On one of the social networks I subscribe to there was this posting: “Many States in the world have corrupt officials. In Uganda, the corrupt have a State.” Who wouldn’t understand this given the amount of money meant for poor parts of the country that has found its way into private vaults? No wonder those…
I know I blogged about Uganda’s 50th birthday earlier in the week, but this one has to be told. I have just agonisingly – and sometimes covering my face in shame – finished watching a YouTube clip that has gone viral. It’s about Uganda’s Ambassador Maurice Peter Kagimu Kiwanuka speaking at a symposium of the…
On 9 October 1962, Uganda was handed her independence with great fanfare. Today marks 50 years of self-rule – or misrule, depending on your perspective. But what are we celebrating? Did Uganda really deserve to be independent? And what has independence brought us? These are questions that we as Ugandans have to ask ourselves as we…
Today is International Refugee day. It’s a day when officials visit refugee camps and refugees are made to sing and dance and look happy. It’s a day when they are supposed to express their gratitude to those who give them assistance. But refugees don’t want help or handouts. They want justice, they want fairness. They…
Since the ICC Chief Prosecutor identified Uganda as a situation of concern in 2003, Uganda has become internationally recognised as a country in transition from conflict to peace. And the showpiece of that transition has been the issuing of arrest warrants against Joseph Kony and his senior commanders. The consequent flurry of activity by international…
This paper reflects on the ICC’s engagement in Uganda through the lens of the author’s experience working with one of the largest national civil society organisations in Uganda at the time when the investigations was first announced and the first arrest warrants were issued.
IRRI’s Senior Researcher Lucy Hovil has written UNHCR’s latest working paper on the process of repatriation of Southern Sudanese refugees in Uganda. While the official repatriation process continues, the paper demonstrates that refugees are creating their own durable solutions through a combination of economic and social integration and ongoing movement in and out of Sudan….
Reports reaching IRRI and RLP indicate that on the morning of Wednesday 14th July 2010, OPM Directorate of Refugees and Police officers in Nakivale (Isingiro District) and Kyaka II (Kyenjonjo District) began rounding up Rwandans and forcing them against their will to board trucks to return them to Rwanda. Reports indicate that those targeted in…
In a research published titled “Who Belongs Where? Conflict, Displacement, Land and Identity in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo” by the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) in partnership with the New York-based Social Science Research Council (SSRC), views of the ongoing conflict in the east of the country are presented from the perspective of those displaced by it –…
So, last Sunday we had a football match in preparation of the Review Conference of the Rome Statute that is still ongoing here in Uganda. Dubbed as a stocktaking exercise of the last 12 years that the International Criminal Court has been in existence, the football match was bound to have some tickling moments. As…
