Uganda: a Zimbabwe in the making?

On Tuesday I was fortunate to meet a Ugandan man who had just returned from visiting family there - what he had to say was deeply shocking and echoed by yesterdays piece by Green party spokesperson Peter Tatchell writing in The Times. He writes that:

"Uganda is drifting towards dictatorship, just like Zimbabwe a decade ago. The Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, is a new Robert Mugabe in the making, a budding tyrant who is subverting democracy and human rights (according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) through voter intimidation, hounding opposition politicians, detention without trial, torture, extra-judicial killings, media censorship, corruption, suppression of protests, homophobic witch-hunts, and crackdowns on universities and trade unions.

"And how is he rewarded for these abuses? By being given the honour of hosting the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kampala in two weeks' time. The Queen and Gordon Brown will accept the hospitality of a despot who has abolished limits on presidential terms in a bid to ensure that he remains president for life; framed the opposition leader Kizza Besigye on charges of rape and treason; and who is implicated in massacres in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and northern Uganda."

I was told in my meeting on Tuesday about the many secret detention centres and 'concentration camps' - conditions are terrible - indeed in the civil war in northern Uganda more than 1.5 million people have been herded into camps by the Ugandan Army - in the worst period, fatalities peaked at 1,000 a week - this Ugandan man saw one of these camps at close quarters in the war zone a few weeks ago - his descriptions were shocking.

Peter Tatchell concludes his piece:

"Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth for breaching the Commonwealth's 1991 Harare Declaration on good governance and human rights. Uganda's violations have, in contrast, merited barely a murmur of criticism. Why the double standards? The Commonwealth's tacit collusion with Museveni's abuses is the most shameful betrayal of the Ugandan people since its feeble response to Idi Amin's murderous regime in the 1970s. If the Commonwealth won't defend its humanitarian principles against autocratic leaders, what is the point of its existence?"

I have written to David Drew MP seeking his support for action.