By Mulengera Reporters
Earlier in the week, Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) Chairman Med Kaggwa tried to pacify things at his organization by scheduling two very important meetings. This was after media reports quoted disgruntled stakeholders and insiders at UHRC accusing him of not running the thing properly including not calling regular meetings for employees to take new assignments while reporting on earlier ones.
Originally the notice had gone out alerting Commissioners there would be a meeting which however the chairman unceremoniously called off abruptly. Instead he went ahead with the other meeting with all staff of the UHRC based in Kampala. It’s only those operating upcountry that missed out. Venue was the UHRC board room on level of the Twed Building housing the Commission.
The meeting started very well with all procedural requirements being observed but things took an ugly twist when the Chairman dramatically adjourned the meeting without allowing any responses from the audience before whom he read a prepared text as his communication from the chair. This left many people at the meeting wondering what exactly was going on. At the end of the day, instead of deescalating things, the staff meeting only raised more questions in the employees leaving them more confused.
Some of the complaints employees intended to raise included demanding answers as to why the once very outspoken Kaggwa-led UHRC is these days very indifferent towards human rights violations and brutality by security agencies. In the past a practice had been established that UHRC would issue a statement of condemnation each time security operatives’ mistreated media or opposition political activists. This had given UHRC clout, visibility and increased its relevancy before the donor community who saw it as acting independently as expected of its mandate. In his brief comments at the staff meeting, Kaggwa told staff to be patient and allow him time to prepare to act of the concerns previously raised rather that judging him prematurely.
On a recent occasion, a news conference that had been convened to address some of the UHRC concerns regarding police brutality was aborted at the last minute and instead one of the big officials at UHRC drove out of the building and went to clandestinely share the would-be press statement with a certain general who also happens to be an MP. The UHRC official looked the General in the eye and said “the problem you guys in government don’t appreciate; just see the condemnation we have saved you from today as UHRC.” The General was very grateful about this compromise and assured the UHRC big name official of reciprocal support some day in future should anybody ever try to inconvenience that friendly ally at UHRC. (For comments, email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).
