Uganda

Candidate out of exile levels genocide charges at Museveni

Article published on the 2009-09-01 Latest update 2009-09-01 13:45 TU

Olara Otunnu during his tenure at the UN.
(Photo: AFP)

A former Ugandan foreign minister who recently returned to Kampala from exile told RFI that President Yoweri Museveni is guilty of atrocities against the Acholi people in the north of the country.

“The government committed genocide in northern Uganda,” said Olara Otunnu, who spent his time abroad working at the United Nations where he rose to the rank of Under-Secretary General.

“The LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army] committed atrocities. The LRA abducted children. But the government not only committed atrocities more than what the LRA committed, the government forcibly rounded up people – two million people from their villages – and placed them in concentration camps over the period of 20 years.”

Otunnu, who left Uganda and was forced to give up his citizenship, is one of Museveni’s most bitter political opponents and has returned to the country to regain his citizenship so that he can run in Presidential elections slated for 2011.

“The government worked very hard to conceal, to hide this genocide from the outside world,” Otunnu said. “The LRA provided a cover, a pretext for what the government did in northern Uganda.”

Utunnu described the situation in the camps as atrocious, with deaths rising sometimes to as many as 1,500 per week. “That’s three times the death rate in Darfur,” he said.

“There was no education; family structure collapsed. Public health didn’t exist. People lined up for an entire day for the Latrine, two days to get water.”

When asked whether these actions were a concerted effort against the Acholi people of northern Uganda, Utunnu was unequivical. He has proof, he says.

“There are statements that are documented in my writing, hate speeches, hate statements, racial statements,” against the Acholi, he said.