There is , not doubt an effort to by Museveni and his supporters in the West ( western Imperalist nations) to attack Sudan? read on!!!
New Vision (Kampala) OPINION August 3, 2004 Posted to the web August 3, 2004 Julius Mucunguzi Kampala REPORTS that the 18-year-old insurgency in northern Uganda could end soon with the capture of LRA rebel leader Joseph Kony are a welcome development. This news is also coupled with recent events indicating numerous successes of the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) against the rebels by capturing and killing top ranks within LRA. However, there is a component that has not been looked at as a critical factor in seeing the end to the northern Uganda conflict. The relationship between LRA of Joseph Kony and the conflict in the Darfur region of Western Sudan. The hypothesis of this argument is that as long as the conflict in Darfur continues, it is unlikely that the northern insurgency will end. The problem is that the international community, especially the African leaders have for the most part played lip service to the Darfur crisis. For example the recently concluded African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia simply stopped at making declarations of their commitment to end the conflict, but nothing concrete has been effected. An African peace keeping force that was promised has not been put in place. Uganda would be one of the lead beneficiaries of a peaceful Darfur region since any move otherwise would have a negative backlash on the move against Kony. The whole world is now waiting to see the results of a recent meeting between Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as AU head and Sudan's Omar Bashir in respect of the conflict. Already, Sudan as recently as yesterday, attacked the UN Security Council resolution calling for the end to the vicious attacks on civilians in Darfur. The Sudanese government said any move by foreign troops in its territory ostensibly to bring peace in the region will be viewed as aggression and a declaration of war. Such disregard and contempt of international public opinion should not be allowed to go unchallenged. The world must show resolve that crimes against humanity like those prevailing in Darfur don't become the norm. They don't have to happen with impunity. The US has, for example, shown interest in the conflict, but it should go beyond rhetoric and act in much the same way it did in Iraq -- even when it lacked the mandate of the UN. There is sufficient evidence that would necessitate the use of all means available to bring stability in the region. Sudanese government forces and their allied Janjaweed militias have committed crimes against humanity and atrocities amounting to war crimes in Darfur. Large swathes of western Sudan that were well populated by productive farming communities are now emptied of their inhabitants and burned to the ground, after being thoroughly looted. A recent documentary by celebrated CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Aman pour showed that civilians have been targeted because they share the same ethnicity as the rebels in Darfur - a vicious "ethnic cleansing" of more than one million people, with thousands dead. Uganda needs to care about all this. And here is why. One reason why Kony has survived all this long is that the Sudanese government has for a long time supplied his rebel forces with all manner of support from arms to food. This is something the Sudan authorities have acknowledged in various fora. The reason they would give was that Uganda too has been supporting SPLA rebels who have been fighting the Sudanese government. In effect, has been a tit for tat game. But some positive developments have been taking place in the SPLA versus Sudan government conflict. About two months ago, a final peace agreement between the Khartoum and the SPLM/A, facilitated by the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) was signed to end the 21-year-long conflict. But this agreement doesn't address the conflict in Darfur. The use of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing by the Sudanese government using the Janjaweed in its efforts to quell the rebellion in Darfur casts serious doubt on its commitment to sustained peace and human rights in any part of Sudan, and by extension, to Uganda. Why is this? Because the government of Sudan employs in Darfur the same counterinsurgency strategy it used in southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains, namely of targeting civilians from the same ethnicity as the rebels; arming and supporting an ethnic militia with existing rivalries with the targeted group, etc. Now there are reports that the SPLA/M says that the agreement, which was reached in Machakos, Kenya, could easily slip back into chaos if the Sudanese government doesn't end the crimes in Darfur. If that happens, Kony might benefit from the situation, and re-organise his group to cause more havoc. Uganda army spokesman Maj Shaban Bantariza says that the army is very concerned about any developments that may subtract from the peace process in Southern Sudan, reasoning that that would have dire consequences in the end to the rebellion in northern Uganda. "For as long as there is no government in Southern Sudan, we get very concerned, because that would mean that any bandits can take advantage of the situation and cause trouble," Bantariza says. Relevant Links East Africa North Africa Arms and Military Affairs Uganda Sudan Civil War and Communal Conflict Humanitarian Abuses and Civilians Peace is indivisible. If one part of the world like Darfur is in pain, it becomes very difficult to effect peace in any other part. The international community, starting with the African Union must press both the Sudanese government and the LRA rebels to stop atrocities against innocent civilians so that sanity and peace returns to these places. -------------------------------------------- This service is hosted on the Infocom network http://www.infocom.co.ug
