Jude Muyanja holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from Uganda Christian University, he now lives in the Boston area where he is an intern at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. In Uganda, Jude was a political activist, university student leader and an intern at the Uganda Human Rights Commission.

Johanna Chao Kreilick: Jude, can you tell us about your personal connection to Uganda, human rights and justice?

Jude: Uganda historically has been in need of human rights. Unfortunately for the last 48 years since our independence, we have not been able to achieve adequate (protection for) human rights. I studied law in Uganda and worked in the Uganda Human Rights Commission as a volunteer where I saw many people who had very compelling stories about their livelihoods. I saw that the whole society in general needed awareness, needed protection, and needed knowledge about human rights….As a student leader I also spent time in Northern Uganda with other students. You would have thought this is not part of our country, this is not part of Uganda. There you see the international community joined Uganda in the struggle for justice - especially for the victims plight.

Johanna: What is the ‘victim’s plight’ in Northern Uganda?

Jude: Access to justice, because justice is not being given by our domestic courts. Thank God the Rome Statute is being discussed and reviewed these two weeks in Kampala (include a link to the Review Conference here). People in Northern Uganda…have been affected psychologically, not only physically, so all the problems and issues cannot be handled by peace agreements alone. Victims need to access justice, either through the ICC in the Hague, or by strengthening the independence of the domestic courts to handle the (complex) range of issues involved.For example the resettling of the victims has not been simple at all. It’s a humbling situation. I remember giving a jacket to one of the victims. He said,

“You’ve given me this jacket, and I am so thankful. I’m going to give it one of my sons that I have adopted that lost his family—their whole family died and only this kid survived—so I took him, but I’m also a victim of this war. We are only getting clothing and small things, and we do not know whether we will get back to our homes that we left because they are all in the hands of the government. We still face injustice as we settle because the land laws and the resettling laws are unclear. We need justice, and we need to resettle to get back to our lives. Some of us did not enjoy our childhood because most of it was full of war, so please go and speak for us whenever you get a chance, bless you, so go and speak for us.”

That’s why I’m here, and I’m going to speak for Northern Uganda because they do not only need justice for peace, but they need justice to get their lives back.

Johanna: Can you share some examples of other types of struggles you have seen?

Jude: There was one victim that really touched my heart. This person lived in a very rural area and he was arrested for rejecting community service (since he had to work for income). So his property, his way of life, his bicycle that he used to make money (as a pedi-cab) was taken away by local officials because he wasn’t given a chance to put his bicycle away. Then he was given a 9-month sentence for not working in the community and after 9 months when he went back to claim his property and bicycle and everything, he was not compensated. In fact he was told he didn’t have a right to his bicycle back, and there was a big process there to achieve justice, putting the story together which was pretty hard because of the court processes that exist. It was very hard to help this individual.

Johanna: You’ve written about prison conditions in Uganda . Can you share some of your insight about detention and human rights?

Jude: Prison conditions in Uganda are so inhuman and degrading. Just getting taken to prison for one day is so degrading. You are held in darkness, not knowing whether it is day or night, sitting in waste matter, and unprotected by the prison warden and the police warden, who would actually encourage prisoners to be violent against each other.

The international community should access those prisons and help those who are crying for justice. I remember a prison-mate telling me “Please go speak for us because you are a student and you’ve studied to become a lawyer, so help fight for human rights.” I would have become a corporate lawyer but I want to become a human rights lawyer to help those who cannot speak for themselves. There are many prisoners and people out there who are not aware of the law or their rights.

Prisoners need someone to speak up for them, especially those in detention without legal aid. They too need access to justice. This is part of the struggle of the student movement in Uganda.

Johanna: Can you tell us what the student movement in Uganda looks like today?

Jude: The future lies in the students, I saw that. The student movement, because of the oppression of dissent, is not able to speak out so freely. Student activities are accessed and controlled by the government in many ways. I remember that some of the student elections on a national level, or even just a university-level, were involved with by government officials. Let me say the ruling party wanted to really win most of these elections with candidates who expressed support for the government. If the government doesn’t allow students to express themselves, then basically, how will Uganda stop impunity, and how will Uganda promise Northern Uganda that things will be fine? How shall we bring about justice? How shall we speak freely? And how do we criticize each other? This was scary, I remember getting involved in national student elections when I was a student and I felt the government was very involved.

Johanna: The student movements and other organizations in Uganda struggling for justice and human rights—what does that struggle look like ?

Jude: The NGOs are trying their best, but most of them are supported by international organizations with limited funding. Many people have many needs and these needs cannot only be settled or provided by the government, so what is the role of NGOs? The NGOs have tried to speak for human rights for Uganda but there are hard challenges.

Also, in my whole time at university, I didn’t see an NGO ever come to hire students or ask them for their views. NGOs didn’t come to campus to express their views and NGOs didn’t tap the resources of the university. Lawyers for example, soon to graduate, wanted to work for NGOs, but no NGOs came by to hire graduating students. I was surprised once to see an international NGO, the Red Cross, talking to students about humanitarian assistance but I can remember no domestic NGOs ever came to talk or reach out to the students.

Johanna: What do you think is the significance of having the Review Conference in Kampala, for students, NGOs, the people of Uganda?

Jude: People have been paying attention, but during the two weeks it was happening, I interviewed an NGO representative in Uganda and they told me there is a lot of misconception of the ICC by NGOs and even by students.  So the challenge is how do we get rid of the misconceptions?

Johanna: What are those misconceptions?

Jude: The proceedings, and even the whole framework of the ICC is pretty difficult to understand. There is lack of awareness in a very broad sense. The students lack awareness and have misconceptions about these issues. I wish the ICC organized meetings with university students but I don’t think that was possible and I’m very sure they were closed away from visiting students. If the ICC sought university audiences, I think something could be worked out because students seriously need to fight impunity and the ICC is looked at as God by some people because they think the ICC can help fight impunity and bring about free and fair elections, can help bring about democracy.

The ICC should make relationships with Uganda’s future leaders, and those are the students.

Johanna: Tell me about your thoughts about the situation in Kenya, which is now under analysis by the ICC given the post-election violence in 2007, and the potential connection with the upcoming Ugandan elections?

Jude: The relationship between the ICC investigating the Kenyan elections is actually very significant in the sense that the Ugandan community sees the ICC working there. The journalists have especially spoken about it, and have shown the Ugandan community that cheating elections can actually lead to an ICC indictment so that has given me confidence and I believe the ICC can bring about fair elections if they show seriousness in their investigation in Kenya, if they move forward and call for the arrest of perpetrators of the election-violence in Kenya, if they move forward and make serious actions that can be seen by the international community.

Uganda is glad this has happened, because it will reflect on our own government to avoid as much violence as possible and to avoid as much repression of the opposition as possible, and to avoid the footprints that will appear in the international community to be violating the rights of citizens to free and fair elections.

Johanna: What are your hopes for the future?

Jude: My vision is a human rights movement, started by students, and it may not happen immediately, but students should take the human rights movement seriously. This is their weapon for a free future, a free future for their children, indeed some of my classmates are parents now and have children.

I’ve been given an opportunity at Harvard, and this is an opportunity for international students to make relations with students in Africa, and I want to work with African students, and I want to connect with African students to make a movement enable them to express their views to the international community. I know here at Harvard there is a space for the international community, there is an international community here interested in human rights—what’s my view, what’s my dream?

I hope to see freedom realized in the next decade, I want to see free and fair elections, and I want to see myself back in Uganda celebrating the achievements that the current students are fighting for, and for future generations.