‘Uganda after Idi Amin’

Press, 13 October 1983, Page 15

‘Uganda after Idi Amin’

NZPA staff correspondent Hong Kong

When Mr Stephen Ariko became Uganda’s AttorneyGeneral in 1979, there had been neither law nor order in the Parliamentary chamber, he told the Commonwealth Law Conference in Hong Kong. In answering a question during a law and order session which was more in the nature of a six-minute address on the improvement in Uganda after Idi Amin, Mr Ariko referred to the difficulty of “cases of open banditry.” In a speech later commended by Lord Scarman as “delightful and pungent,” Mr Ariko succeeded in enlivening proceedings as he drily described problems for

the Government of a group of people who “claimed to be conducting a resistance ovement.” “We seem to be well endowed with former presidents, none of whom has given up,” said Mr Ariko.

"One is even a Q.C.” he said, to laughter from his legal audience. Expanding on the discussion, which had ranged over the difficulties of reconciling the freedom of the individual to protest with the need to preserve public order, Mr Ariko pointed out that Uganda’s problem was not demonstrators but “bandits who had gone to the bush.”

“These chaps blow up buses and attack police stations,” he said.

The Ugandan Constitution had a human rights chapter, he said, “but in the enjoyment of those rights, no person shall prejudice the rights of others.”

Referring to the timehonoured instruction in the “Mrs Beeton Cookbook,” that to jug a hare, one must “first catch your hare,” Mr Ariko said the hares in his country had sharp teeth.

Referring to an earlier address on telephone tapping and taping, he said his police had to face armed showdowns and were not yet ready for “your subtle methods of tapping and taping.”

Responding the keynote speaker, Lord Scarman, told Mr Ariko he was “extremely grateful” for his contribution. Britain also had bandits, said Lord Scarman, and although there was no bush they did disperse into innercity streets. He spoke of the difficulties of dealing with such street crimes as mugging in areas with large ethnic minorities where often more innocent than guilty people were stopped, and said this had led to distrust of the local police.

New Zealand’s Minister of Justice, Mr McLay, another speaker at the session, also responded to Mr Ariko’s question.

New Zealand had no experience of banditry on election violence, said Mr McLay, “and my country has not had an Amin wrecking everything.” But, said Mr McLay, he believed the answer lay in providing the necessary institutions that could deal with the matter.