Kingdom to sue over war crimes allegedly committed in the 1890s

Western Uganda’s Bunyoro Kingdom is preparing to file a case "by the end of March", in which it is seeking compensation from Britain for war crimes allegedly committed by British officers during the colonial era, a spokesman for the kingdom said. "We are in the final stages of organising a case with our lawyers. We are going to file shortly," the spokesman, Ernest Kizza, told IRIN from his office in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. The present king of Bunyoro, Solomon Iguru, wants compensation of nearly £3 billion (US $5.55 billion) from the British government for war crimes allegedly committed against the kingdom of his great grandfather, Kabarega, in 1894 by soldiers under the command of Col Henry Colvile, then commissioner in Uganda. The charges include organised pillage, wanton destruction of food crops, torture and other abuses against prisoners of war – including Kabarega himself, who was imprisoned without trial in the Seychelles for 22 years - and killing and raping of civilians by Nubian soldiers under British command. The charges also include deliberately neglecting Bunyoro after its capture, causing hundreds of thousands of people to die from hunger and malnutrition. Much of the evidence for the case is contained in the field diaries of British officers in charge of colonising Uganda at the time, who kept detailed records of pillaging expeditions by the alleged perpetrators of the crimes. "Decided to attack enemy’s rearguard tomorrow, then move eastwards to pursue Kabarega’s ivory and cattle," writes Colvile in one entry. The diary of one Capt A.B. Thruston, who led a company of soldiers to annex Kabarega’s kingdom in 1894, boasts of wanton destruction of Bunyoro villages. "At the conclusion of each march, raiding parties are being sent out to devastate the surrounding country," he writes. Iguru’s secretary first sent a demand for compensation in August 2001 through the then British High Commissioner to Uganda, Tom Phillips. Phillips rejected it, arguing in a letter in December 2001 that too much time had elapsed and that the claim relied on the Geneva Convention and The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, neither of which existed when the alleged crimes took place. LEGALITIES Lawyers familiar with the case say it raises complex legal issues, such as whether or not statutory limitations on the lapse of time since a crime was committed apply to war crimes and whether any laws can be found prior to the Hague Conferences against which Colvile’s behaviour can be judged. "With regard to war crimes, statutory limitations don’t apply except for specific crimes. Iguru’s lawyers will argue that the crimes are grave enough that it shouldn’t matter how long ago they were committed," Henry Onoria, a senior lecturer in international law at Kampala’s Makerere University, told IRIN. Onoria also said The Hague and Geneva conventions embody international laws which were widely accepted in the late 19th century and might apply here. "They have to find rules of customary international law and be clear about which ones the case falls under. You’ve got things like the 1868 St Petersburg Declaration, which forbids plunder and the like." Another nagging question is that of the appropriate venue for such as case. Onoria told IRIN that Iguru could not use an international court because only states could do this, and Bunyoro had never been recognised as a modern nation state. "But he can use a British or American court," he noted. In America, using a peculiar law, the Alien Tort Act, which allows non-Americans to sue other non-Americans on US soil if the defendant has US assets that can be seized, the Herero tribe of Namibia filed a US $2 billion court case in Washington last year against three German companies accused of killing 65,000 Hereros between 1904 and 1907, when Namibia was a German colony. The case is still pending. In the UK, a lawyer, Martyn Day, recently won legal aid for a compensation claim against the British defence ministry on behalf of 600 Kenyan women who say they were raped by British colonial troops in the 1950s. Another case is being brought by Kenyan former Mau Mau freedom fighters, who claim they were tortured by the British, also in the 1950s, and is set to be filed soon. LAND FOR THE LANDLESS Meanwhile, a parallel case launched by the Bunyoro-Mubende Committee (BMC), representing the people of Bunyoro, aims to sue both the British and Ugandan governments for land lost during the campaign against Kabarega. According to historical records, British forces allied themselves with Baganda tribesman to devastate the Kingdom and then rewarded the Baganda by awarding them Bunyoro land captured during the conquest, the so-called "lost counties". To this day, much of Kibaale District in the west is owned by Baganda absentee landlords. The BMC claims that the government is trying to buy the land for its own purposes and refusing to give it back. "Those who have no land because it was stolen and handed to someone else have a legal right to be compensated," Kizza stressed. "The Banyoro feel dehumanised. There is anger at the suffering at the hands of the British, who plundered, killed to the point of depopulating, and have never been brought to justice. The wound must be healed," he added. According to historical records obtained by the committee, the population of Bunyoro dropped from 2 million to less than 100,000 during the period of British occupation, largely due to starvation and sickness arising from neglect.