DTN News: Uganda Troops Catch Top Rebel In Central African Republic

DTN News: Uganda Troops Catch Top Rebel In Central African Republic

*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media

(NSI News Source Info) NAIROBI, Kenya - September 11, 2009: The Ugandan military said on Thursday it had captured a feared senior rebel from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who is accused of leading the massacre of 250 villagers more than 14 years ago. Okot Atiak was apparently detained last month during a campaign against the guerrillas by Ugandan forces in southeast Central African Republic (CAR). Uganda's army spokesman said he was providing intelligence to troops in the field. Atiak is not one of three top LRA commanders wanted for war crimes by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, but he has held several senior positions in one of Africa's most brutal rebel movements. (Image: Uganda troops catch top rebel in Central African Rep.) He is blamed for leading the fighters who slaughtered 250 civilians at Atiak village in northern Uganda's Gulu District in April 1995. The attack was seen as an LRA reprisal against fellow ethnic Acholis who failed to support their rebellion.

The multinational assault on Kony's fighters has only served to sow more chaos, with fleeing rebels attacking more villages and kidnapping hundreds of children, mostly to serve as porters. Kulayigye said most civilians rescued by the military from the LRA in recent weeks were from Congo, CAR and southern Sudan. "(Kony's guerrillas) have been trying to look for survival by spreading their tentacles in the region," he said. "Our forces came into contact with the rebels in CAR and we captured him in action," Ugandan army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Felix Kulayigye told Reuters by telephone from Kampala. The militaries of Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been fighting the LRA in remote south Sudan, northeastern DRC and southern CAR since two years of peace talks collapsed last year. The negotiations stalled amid mutual mistrust after Joseph Kony, the rebels' elusive leader, refused to sign a final peace agreement that the Ugandan government said would have given him and his top deputies immunity from ICC prosecution. More than two decades of rebellion by the LRA have killed tens of thousands of civilians and a large swathe of central Africa has been destabilised by marauding LRA guerrillas who are notorious for slicing off body parts and abducting children.

DTN News: Congo ~ UN Peacekeeping Force To Get 3,000 Extra Troops

DTN News: Congo ~ UN Peacekeeping Force To Get 3,000 Extra Troops *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) MONUC, Congo - August 21, 2009: The United Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is to get another 3,000 soldiers by the end of October, the force announced Wednesday. The reinforcement, which will come nearly a year after a resolution was approved by the UN Security Council, will comprise another 2,785 soldiers and 300 police officers. The new arrivals will include an infantry battalion and a company of special forces from Egypt; an infantry battalion and a company of engineers from Bangladesh; and a special forces company from Jordan. Most of them will be deployed in the volatile east and northeast of the country, where an estimated 500 members of the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) still terrorise the population. Also present in the zone, despite efforts by Congolese and Rwandan troops to flush them out, are up to 6,000 Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The first troops would arrive by the end of August, with the rest deployed by the end of October, MONUC spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich told AFP. The newcomers will be boosting an existing force of 17,000 peacekeepers, 700 military observers and more than a thousand police officers, who work closely with the Congolese army in operations against the two rebel groups. MONUC, on the ground since 2001, is the largest single peacekeeping force deployed by the UN, with an annual budget of 1.35 billion dollars (950 million euros).

Congo-Kinshasa: FDLR On Rampage In DRC - UNHCR

Congo-Kinshasa: FDLR On Rampage In DRC - UNHCR

(NSI News Source Info) May 1, 2009: The UN continues to conduct “follow operations” in North Kivu province to prevent the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) from reassembling. Congolese Army units are participating in the sweeps.

Two Rwandan Hutu rebels of the FDLR (Democratic Force for the Liberation of Rwanda) stand in dense forest outside Pinga, 150kms north west of Goma. Rwandan soldiers of the RDF (Rwandan Defence Force) have advanced into previously held rebel positions. A joint operation between Congolese and Rwandan soldiers has forced the rebels to retreat into the bush.

Results are decidedly mixed. Aid workers in the area have called the UN-Congolese operation a failure. Refugee agencies report that at least 100,000 people have been forced to temporarily flee the fighting. There are also reports of FDLR militiamen murdering civilians. This echoes reports of reprisal attacks by the FDLR in early April.

FDLR militiamen blamed Congolese civilians for giving away their hiding places when the Rwandan Army and the Congolese Army were conducting their joint offensive in January and February 2009 against the FDLR (which are the remnants of the Hutu mass murderers who fled Rwanda in 1994). April 28, 2009: UN commanders are once again asking the Security Council to provide MONUC (UN operation in Congo) another 3,000 troops, in addition to the current force of 17,000 soldiers in the Congo. Operations in North Kivu aren’t the only reason. MONUC has promised to position more peacekeepers in northeastern Congo, where Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) cadres are still active. Meanwhile, an FDLR faction appears to be in the vicinity of Kirumba (North Kivu province), intending to attack the town. April 27, 2009: FDLR militiamen have attacked several commercial vehicles on roads leading to the city of Goma (North Kivu province). Likely the militiamen are after supplies, but in the aftermath of the Congo-Rwanda offensive they also want to send the political message that they have not been defeated. April 18, 2009: FDLR militiamen attacked the town Luofo (North Kivu province). They burned down 250 homes and killed seven people. Five of the dead were children. Luofo is fairly large, with a population of 14,000. The UN responded to the attack by sending a detachment of peacekeepers. The UN mission in Congo, or MONUC, early Saturday sent peacekeeping troops to Luofo and the Red Cross dispatched a team to bury the victims. April 17, 2009: FDLR militiamen attacked several villages near the town of Lubero (North Kivu province, north of the capital, Goma). The FDLR struck the towns of Kirumba, Kanyabonga, and Kayna.

Africa: Most Acceptable Currency Over The Continent, Is The AK-47

Africa: Most Acceptable Currency Over The Continent, Is The AK-47

(NSI News Source Info) February 7, 2009: First it was guns and gangs, now it’s drought. For years the government’s main worry in the Karamoja region was cattle-raiding by gangs with a lot of automatic weapons. Karamoja is one of Uganda’s poorest areas and some of the raiders, when arrested, told the military and police they were stealing to survive.. The “weapons turn in” program had mixed results but the area became a bit more peaceable. Now severe drought afflicts Karamoja and stealing to survive may really become a necessity. It's estimated that 970,000 people in Karamoja could starve (to be specific, the people are in an “at risk” situation). February 4, 2009: The government said that Ugandan soldiers serving with peacekeeping forces in Somalia did not kill “dozens of civilians.” Authorities in Mogadishu, Somalia had accused the Ugandans of firing into a crowd and killing 36 people.

Uganda has around 1600 soldiers serving with AMISOM (acronym for the African Union;’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia) and has announced it plans to add another battalion (around 700 soldiers) to its peacekeeping contingent sometime this year. The Ugandan contingent has been serving in Somalia since March 2007. Six Ugandan soldiers have died while performing peacekeeping duties in Somalia. February 2, 2009: The government said the Ugandan Army operating in the Congo had rescued 119 Congolese who were abducted by the LRA. The number represents the total number of rescued since December 2008. January 29, 2009: A UN investigation confirmed that LRA guerrillas had killed 100 civilians in the village of Tora (in Congo on the south Sudan border). The murders took place on January 16. January 25, 2009: The government and several oil companies believe Uganda has a “world class” oil field.

The oil field, named “Buffalo-Giraffe” (hey, this is Africa), may have 400 million barrels of recoverable oil. The oil field is in the Lake Albert Rift Basin. Ugandan commentators fear that Uganda could catch “the oil disease” – oil cash going into the pockets of corrupt elites rather than being used for investment. January 21, 2009: The government continues to wrestle with the problem of “reintegrating” former LRA fighters. Many of them are former abductees, in other words, victims of the LRA themselves. A few, however, are guilty of what are clearly war crimes: theft, murder, arson, and rape.

The government wants to make certain the northerners who had sentimental attachment to the rebels’ calls for a separate northern state don’t feel punished.

The government wants re-settled former fighters to become economically productive (hence the “farm skills training” programs the government is funding).

However, a lot of Ugandans think the criminal acts should be punished. January 20, 2009: The Congo-Uganda joint offensive against the LRA has failed to nab LRA commander Joseph Kony. Ugandan Army (UPDF) “underestimated” the size of Kony’s forces inside Congo. Based on the LR movements since mid-December, it also appears that the LRA had prepared plans to withdraw from a large-scale Ugandan attack on its camps inside Congo, with the Central Africa Republic (CAR) a possible refuge. January 16, 2009: The LRA has conducted a series of vicious attacks on towns and villages in the Congo. Since January 1, LRA fighters have also attacked several villages in South Sudan.

The Congolese government claims at least 500 Congolese citizens have been killed by the LRA since mid-December, when the “joint” Congo-Uganda counter-LRA offensive began.