. More on this below. As I said, I was surprised by the tone
and content of your question at today's and yesterday's noon briefing, implying
that UNDP has somehow failed to respond to your initial query regarding the
allegations of abuses by Ugandan troops in Eastern Uganda (per your email
below), and had also failed to provide requested financial information about the
UNDP-managed developed project in eastern Uganda (information which you never
once requested when we spoke or in your subsequent email). Neither is true. I
was further surprised to hear that you had apparently repeated this accusation
in a question to the Secretary-General today. It seems necessary to state for
the record what has actually transpired in your interaction with the UNDP
Communications Office in the course of this week.
Your first inquiry was devoted solely to
the issue of reported human rights abuses by Ugandan military troops against the
Karamajoa community, several of which you detailed. You asked UNDP for
information and comment on this issue and this issue alone for the one and only
time in the late afternoon of this past Monday, 12 June, first by phone and then
by follow-up e-mail...
The information you provided would appear
to indicate that these reported abuses were carried out by Ugandan troops
involved in the government’s military-run disarmament program. I stressed in our
conversation Monday that UNDP, as the UN’s development agency, does not have the
mandate to independently investigate accusations of human rights abuses by a
national military against citizens of that country, in whatever country, so
could not be an on-record UN source to either confirm or comment on the
allegations of abuses as described in your email. Others in the UN system have
that capacity and authority. I did say we would try to find out what we could
about the basic facts of the matter from our Uganda-based colleagues and then
share them, on background, to aid your reporting. Which we did. We also said we
would learn more in the next day or two from those directly involved in the
project (at that point beyond phone contact in eastern Uganda), should you wish
to pursue it further.
When we heard back from you this
afternoon, I reiterated that UNDP Uganda was aware of these reports, and had
conveyed its concern about these reported abuses to Ugandan authorities. The
follow-up questions you cite below that you said I 'declined to answer' I did
not answer as I do not know the answers and do not want to mislead or misinform.
Having now been asked, I will try to obtain this information, and will share it
with you when I do."
While the above is
filled with misstatements -- as simply two examples, the financial information
was requested on Tuesday, June 20, from the UNDP staffer to whom the agency's
spokesman referred Inner City Press, after she declared that everything she'd
said was "on background" and could not be used, not to assist in reporting or in
any other way -- as of close of business Monday the information had still not
been provided. And the beat goes on...
In
fairness, this post-deadline update, a message received after publication from
UNDP's spokesman:
"I remain concerned that there is some
misunderstanding that there is some UNDP support of or involvement in the
Ugandan military's disarmament drive in the region, which there is not. Hence
we have no information financial or otherwise to give you about that. We do,
however, as I noted, have a small community development project in the area,
about which I do have information for you, though I am unsure if that is your
real interest here."
After
what's now a week, no financial information? Or, no financial information
provided, due to assumptions about the interest in the data, or the possibility
of misunderstanding? This is a reason that something like a Freedom of
Information Act at the UN is needed: the financial data should be provided as a
matter of right, without a week's delay and nor attempts to spin. Inner City
Press will have more on this later in the week.
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