Ugandan army returns to southern Sudan to fight rebels

KAMPALA, Mar 13, 2004 (Xinhua) — The Uganda army was to be deployed to southern Sudan to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army ( LRA) rebels, local media quoted senior military spokesman as saying Saturday.

The move came after the Sudanese government extended a protocol under which the Uganda army is allowed to carry out search-and- destroy raids against the rebels in Sudan for another three months, by the end of May.

Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza was quoted by The Monitor newspaper as saying the protocol had been renewed and the UPDF was preparing to attack the rebel bases in southern Sudan.

“Yes, we shall go there and break their (LRA) backs,” Bantariza said.

The LRA rebels led by Joseph Kony have waged a vicious war in northern Uganda, killing tens of thousands of civilians, abducting over 20,000 children and displacing over 1.4 million people.

Bantariza said the army hopes to completely rout the rebels during the new offensive.

“We have broken their backs in Acholiland (northern Uganda), we get them in southern Sudan,” he said.

The protocol, first signed in March 2002, was renewed last week after a series of meetings between the two countries’ defense ministers.