"Instant intervention" needed to stop massive threats

International intervention in the internal affairs of states is needed to prevent massive violations of human rights, Ugandan Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Alfred Mubanda told the UN General Assembly on Saturday. The international community should "adopt a definitive convention which will permit instant intervention in cases of massive threats to the right to life," Mubanda said in his address. A "similar act" to the 1994 Rwandan genocide was about to be perpetrated in the DRC in 1997 and 1998, and Uganda found it unacceptable that gross violations of the right to life should again be carried out "in its neighbourhood," he said. He added that the region remained a "potential hotbed of volcanic proportions" for human rights violations. Mubanda called on the international community to support Ugandan efforts to restore peace in the Great Lakes region and to assist in operationalising the Joint Military Commission and Political Committee, which were "the key to the success" of the Lusaka ceasefire agreement.