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Visa requirement for Ugandans (1)

01 January 1991

Visa requirement for Ugandans
artdoc June=1991

Uganda has become the last major refugee-producing country whose nationals
require visas to come to Britain as from 2 April. In a written answer to
Sir John Wheeler MP, Peter Lloyd, the Minister responsible for immigration,
made it clear that the decision was taken in order to prevent Ugandan
asylum-seekers from entering Britain. In 1990 Uganda produced the third
largest number of asylum-seekers arriving in Britain, after Sri Lanka and
Somalia.
The written answer suggests that `respect for human rights in Uganda has
substantially improved' over the period during which the number of
asylum-seekers has increased. However, according to Amnesty International's
1990 report, there is still large-scale detention without trial of
political dissidents in Uganda, where rebels are fighting the government
troops of President Museveni. Torture and extra-judicial killings still
occur and new legislation empowers magistrates' courts to try people on
charges carrying the death sentence.
In the light of the Amnesty report, and the government's record of
ignoring human rights abuses in `friendly' countries such as Turkey and Sri
Lanka, it is clear that many refugees fleeing detention, torture and death
in Uganda have now been effectively barred from seeking asylum in Britain
by this move. Of the EC member states only Denmark, Ireland and Italy now
allow Ugandans to enter without visas. Under the rubric of the various
intergovernmental agreements such as those of the TREVI group, it will not
be long before Europe's borders are closed to Ugandan asylum-seekers along
with those of most other nationalities. (Home Office Press Release 26.3.91;
Amnesty International Annual Report 1990).

Statewatch no 2, May/June 1991