On the occasion of the 43rd session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty published a report on “The Death Penalty in the Great Lakes Region of Africa: Protagonists, Arguments and Strategies” in May 2008. This publication is part of the World Coalition's strategy, which aims at facilitating the development of the abolitionist movement in the region as political and legal opportunities have been arising there to score points against the death penalty.
 This body of research focuses on four of the region’s countries – Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda – and aspires to become a practical tool for Great Lakes’ activists. It describes the state of play of the death penalty in the region, examines the factors arguing in favour of its abolition and suggests strategies for individual and collective action.
Sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the authors observe that there is now a clear trend towards abolition across the world and note that: “Following the acute crises and particularly serious collective crimes which plunged the countries examined in this report into mourning, each one is grappling in various ways with the reconstruction of its society and reestablishment of the rule of law. Abolition of the death penalty can play a part in the aim to reconcile society’s component parts and contribute to long-lasting peace.”
Decline of the death penalty in the Great Lakes region
The 1990s were marked by several wars and a wave of sentences and executions, notably from military courts, but the abolitionist idea has since then made clear progress.
Rwanda abolished the death penalty in July 2007. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the constitution was revised to delete references to the death penalty. In Burundi, the proposed new penal code rules out capital punishment. In Uganda, the Constitutional Court ruled in 2005 that the application of mandatory death sentences for some crimes was unconstitutional.
Abolitionist campaigners in those countries are beginning to work in coordination with each other. This report's recommendations aim at helping them in that process. One such suggestion involves creating national coalitions, as already exists in the DRC, and a regional coalition. The authors have emphasised on the need to combine forces.
As the debate on the death penalty is all too often confined to purely national considerations, they have decided to examine the issue from a regional perspective by underlining the similarities of the four countries involved. | | |
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