Commissioner, Mr President, I have to say that I am rather annoyed. The issues that are addressed under the emergency procedure, and today provides yet another example of this, deal with extremely important matters. I would, therefore, like us to consider the possibility of not always tabling human rights for Thursday afternoon, when only a few Members are present. I believe that issues as serious as human rights and freedom of expression deserve that this item be moved from time to time to a more suitable point on the agenda, when more Members are present. Turning to Uganda, this country has for a long time been considered to be a window onto development in East Africa. Today, however, it is the worst location for attacks on physical integrity and for breaches of human rights. Yesterday’s slaves were kidnapped, thrown into ships’ holds and traded for goods or money. Having cleared their consciences – particularly in Durban where they condemned slavery as a crime against humanity – western countries ended up forgetting that other forms of slavery still exist. Today, slaves do not wear chains or work in cotton fields, slavery does not need the colour issue to stamp its authority more thoroughly on black people whose souls have been destroyed. No! Slavery today takes the form of so-called resistance armies that claim to serve self-proclaimed ‘lords’ and all of this results in the tragedy with which we are familiar today: that of child soldiers. Child soldiers, it should be pointed out, are children who, as Kourouma explains very well in his book, are forced to kill a member of their family in order to become a child soldier. They are sexually exploited, as has already been said. There are around 20 000 such children in Uganda today and one reason why this tragedy is allowed to happen is that a whole host of countries is giving logistical, financial and military assistance to countries such as Sudan and Uganda. I wish to say that in this regard too, I have the feeling that our own policies employ double standards. A few weeks ago, I visited Togo, a country to which, perhaps rightly, we have refused to give aid in the fields of health and education. It is, therefore, being punished. At the same time, a country such as Uganda is being supported by the United States. At the same time, conventions that we have signed up to, such as ‘Everything but Arms’, are not being duly applied in Uganda, where arms trading still goes on throughout the country. I wish I could be sure that all the conventions on trade on the ground, of weapons in particular, were being properly implemented in countries such as Uganda. I also wish I could be sure that the various conventions that we have signed are more than just labels to ease our consciences, because signing up to the convention protecting the rights of the child or to an entire set of conventions intended to protect basic rights does not mean that we can carry on acting as if nothing were wrong. If the serious attacks on human rights, the breaches of children’s rights and the murders are the everyday lot of Ugandans, we must shoulder our responsibilities. This does not mean conducting a policy that employs double standards; it means real sanctions and monitoring the aid with which we provide that country.

Political group: GUE-NGL