Uganda: UN human rights office faces likely closure

By Halima Athumani

KAMPALA, Uganda (AA) - The United Nations High Commissioner’s Office for Human Rights in Uganda may have to close its doors after negotiations to extend its mandate in the East African country failed to yield fruit.

“The agreement we officially signed with them has come to an end, they should go home peacefully,” Ugandan Foreign Minister Okello Oryem told Anadolu Agency in a telephone interview.

He added, “The terms of their stay here was that they help build capacity with the [government-funded] Uganda Human Rights Commission, and we think that has been done.”

When contacted by Anadolu Agency, the UN commissioner’s office declined to comment.

The UN office’s mandate expired last December, and a temporary draft agreement with Uganda allows them to stay only until March 24.

The government has been unhappy about the presence of UN human rights officials during police operations which see “brutal” violence, especially against members of the opposition, said a member of a local human rights group who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking about the matter.

The UN office opened in Uganda in 2005 at the height of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel insurgency in Northern Uganda.

The office gave support and strengthened the technical capacity of the Uganda Human Rights Commission, which has the local mandate to handle human rights issues.

But the commission has complained of inadequate government funding crippling its ability to effectively carry out its mission as well as non-implementation of its recommendations in the face of human rights abuses.