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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 12:18 PM
Subject: UGANDA: Military muscle, political problems UGANDA: Military muscle, political problems
The government's failure to end the LRA's brutal campaign points to a growing national crisis. After 18 years of the Lord's Resistance Army's murderous attacks on civilians, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni declares on 14 November that the LRA is 'nearly finished' then the LRA launches another round of attacks to prove him wrong. The President, who has stationed himself in northern Uganda to lead the military campaign against the LRA, had been encouraged by the reported death of LRA commander General Charles Tabuley. Museveni had declared that LRA leader Joseph Kony's 'incursion into Teso region has been defeated'. Within three days, the LRA was launching a fresh attack on Lira district, north-west of Teso, bludgeoning twelve civilians to death and displacing tens of thousands of local people. For the 34 members of parliament who represent the northern and eastern constituencies, this was the final straw. Led by Nwoya MP Zachary Olum and Oyen MP Okullo Epak, they walked out of parliament on 18 November, to protest at what they see as the government's failure to protect its people. What especially triggered their fury was that the attacks happened only some six kilometres from the nearest army post and so might have been repulsed if not entirely prevented. This follows a warning by Museveni that he personally would arrest anyone criticising the government army. A former army captain and now MP, Charles Byanruhanga, had criticised Museveni for creating the impression that the Uganda Peoples' Defence Force was his personal army. UGANDA: Colonel Kizza's story. In exile after claiming to have been targeted by government assassins, Colonel Kizza Besigye remains the opposition's most credible flagbearer. His strength is that he was for years an insider: a Banyankole like President Yoweri Museveni, Besigye fought with the National Resistance Army and endorsed the goals of Museveni's revolutionary regime when it seized power in 1986. Speaking from his exile base in Africa, Besigye explained that from the beginning, Museveni's aim was to control politics and stabilise Uganda. To achieve that, the National Resistance Movement needed: its core power base in the military; that business should be rapidly expanded among the NRM's political allies; for the majority rural population and commodity producers to see the NRM as chief protector of their interests; a foreign policy which must cement key alliances with South Africa, Tanzania, Britain and the United States. |
