Uganda conflict worse than Iraq

THE rate of violent deaths in northern Uganda is three times that of Iraq when taken in proportion of total population, reveals a new report by a coalition of humanitarian organisations.

There are now about 146 deaths a week among northern Uganda’s estimated population of five million, or 0,17 violent deaths per 10 000 people per day. That’s three times higher than Iraq’s estimated daily rate of 0,052 per 10 000 people since the US-led invasion, the report states.

Yet there is no comparison between the amount of column inches Iraq commands compared to that of northern Uganda.

Pader district — the worst affected area of northern Uganda — is where GOAL’s operations are based. We work in 11 camps to deliver health care, nutrition, water, sanitation, shelter and HIV/AIDS services to an estimated 87,000 people. The scale of suffering, misery, squalor, depression and fallout of societal breakdown that the GOAL witnesses here is surpassed by few other regions in the world.

Uganda’s President Museveni has failed to end the brutal 20-year old insurgency that has scarred this region, and led to the displacement of 1.7 million people, who survive in camps run by aid agencies.

President Museveni recently told politicians in London that he could “switch off” the war. But it has suited him to have northern Uganda disabled politically as his power base is in the south.

The perpetuation of war allows his administration to justify spending more than 20% of its budget on the army, creating generous opportunity for corruption, said British politician Lord Howarth of Newport last November. Yet Museveni escapes censure by the international community largely because he is an aid darling of the west.

John O’Shea

GOAL

PO Box 19

Dún Laoghaire

Co Dublin