Uganda, Sudan to build major road up north Donors, UN pledge money

By Badru D. Mulumba, The Monitor

KAMPALA, Oct 27, 2003 — Uganda and Sudan plan to tarmac a major road linking Gulu and Juba towns. Gulu is found in northern Uganda while Juba is the major city in southern Sudan.

The move could pave the way, literally, for easy flow of goods and people between the two countries.

President Yoweri Museveni made the pledge to tarmac the Gulu-Nimule-Juba road at the end of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development summit in Kampala, his press secretary, Ms Mary Okurut, said in a statement.

Mr Museveni took over the Igad chairmanship from President Omar el-Bashir of the Sudan at the end of the summit at the International Conference Centre on Friday.

“…Museveni said that his tenure as Igad chairman will be devoted to settling all conflicts as well as developing infrastructure like the Gulu-Nimule, Nimule – Juba roads and electric energy provision,” said the statement issued at the weekend.

Southern Sudan’s poor roads were last year blamed for slowing down the UPDF’s Operation Iron Fist, the codename for the Ugandan military offensive against the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army.

The LRA, led Mr Joseph Kony, have rear bases in the southern Sudan. Kony reportedly owns a mansion in Juba.

Relations between Uganda and Sudan have been frosty over the presence of the Kony rebels in the Sudan, with support of the Bashir regime.

Government reportedly hired Zzimwe Construction, a Ugandan civil engineering firm, to grade some of the roads in the region.

“He [Chissano] said that the region should move to utilise the favourable landscape of Ethiopia to generate hydroelectric power for the region,” Okurut’s statement read.

Mr Joachim Chissano is the President of Mozambique and he attended the summit as chairman of the African Union.

Mr Mohamed Sahnoun, a special advisor to the UN Secretary General, said the UN would support the reconstruction of the Sudan once a peace deal is reached. Negotiations facilitated by Igad and now in advanced stages, are going on for such a peace deal in Kenya.

“The United Nations will do everything possible to garner maximum international support for the implementation of a future peace accord and the reconstruction of the country,” Sahnoun was quoted as saying by the international media.

During meetings held in Oslo in January and in The Hague in April, he said, donors had shown a “commendable readiness to meet the future Sudanese peace agreement with critically needed resources”.

The Norwegian Minister for International Development, Ms Hilde Frafjord Johnson, pledged an undisclosed sum of money for the implementation of Sudan’s truce.

“Plans are already in place to fund the implementation of a peace deal in Sudan,” she said. “After the signing of the peace deal, Oslo will hold a donors’ conference on Sudan with a view to raise funds to facilitate its implementation.”

But Frafjord Johnson added that it was up to the countries of the region to work toward a lasting peace in Sudan, as well as in other Igad member countries.

She singled out northern Uganda as one of the areas needing urgent attention. “Uganda is taking over the Igad leadership at a crucial point, with the conflict in the northern region dragging on, which requires peaceful resolution,” she said. “We urge President Museveni to give in to dialogue without any conditions.”