ICRC resumes operations, gives human rights lessons to soldiers

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which resumed its operations in Uganda recently after a three-year hiatus, has started visiting detainees and its officials are now giving lessons on international humanitarian law to the military. Pierre-Andre Conod, ICRC's head of delegation in Ugandan told IRIN on Friday that its officials had visited police stations in the capital, Kampala, and in the western district of Kasese to see how suspects on terrorism or treason charges were being treated. "We have secured accessibility from government to all detention centres and we have since the resumption of the programme, visited six police stations, 13 Prisons and five military barracks and camps," Conod said. The ICRC resumed operations in July with the launch of a programme to help internally displaced persons in the conflict-affected north, where about 1.6 million people have fled their homes because of rebel attacks and fighting between the government troops and insurgents of the the Lord's Resistance Army. "During the period, we have also had dissemination sessions on international humanitarian law and ICRC activities for 22 future trainers for company commanders of the UPDF (Uganda People's Defence Forces) at the Junior College in Jinja," Conod said. "We also had sessions with 30 officers and 120 men at the Cadets School also in Jinja," he noted, adding that another session had been held with people recruited to work as homeguards Kitgum district. Army spokesman Maj Shaban Bantariza said that the ICRC was giving lessons to the army on how to uphold human rights during conflict. Deputy head of delegation Maryse Limoner said the ICRC was supporting six hospitals in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts by supplying them with surgical equipment and medicines. The ICRC withdrew most of its international staff from Uganda following the April 2001 killing of six ICRC staff in the Ituri area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The area where the murders took place was at that time under the control of the Ugandan troops. The Ugandan defence ministry said that its investigations showed the killings may have been carried out by one of the DRC militias active in Ituri at that time.