Who Arms the LRA Rebels?

By Joshua Kato

KAMPALA, Mar 03, 2004 (New Vision) — On many occasions, the UPDF has reported the capture of big guns from the LRA, thus reducing the rebels armoury. On nearly every discovery, the UPDF boasts that the rebels’ armoury is finished.

According to Major Shaban Bantariza, the UPDF spokesman, the army has captured over 600 rifles, 16 Rocket Propelled Grenades, 72 landmines, 400 bombs of varying calibre, three 12.7mm anti-aircraft guns and over 35,000 bullets.

However, in the attack on Barlonyo internally displaced people’s camp, the rebels used several B-10 guns, 60mm mortars, 12.5mm AA batteries and General-Purpose machineguns (GPMG).

According to James Obonyo, a fighter in the Amuka militia, the guns were new. However, northern army spokesman Lt. Chris Magezi, who wonders how the Amuka were able to see the new guns at night, denies this.

At the peak of operation Iron Fist, the army recovered an arsenal from the LRA that was unknown before. The rebels had BM-21 Multiple Rocket Launching Systems, artillery pieces of varying calibre and hundreds of heavy machineguns. After the capture of these weapons, the UPDF was optimistic that the LRA arsenal would dwindle.

Officially, the Sudanese government has stopped giving arms to the LRA. However, nearly two years after this declaration, the rebels are still able to use heavier guns.

“The source of these heavy arms is now our concern and that is what we want to find out. We know that the source used to be Sudan, which gave them enough arms in the past decade,” Magezi says.

In November last year, state minister for defence Ruth Nankabirwa said the Sudanese government was still supporting the rebels.

However, after some pressure, she modified the statement to “individual officers” of the Sudanese army.

But, the Sudanese government has denied this on numerous occasions, to the extent of asking Nankabirwa for an apology.

But Reagan Okumu (Aswa county MP) thinks the Sudanese government is still supporting the rebels. “We appeal to the government of Sudan for once to take responsibility because there is no way Sudan can keep giving excuses that they are not supporting rebels yet LRA continues to get arms and camps to harass people,” he says.

Certainly, if the Sudanese government no longer supports the LRA, then they have a new sponsor. While it is easy to acquire AK-47 guns and to a large extent RPGs from the black market in the Great Lakes region, shells for the B-10, for example, are not common, neither are the guns themselves.

The other possibility is that the rebels secured a huge amount of ammunition from the Sudanese government while it was still supporting them.

“We are unearthing their weapons and means of waging war everyday,” Magezi says. But this of course depends on whether the rebels do not have a new supplier.

Another puzzling aspect of the war is the uniforms. The LRA rebels who attacked Barlonyo camp left terror in their wake, dressed in uniforms similar to those of the Amuka. This was not the first time the rebels were attacking a place wearing uniforms similar to those of the UPDF, Arrow Group or Amuka.

The similarity is so striking that security forces can mistake the rebels for friendly forces.

In Abia, where the rebels killed 52 people in February, the Amuka forces defending the IDP camp even saluted the rebels, thinking they were UPDF soldiers. They allowed them into the camp and watched a football match, before the rebels began firing.

The question being asked is; “Where did the rebels get the uniforms from, just a few days after they had been given to the Amuka militia?”

There are worrying reports that some of the men and women trained as Amuka fighters might have been rebels.

According to the UPDF, over 10,000 Amuka passed out in February. “It is likely that some of these people deserted soon after training and took the guns and uniforms to the rebels,” a source says. However, according to the army, less than 10% of the Amuka Boys have deserted.

This, they say, cannot constitute the hundreds of rebels who attacked Barlonyo and Abia, putting on Amuka uniforms. The sources say the Amuka command cannot account for some of the deserters who disappeared with guns and uniforms.

“We need to have a tighter control over these forces. Otherwise I don’t rule out some of them running off with the guns and uniforms,” a source says.

Maj. Bantariza says the vetting of Amuka recruits was done right from the village level throughout the sub-counties.

“The sub-counties brought these people to us. We trained them and allowed them to go back to their areas,” he says. He says the recruits were supposed to be people of well-known background.

“This is an indication that they have a supplier, and a steady one at that. We are looking for possibilities,” a military source says.