Not fit to serve: Ugandan troops turn guns on innocent civilians in Somalia

The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) recently established that seven innocent civilians were killed by the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF). AMISOM's investigators found that Ugandan soldiers operating in the Golweyn area in the Lower Shabelle region in Southern Somalia, about 110 kilometres south of the capital, Mogadishu, on August 10 killed innocent civilians.

The act was not only in breach of the AMISOM rules of engagement. It also constitutes a war crime under international law. In a statement released on October 21, the Mission noted: “The seven people killed were regrettably civilians, and the conduct of the personnel involved was in breach of Amisom rules of engagement.”

The African Union Mission in Somalia recommended that the Ugandan soldiers implicated in killing of Somali civilians must be court-martialed.  A team investigating the incident said Ugandan authorities should follow through and constitute a court martial in Somalia to try the soldiers involved in the killing of innocent civilians.

 The six-member probe committee chaired by a representative from the African Union Commission headquarters in Addis Ababa, also recommended that Uganda has an obligation to compensate the families of the civilians who were killed.  “In accordance with its obligation under the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the African Union, the Uganda Government will reach out to the bereaved families to discuss how to atone for the lives of those killed,” reads an AMISOM statement.

Not fit to serve

Those familiar with the UPDF modus operandi were not surprised that Ugandan troops were involved in war crimes in Somalia. The UPDF has killed innocent civilians both at home and in neighbouring countries before. “The UPDF has over the years exhibited the highest level of indiscipline and I believe it is right to say that the Ugandan army is not fit to serve in any peacekeeping operation,” said an African security analyst who prefered anonymity.

In June 2016, Somali police arrested Ugandan soldiers serving in AMISOM for selling military supplies. The soldiers were found with improvised detonators, fuel, sandbags and empty ammunition boxes which they sold to a garage located at Banadir neighbourhood, in Mogadishu. They sold some military equipment that could end up in the hands of the enemy and used  by terrorists to fight African Union forces. The act by the Ugandan soldiers was treasonable.

In August 2015, three Ugandan soldiers were charged over the killing – a month earlier – of  a group of civilians in Somalia, The troops entered several houses in Merca, about 70 kilometres south of Mogadishu, after a grenade attack on their convoy and, at one house where a family was celebrating a wedding, they separated the men from the women and shot six adult men - four brothers, their father, and an uncle. Four died immediately, one brother hid under a bed after being shot but later died. The father died during the night after the soldiers refused to allow the family to take him to the hospital.

In 1999, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), accused Ugandan troops of occupation, abuse of human-rights, engaging in military and paramilitary operations, providing financial and logistical support to covert groups fighting the Kinshasa regime and pillaging the vast country’s natural resources.  In a case which was filed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in the Netherlands, Uganda was pinned for the crimes and asked to pay reparations to the tune of $10 billion to the DRC government. Although Uganda lost an appeal case in 2005, it is yet to pay up  after the ICJ verdict.

Back home, the Ugandan army is responsible for gross human rights violations, kidnap and torture of innocent civilians especially those perceived to be in the opposition, and people of Rwandan origin. Before the January 2021 presidential elections, the UPDF was accused of carrying out a wave of abductions and torture of members of the opposition allied to Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine. Hundreds of civilians were violently arrested, tortured, while more than 50 people died mainly of gun shots. 

The National Unity Platform party (NUP) said that more than 600 members and activists were detained by masked men in vehicles. According to lawyers and victims of the detentions, the Special Forces Command (SFC) is to blame for many of the abuses. The SFC was commanded by Lt. Gen Muhoozi Kainerubaga, Museveni’s son, who was named in a case before the International Criminal Court, for human rights abuses along with several senior officers. A U.S. attorney, Bruce Afran, drew up the complaint on behalf of Bobi Wine.

The most recent litany of rights abuses and indiscipline by the UPDF is just a tip of the iceberg. It would serve Uganda better, if its army kept the bad behavior at home and disqualified itself from participating in peacekeeping operations under the AU or the UN.