Museveni Calls Gen. Bashir Over Joseph Kony
by Grace Matsiko, The Monitor.
Aug 30, 2005 (Jinja) — President Yoweri Museveni has telephoned Field Marshal Omar Bashir, the Sudanese President asking him to allow the UPDF extend its operations against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels north of Juba.
“Last Friday I spoke to President Bashir that we want to operate north of Juba Road. Gen. Bashir said that the Sudan army in Juba can operate against Kony. But I told him that we have experience in tracing him” Museveni said yesterday.
The President was speaking at the graduation of 208 army officers, 50 of them from the LRA. The graduates also included ex-fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces, Uganda National Rescue Front (I and II) and West Nile Bank Front, all former rebels that have fought Museveni’s government.
The President flanked by the Army Commander, Lt. Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, commissioned the ex-rebels to a general rank of a Second Lieutenant (2nd Lt). Also passed out after the eight months Basic Officers’ Course (OBC) were UPDF officers, who had been promoted without commensurate training. Former LRA spokesman, Sam Kolo, Kenneth Banya and Onen Kamdulu were present and were introduced as ‘senior commanders’ attracting applause.
Museveni said that Kony has now fled north of Juba-Torit Road, well beyond the area which Sudan had allowed Uganda to pursue the rebels in the vast Southern Sudan jungles.
“As I speak today, Kony has been thoroughly defeated and his group in Uganda killed,” the President declared before adding that the war is coming to an end and the extension of UPDF operations will wipe out the LRA. The President told the former LRA commanders now integrated into the UPDF ranks that whereas as rebels their logistics came from “stealing cassava”, in the army their provisions come from stores.
“You have been fighting but you did not have the expertise. You are like that the unprofessional cook who cooks malakwang (an Acholi delicacy), but now we said come here and become better cooks, if you have been quack doctors, we have trained you and made you professional doctors,” Museveni told the ex-rebels.
On the fight against the killings in Kampala and other areas, the President said he had directed security agencies to keep guns in the armouries instead of their houses except in the north and northeastern Uganda where there is insurgency.
Museveni said the former armies under Idi Amin failed to contain a Tanzania-led invasion by Ugandan exiles because of lack of training. He said, the soldiers used tanks as accommodation for their mistresses.