Uganda army should leave South Sudan
By Obargot Paabwola
October 30, 2006 — Following the recent development in Southern Sudan where 41 people have been ambushed by some gunemen and killed, followed by series of other killings, it is extremely important a close look be paid to what in fact is in South Sudan, to see if there is any conducive environment that shall eventually usher in a lasting peace for the entire region. Failure to do so will tantamount to nothing but negligence given the volatile nature of the political terrain. If and when such negligence results into genocide ala Democratic Republic of Congo, then none other than the leaderships of Sudan will be to blame, especially the South Sudan leadership.
Currently, there seem to be many forces in Sudan, particularly South Sudan. There is the government of Sudan’s army, Sudan armed force, SAF; there is the Sudan peoples liberation army, SPLA; there are Equatoria armies, like the EDF, and so forth – I do not know how many in terms of groups, the Equatorian forces are. But they appear more than one. Add to these armies the Uganda army, UPDF, now station in the country; then we have the LRA, a Ugandan rebel group forced to carry arms due to misrule, marginalization, and outright human right violation by the present government of President Yoweri Museveni on the people of Northern and Eastern Uganda. One will see a pretty dangerous environment that must not be allowed to prevail, and the first thing needed done, is to look deeply into whether all these forces have any convincing reasons to camp in Southern Sudan. For those that don’t, I am afraid, they must be asked to leave the region – strategic precautionary measeure.
Therefore, of these various armies wielding guns, that from amongst, misterious gunmen heinously kill innocent people in the region at will, which one can be said to have over stayed their welcome and therefore, no longer has any covincing reasons to continuosly camp in Southern Sudan? To answer the question there is need to look broadly.
To any savvy person, the South Sudan environment is a very chaotic, unstable, and dangerous, that if not handle carefully, will plunge the entire region into another of those so called African wars of which one we witnessed in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which about 5million Africans have been massacred. To even think that Vice President, Dr. Riek Macher, and President Salva Kirr of Southern Sudan are allowing or over looking this dangerous environment, and so have it prevail in South Sudan is a cause for concern. As freedom fighters who so far have pulled South Sudan towards freedom and independent, I am sure they are very much aware of the mayhem that led to the massacre of 5million innocent Africans in Congo. However, before I proceed, lets look breifly into the sad era in our history, that occured in Congo.
What brought about the massacre of 5 million Africans in the Democratic Republic of Congo? I am sure we all know. But lets touch on that sad period to drive a point.
There was a Mobutu Sesseseko, former president of the now DRC. He came to power in early 1960s. Having connived with imperialists, he had Patrice Lumumber, an African visionary clearly elected to power by the people of that vast country, killed. Lumuba was not one of those run-off-the-mill African politicians. He was a visionary, a revolutionary, and an African nationalist who wanted nothing but to bring about fundamental change in the form of freedom, economic and political, for his African people. This vision pitted Lumumba against those that see him as a threat, the imperialists, whose eyes are on African resources. So, Lumumba was eliminated. From then Mobutu Sesseseko reign in the Congo. His government was propped up and maintained by imperialist forces for well over 30 years while the country’s resources were looted. For the entrie 30+ years that Mobutu was in power, absolutely no economic deveopment took place in the Congo. People grew more poorer; there were no roads; schools were not there; even Universities were rotting away and the government of Mobutu could do nothing about it – for, imperialists had pinned Mobutu’s government to carry out the role and duty of a “Kaffir”, guarding the operation of multinational corporations engaged in looting Congo resources. Todate the country is even wosre off.
While Congo was being reduced to stone age era, in neighbouring Uganda, imperialists were plotting their next moves. Amin who had come to power in 1971 after ousting president Milton Obote from power was driven out of the country by Tanzanian army in 1979. By 1980 Uganda under went general election. Former president Milton Obote’s Uganda Peoples Congress party, UPC, won the election with a landslide victory. Museveni, who was one of the contestants in the election lost hands down – his own constituency did not even vote him into parliament. As a party leader, Museveni was a spent force. But subterraneally he unfortunately wasn’t. Apparently they had a “Tutsis” thing going on that most Ugandans knew nothing about. Remeber these Tutsis have been massacring people in Burundi for ages!
Not long after Museveni lost the 1980 general election, he jumped into the bush to launch one of the cunniest guerrilla wars Uganda has ever seen. Five years into the guerrilla war, Museveni came to power and gaudily pronaunced bringing into the country “fundamental change” that later turned out to be “fundamental genocide” not only in Uganda but also in Rwanda and the DRC.
While Museveni was busy butchering Ugandans in the North and East of the country, subterraneally he was putting together Rwandese forces who were his allies in the bush war that brought him into power in 1986, to eventually attack Rwanda and topple the government of President Habyellimana. Somewhere around the 90s Rwanda was attacked by RPA based in Uganda. By 1994, in grand alliance with western media and multinational corporations, Habyellimana government was history; a plane carrying him and Burundian President then, was shot down by the RPA and NRA coalition. The two presidents died. The rest is history. But that was not the end of the Musevenis and their grand plan. Having pocketted Rwanda by 1994, they were now poised to pocket the Democratic Republic of Congo, then Zaire.
Unfortunately for poor Congolese people, having been perpetuated in power by western nations and multinationals for 30+ years, Mobutu had only himself to blame when finally the same western nations and multinationals had Rwanda and Uganda poised to overthrow his government. Again, the rest is history.
But what transpired after Mobutu was overthrown was the death of a whooping 5million Africans. This came about as a result of Uganda and Rwanda camping their armies in the Congo supposedly to fight their respective rebel armies that they claimed are genociders and are fighting their government from their bases in the Congo; those that have killed hundreds of thousand of people in both countries. Pure hogwash!
Note that before the era of Museveni’s National Resistence Army(NRA) & Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) absolutely no group of Africans died in a hundreds of thousands due to gun related violence. There was for instance, no Luwero massacre in Uganda before the birth of the NRA; there was no Rwanda genocide of 1994 before the birth of the RPA; there was no genocide in Northern and Eastern Uganda before the birth of the NRA whose composition included many members of the RPA then; and there was no 5million dead Congolese in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But all these people, Museveni to Kagame, claim to be the only paragon of virtue Africa has ever seen. Always fighting “killers” who have left on their track millions of dead Africans! Make sense to anyone?
Now, given the above, what indeed should be expected if these maze of armies in Southern Sudan, just like it was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are allowed to continue camping in the region, bearing in mind the current trend of an emerging spate of killings?
Personally I believe Uganda army must leave Southern Sudan if Sudan is to avoid genocide ala Democratic Republic of the Congo’s proportion. Why only Uganda army one may ask.
Well, of all the armies that are in South Sudan, only Uganda army, the UPDF, and the Ugandan rebel group, the LRA, are the only foreign forces, at least to my knowledge, that are camped in South Sudan. The rest of the forces, SAF, SPLA, EDF, plus what not, are all Sudanese forces. Therefore, only the Ugandan army, the UPDF’s and the LRA’s presence in South Sudan can be questioned. But the LRA is a rebel group that has taken arms against Uganda government due to misrule and human right violation already mentioned earlier. Under international law, the LRA have every right to base themselves anywhere where they feel safe and secure from the reach of Uganda armed forces of which they are fighting. If the LRA had chosen not to take up arms, but still take refuge in Sudan due to the misruke in Uganda, they would have been refugees, thereby protected by the UN convention on refugee. In which case no country or person would force them to go back to their country Uganda if and when it is established their lives would be in danger. Even now that the LRA are rebels fighting Uganda government, no country or person can force them to go back to Uganda knowing fully their lives would be in danger. Therefore, questioning the LRA presence in South Sudan is out of question. This does not mean the LRA has a clean record. But one must not over look the role of Uganda government simply because they think the LRA violated human rights and committed crimes against humanity. The role of Uganda government as well need must be put under microscope.
Hence, the only army that must leave South Sudan if and when potential genocide in the region need must be avoided is Uganda army. First, the UPDF is a Uganda army. It has absolutely no business policing Southern Sudan. What business Uganda army has is policing Uganda. If the UPDF concern is the LRA, they must deal with the issue that has forced the rebels to take up arms. Current peace negotiation is of course the most prefered avenue. But while the peace talk is going on, there is absolutely no reason for the UPDF to continuously camp in the country unless there is something else behind the camping that no ordinary people know of. Second, continuous presence of UPDF in the country only cloud the situation as accussations fly back and forth unabated over what group are killing innocent people in the region. Uganda newspapers seem always quick, collecting the information from the UPDF brigade based in the country of course, to blame the LRA for every misterious killing of innocent people in South Sudan. When the 41 people were ambushed and killed a few weeks ago, the UPDF based in the country quickly blamed the LRA for the killing. It was only a few days later that the assailants arrested were proved to be members of the Sudan Armed Forces.
These kinds of outragious claims and allegations in the mids of misterious killings cannot and should not be allowed to continue. The world knows there is peace talk going on between Uganda government and the LRA, mediated by South Sudan Vice President. The least thing needed under such circumstances is outragious and false accussations like we have seen; accussations that at the end of the day turn out be lies. Who knows what all these will lead to? Third, the UPDF has a track record of leaving genocide everywhere they have been: Northen Uganda, Luwero, the DRC. What guarantee is there that there won’t be genocide in South Sudan if the UPDF is allowed to continue camping in the country? Fourth, the agreement reached between the UPDF and the government of Omar Beshir somehwere in 2003 was an agreement without any substance. There was no point for the government of Sudan to get into that agreement to allow the UPDF track down the LRA in Sudan in the first place. If such was to be the case all over the world, how many armies criss-crossing nations would the world see? There would literally be thousands of armies! and the world would be in a state of chaos like never before seen. The only solution was the government of Uganda to deal with issue that drove these people to pick up arms. Allowing the UPDF to track down the LRA in Sudan was like claiming there was absolutely no reason for the LRA to pick up arms to address the question of misrule, human right violations, &c that are being carried out by Uganda government on the people of Northern and Eastern Uganda. But were there no reasons for the LRA to pick up arms? Obviously there were and are reasons!
The UPDF has a duty to protect Ugandans, they must do this in Uganda. They cannot do so in Sudan where they can kill innocent people with impunity and blame it on some group else, and so get away with crimes against humanity scot-free.
It is therefore paramount the UPDF leave South Sudan. Let the peace talk continue. Continuous killings if at all it will continue, will eventually be easier to sort out, for, there will only be one foreign force in Sudan soil then.
* Obargot Paabwola can be reached through: [email protected]