Ugandan president accuses Sudan of sheltering rebels, officials find decomposing bodies at massacre site
By HENRY WASSWA Associated Press Writer
KAMPALA, Uganda, Dec 09, 2003 (AP) — President Yoweri Museveni accused Sudanese officials Tuesday of sheltering the leaders of a Ugandan rebel organization and said government militias were holding hundreds of Ugandan children hostage in southern Sudan.
Museveni’s statements could not be independently verified and Sudanese officials were not immediately available for comment. The rebels, listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, cannot be reached.
Sudan has allowed Ugandan troops into southern Sudan to pursue the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army and Museveni’s statement at a press conference Tuesday was his first criticism of the Sudanese government in at least two years.
“(Rebel leader Joseph) Kony is living near Juba. There is a camp at Nisitu, 15 miles south of Juba, which harbors hundreds of children abducted by the bandits,” Museveni said. “Kony is hiding these children near where the militias who support the Sudan government are. Sudan is not supposed to back our enemies.”
Sudan has backed the rebels in retaliation for Museveni’s support of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army. But in since 2000, Uganda and Sudan have normalized relations and pledged not to support the others’ rebel groups.
The Ugandan rebels regularly kidnap hundreds of children for use as sex slaves and child soldiers. The shadowy group has refused to engage in peace talks, or even make their political goals clearly known to the outside world.
“I have never believed that Kony would come out through peaceful means. I do not even think of it as a serious option. Those with that illusion can go ahead and talk to the rebels. But we shall get the LRA leaders, including Kony, and kill them,” Museveni said.
In northern Uganda, officials have recovered the bodies of 70 victims of a rebel attack last month, refuting the army’s insistence that no such rebel massacre took place, the top civilian leader in the area said Tuesday.
Residents began finding the decomposing bodies when they returned home following weeks of raids by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, Franco Ojur, the head of the Lira District Council, said. Ojur said the bodies had been mutilated and many could not be positively identified.
“I have the list of all those killed and the villages where they came from,” Ojur said by telephone from Lira, 270 kilometers (165 miles) north of the capital, Kampala.
Maj. Shaban Bantariza, the army spokesman, continued to deny that a massacre had taken place and challenged Ojur to take army officers to the bodies.
“We have asked him to take us there and until they do, we have no belief in what he’s saying. We have our forces there and they don’t know anything about it,” he said.
The rebels have stepped their attacks on civilian targets in Lira district in recent months, massacring hundreds of people.
More than 1.2 million people live in refugee camps or other shelters since the fighting began in 1986.