Kampala accused of muzzling parties

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) organisation on Tuesday accused the Ugandan government of “harassment and discriminatory legislation” to suppress independent political party activity in the country. According to a HRW press release, the report said President Yoweri Museveni and his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) were likely to “entrench this restrictive system even further” in a referendum on political pluralism, scheduled for June 2000. “Uganda has become the darling of the western powers,” Peter Bouckaert, author of the report and Uganda researcher for HRW, said. “But Uganda is moving away from democracy, not towards it. The Movement political system is inherently hostile to democratic freedoms.” The report, entitled ‘Hostile to Democracy: The Movement System and Political Repression in Uganda’, charged that the NRM had outlawed most political activity, including holding meetings and public rallies and sponsoring candidates for election. However, the report recognised Uganda had made “significant progress” in many areas of human rights. “Although police and army abuses persist, the NRM has forged an army which is more disciplined than its predecessors,” it said. “Uganda has ended massive slaughter of civilians which characterised the regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote...The ruling party should not jeopardise these accomplishments by refusing to compete for votes in a free and open system.” The Human rights Watch report is available on the worldwide web at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/uganda