Uganda outraged by Turabi’s defence of Kony

Feb 12, 2006 (KAMPALA) — The Uganda embassy in the Sudan has described as outrageous Hassan Al Turabi’s defence of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels of Joseph Kony, the Ugandan New Vision reported.

Turabi a former Speaker of the Sudanese Assembly at the time when Sudan supported the LRA between 1996 and 1999, said in an interview with the UK’s The Telegraph newspaper recently that Kony does not kill or abduct children.

The embassy, in a recent press statement, strongly condemned Turabi’s utterances saying it was a futile and shameless attempt by Turabi to whitewash the horrible blood-tinted image of the LRA.

Uganda backed the rebels Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), so Khartoum retaliated by arming the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a fanatical cult ravaging northern Uganda. It used Sudan’s weapons to abduct at least 20,000 children.

Asked by the Telegraph on its edition of 30 January whether he had approved of arming them, Turabi said: “It’s natural. In all wars people do the same. If there’s a state of war between you and the other side, then you arm the other side’s opposition don’t you?”

Turabi acquitted the LRA of murdering child captives. “They don’t kill them by the way, they don’t murder,” he said.

(ST/New Vision)