{UAH} Samantha Power to stress human rights and dignity at the UN

At her Senate confirmation hearing as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Hon. Samantha Power pledged to do everything in her power to press for respect for human rights and human dignity of all peoples around the world.

On behalf of UDU, I welcome Hon. Power's strong statement on this very important subject. We call on her to pay particular attention to the abuse of human rights and human dignity in the Great Lakes region especially in DRC, Rwanda and Uganda.

Uganda has been declared a failed state in large part because of abuse of human rights and human dignity of the people of Uganda. The police department has been militarized with the minister of internal affairs and inspector general of police being military generals.

The Anti-terrorism law that is broadly defined has been used to suppress exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Hon. Power has done some work on genocide in Rwanda. New information is being made available about who did what during that genocide. Hopefully, Hon. Power will take this new information into consideration in discussing Rwanda genocidaires. Furthermore, we hope that Hon. Power will pay attention to the genocide of Hutu people in DRC allegedly committed by Tutsi.

Hon. Power should also remind the world that Hutu suffered genocide at the hands of Tutsi in Burundi especially in 1972, 1988 and 1993.

Eric Kashambuzi

Secretary General, UDU