Museveni braces to fight Ugandan rebels in DR Congo

Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has reiterated his warning to pursue rebels of the Lord`s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern DR Congo where they have reportedly gathered to attack Uganda, reported AngolaPress March 24, 2006. Excerpt:

"We will pursue the LRA rebels into the DRC if they launch attacks on any part of Uganda, with or without approval of the international authorities. Uganda had a right to self-defence under international law," Museveni warned in an interview published in the state-owned Sunday Vision.

The repeated threat but the strongest follows reports by Uganda army that LRA leader Joseph Kony, crossed into north-eastern DR Congo last week to join his loyal deputy, Major-General Vicent Otti, who is holed up in the Gramba game reserve.

The Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) claimed that LRA rebels have found jungles in north-eastern DRC, particularly the Garamba game reserve, a new sanctuary for them to re-group, re-organise and freshly attack Uganda since they were flushed out of their rear bases in southern Sudan.

In a related development, UN envoy Dennis McNamara has described the rebel war in northern Uganda as a shame to the Museveni regime, the international community and the United Nations.

"Twenty years is so long, we have failed the people in the north. They are crowded in camps without being protected. This is a huge challenge nationally and internationally," McNamara told a news conference here Friday.

"The conflict is one of the world`s most serious humanitarian crises, with crude mortality rates among displaced children which are higher than those prevailing in Darfur [western Sudan], and three times more than the rest of Uganda."

"You cannot achieve peace and security when you militarise the whole area when civilians have to be at the front and the military at the back.

"Even in peacekeeping missions like Darfur, they don`t keep the military at the front, McNamara said.

There should be a collaborative effort to ensure that peace returns to the region," added McNamara, at the end of a weeklong multi-donor mission in Kampala.

But Uganda army and Defence spokesman, Major Felix Kulayigye responded to McNamara`s remarks indifferently, saying, "A military situation requires a military action".

"In a war situation there is no law and order. You cannot resort to peaceful means. Agreeably we have had our weaknesses, but we have learnt lessons and addressed these weaknesses," Kulayigye told journalists.