The Monitor (Kampala)
June 18, 2003
Posted to the web June 18, 2003
Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda
Kampala
Members of Parliament from Teso, Acholi and Lango sub-regions yesterday vented their anger against the government for failure to protect local people from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels.
"These fellows are walking as if they are walking in their own compound. How can a few thousand people be more effective than a government with 50,000 soldiers?" said Oyam South MP Ben Wacha.
"They are 100,000," chorused some MPs giving their own estimate of the size of government troops.
The MPs are angry following the latest rebel attacks by Joseph Kony's LRA rebels in Katakwi, Lira, Apac, Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts.
Kasilo MP Elijah Okupa told Parliament yesterday that he had received a call from Katakwi at 2 p.m., just 30 minutes before the beginning of the plenary session, and was informed that LRA rebels had attacked two primary schools.
"He [Kony] has now started training more than 200 children of between 10 to 15 years," Mr Okupa said.
He said that the UPDF had deployed 70 soldiers in the area but they had made the situation worse by stopping residents from running away.
"This is the only security [running away] that our people have," said a very angry Soroti Woman MP Alice Alaso.
Explanations from the Minister of State for Defence Ruth Nankabirwa only got the MPs angrier.
It was MP Alaso who started it all when she said that the rebels had attacked Katakwi, killed four people and abducted 100 from a camp for people displaced by the Karimojong cattle rustlers.
She said that the MPs from the affected areas had rushed back to their constituencies on Sunday and Monday only to discover that the UPDF had not deployed in the threatened areas.
Minister Nankabirwa promised to deliver a statement on the security situation in the country today.
She said that she would be short on details because of national "security" considerations.
Ms Nankabirwa said that 19 battalions had been deployed but Agago MP Ogenga Latigo demanded that the minister explain the actual numbers deployed instead of hiding behind military jargon.
West Budama South MP Akisoferi Ogola said that the country should analyse the causes of the endless insecurity, citing possible failures in defence and foreign policy.
The MP wondered why President Yoweri Museveni had committed the country without consulting Parliament to supporting demands by the United States that her soldiers should never be tried by the International Criminal Court.
No minister stood up to challenge him.
Mr Wacha proposed that the Parliament should sit in a closed session to discuss the security situation.
