By Badru D. Mulumba
Dec 7, 2003
KAMPALA - Details of the United States military support to Uganda are out.
But the assistance does not include spy signals or field military operations.
"The US resumed a small military assistance programme with the Government of Uganda in September after Uganda withdrew its troops from the DRC," the director for Public Affairs at the US Embassy in Kampala, Mr Mark Schlachter told Sunday Monitor last week.
"The scope of this programme is limited to training in civil-military relations, respect for human rights, defense resource management, HIV/Aids, and public affairs."
It is the first time US officials are going public on the scope of military assistance to Uganda, following speculation that it was providing intelligence signals under a new defence programme.
The speculation arose in October following a report in a US publication, Washington Times, which quoted an unnamed State Department source.
Sunday Monitor had earlier learnt that troop withdrawal from the Congo was a US Congress precondition for resumption of military assistance.
In its Foreign Assistance Authorisation Act for financial year 2004, the US Congress says: "It is the sense of Congress that the United States should condition military assistance to Uganda on its international compliance with sustained troop withdrawals from the Democratic Republic of Congo where the presence of Ugandan armies has contributed to the violence and instability in the region."
In parts, the Act that Sunday Monitor has seen, says that the US must "explore the possibility of facilitating the creation of mechanisms for an international monitoring team to enforce this cease-fire as the first step in the process toward a permanent peace."
It adds: "It is the sense of the Congress that the United States should continue supporting the Sudan Peace Process and Danforth Initiative, which include peace talks, donor coordination, regional support, civilian protection and monitoring, and cease-fire verification and consider modeling aspects of this process in northern Uganda."
The Act requires the US government to report back to Congress no letter than April 2004 on the efforts to end the war.
At the same time, Congress wants to cut off the LRA lifeline. "It is the sense of the Congress that the United States should make available technical resources to seek, track and stop funding for the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) from all sources and condemn all governments and organisations who do assist the LRA," the Act says. It however remains unclear how the US hopes it could track LRA money.
"I do not have any information on how the Senate envisioned tracking LRA funding," Schlachter said, "and I am not aware of any reports that would offer guidance in that regard."
Defence minister Amama Mbabazi could not be reached on Friday. But his personal assistant, who is also Army spokesman, Major Shaban Bantariza said, Friday: "If the US can make head way with Sudan, and can be able to reign in the LRA thugs, we would be no hindrance to such effort."
Asked about the reported military signals from the US to the UPDF, Bantariza said that it was not the UPDF, but the media that gave out these reports. "They had nothing to write," he said.
"We have no problem with the US playing a role," he said. "Jimmy Carter offered to do that. The LRA snubbed the offer."
According to the Act, the US should monitor and support negotiations conducted by third party institutions for an immediate cease-fire between the LRA and UPDF and urge all forces to stop use of child soldiers.
The US should also negotiate humanitarian access to inaccessible populations.
It says that this would offer an opportunity to bring the warring parties together to build confidence, to support an immediate peaceful resolution of the 17- year old conflict.
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
