----- Original Message -----
From: Vovi Uganda e.V.
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Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2004 7:39 PM
Subject: UPDF returns to Sudan
UPDF returns to Sudan
By Alex B. Atuhaire
March 14, 2004
KAMPALA - The army is to re-deploy in southern Sudan to fight the Lords Resistance Army rebels. The move comes after Sudan extended by three months, up to May 31, a protocol under which the UPDF is allowed to carry out search-and-destroy raids against the rebels.
The army spokesman, Maj. Shaban Bantariza confirmed Friday, that the protocol had been renewed and the UPDF was preparing to attack the rebel bases in southern Sudan.
"Yes, we shall go there and break their [LRA] backs," Bantariza told Sunday Monitor in a telephone interview. He did not specify when the army would re-deploy but military sources said the exercise has already started, with army authorities stopping 'pass leave' for soldiers in northern Uganda.
"Movement orders' have been stopped, they are talking of Sudan," a military source based in Gulu told Sunday Monitor. The LRA led by Joseph Kony has waged a vicious war in northern Uganda since 1988, killing and maiming civilians and abducting tens of thousands of children who are forced into combat or sexual slavery.
Bantariza said the army hopes to completely rout the rebels during the new offensive. "We have broken their backs in Acholiland, we shall finish them when we get them in southern Sudan," he said.
The protocol, first signed in March 2002, was renewed last week after a series of meetings between the minister of Defence, Mr Amama Mbabazi, and his Sudanese counterpart, Gen. Bakri Hassan Saleh.
The UPDF chief-of-Staff, Brig. Joshua Masaba and the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence boss, Col. Noble Mayombo, attended the meetings in Khartoum.
Under the new arrangement, the UPDF has been barred from using airpower, like the helicopter gunships, a source familiar with the proceedings told Sunday Monitor.
But Bantariza said that was not new. "It was always in the protocol; no use of air power; no joint operations with SPLA [Sudanese People's Liberation Army]," he said.
Sources also told Sunday Monitor that the Sudanese government refused to bow to pressure from the Ugandan delegation to punish officers of the Sudanese Defence Forces (SDF) who had been re-arming LRA.
Bantariza said the UPDF had nothing to do if Sudan refused to punish the officers. "We have complained many times and they have failed to punish them. What can we do?" he asked.
"If they don't punish the officers but at least stop them from re-arming LRA, then it would be better than if they punished them and they continued re-arming the rebels," Bantariza said.
The Sudanese ambassador to Uganda, Mr Sirrajudin Hamid Yousuf, said he was unable to comment because he was not part of the recent meetings in Khartoum.
"But that is an old story [SDF officers re-arming LRA]. It was handled and the government of Uganda knows it," Surrajudin told Sunday Monitor on phone.
The protocol allowing UPDF to pursue LRA into southern Sudan was first signed in March 2002, after which the army launched an operation code-named "Iron Fist".
The army said then that the operation would settle the nearly 17-year conflict in northern Uganda but two years later, critics think the situation hasn't changed.
© 2004 The Monitor Publications
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