President Yoweri Museveni has for the first time spoken about the recent decision by government to terminate operations of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the country, saying the office is currently of no significance.
Speaking on Tuesday at a Press Conference in South Africa where he is on 1 day State Visit, President Museveni said the existence of both the UN Human Rights office and the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) had created confusion amongst Ugandans on where to run to whenever they got concerns.
“From the way you are speaking, you seem to know a bit of English,” President Museveni told a South African Journalist who asked to know why the office was closed. “There is what we call ‘superfluous’ – some thing that is not needed because there is something else,” Museveni added.
“Because we have got a Uganda Human Rights Commission which is in the Constitution, having this freelance something something, even confuses our people. If they have complaints, they don’t know where to go – whether to go to the exotic or UHRC”
“So, to simply for them, we said there is only one human rights commission in Uganda – the one in the constitution. Let others go and do something else, there is a lot of need for those groups in World. They can go to Iraq, Afghanistan. They are not short of people and places where there are problems, Uganda is not one of them,” President Museveni reiterated.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier this month said confirmed government’s decision to terminate operations of the Office, a department of the United Nations Secretariat which is mandated to promote and protect the enjoyment and full realization of all rights established in the Charter of the United Nations and in international human rights laws and treaties.
The office is mandated to prevent human rights violations, secure respect for all human rights, promote international cooperation to protect human rights and streamline the United Nations system in the field of human rights.
The office attempted to engage Government of Uganda about the modalities of a continued presence in the country. On January 4, 2023, the office sent to the permanent mission of the Republic of Uganda to the United Nations Office in Geneva an application for the renewal of the Host Country Agreement between the Government of Uganda and OHCHR.
But the Ministry of Foreign affairs says that given the strong government commitment to the promotion and protection of Human Rights, the prevailing peace throughout the country, coupled with strong National Human Rights Institutions and a vibrant Civil Society — with the capacity to monitor the promotion and protection of human rights throughout the country, it can no longer renew the mandate beyond the current term.
In a statement of the closure of the UN Human Rights office, leader of opposition in parliament Mathias Mpuuga condemned the government decision saying that the development is not innocent.
“The problem is that they are in a spotlight and rather work in the dark. I want to advise that there is no amount of walking into the dark that is going to shield them from scrutiny over human rights. We are going to make it a matter of our agitation that there must be commitment to human rights,” said Mpuuga.
He added that in the global family, Uganda risks to be lined up as one of the pariah States.
“We believe that this decision was irrational and it is going to affect our standing among even States. And it will have effects on a number of activities we do with other nations. We don’t find reason justifiable enough…when actually human rights violations are on an upper trajectory, that anybody would claim that indeed the record is okay,” Mpuuga emphasized.
He said that there is no respect for human rights in the country given that government has on several occasions failed to account for different violations.
Mpuuga said that the Opposition is to demand an explanation from the government side when parliament sittings resume.
That’s spoken truth let UN so called Human rights body,,go to countries they have caused instability them selves ,to verify how they have led to mass killings in libya , Afghanistan, Iraq etc ,in disguise of LIBERATION.Yuo shameless greedy terrorist with impunitty.caused confusion of defending Devil act of LGBTQ,and mass killings world wide.
Mind you you Fighting the Hand of Almighty sovereign God.