Ugandan security forces kill senior LRA commander in CAR

By Richard Ruati

November 22, 2009 (Kampala) — The Ugandan security forces in Central Africa Republic have killed a senior LRA rebels Commander near Obo town in CAR, an Army spokesperson has confirmed.

Speaking by telephone hookup from Kampala the UPDF Spokesperson Lt Col Felix Kulayigye told Sudan Tribune that, “Senior LRA Commander Col Okello Ukuti was shot dead around Obo town last Tuesday, he was found alone in hiding.”

Asked whether Col Ukuti was killed with other LRA rebels/bodyguards, Felix said that, “LRA commanders don’t have soldiers or bodyguards anymore, most of their soldiers have been killed by UPDF,” adding that, “many others have surrendered to UPDF of recent.”

He cited the killing of Col Ukuti as a very big blow to the central command of LRA rebels.”

“Col Okello Ukuti commanded the LRA gruesome attacks in Eastern Padeya Region in Northern Uganda,” Felix added.

The lamented that, “the Ugandan Army has intensified attacks on the rebels, blocking their escape to South Sudan and Chad.”

In south Sudan’s town of Nzara a week ago attacks attributed to the LRA killed seven innocent civilians who had converged to take part in the ongoing voter registration. The attack resumed reign of fear among the residents of Western Equatoria State.

Lt Felix further said, “there are less than 100 LRA fighters left, denying the recent media report that, 3,000 LRA fighters that crossed into DRC and he stressed that, the Ugandan Army is close to capture the “big fish, General Joseph Kony who is on the run in the fertile jungles of CAR.

As pressure is mounting on the fugitive rebels, over hundred LRA rebels and their top commanders have surrendered to SPLA, UPDF and Congolese soldiers. In southern Sudan over 60 rebels and their families have surrendered.

Reports emerging from Kampala say 34 rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have surrendered to the UPDF intelligence squad in Faradje in eastern Congo, according to military sources.

“They turned themselves in at 11:00am on Thursday with their commander, Capt. Obale,” Brig. James Mugira, the Chief of Military Intelligence, told Saturday Vision in Kampala.

Of the 34, he said, 10 were Ugandans, 2 Sudanese and 22 Congolese. “They returned with 12 sub-machine guns, two walkie-talkies, 11 mobile phones and two solar panels.”

This was the last group that surrendered from the Faradje area, according to the army. “That area has now been cleared,” said Mugira.

The group’s over-all commander, Col. Charles Arop, turned himself in to the UPDF earlier this month after most of him men had either defected or been killed.

The unit of originally 71 rebels had been operating around the Faradje area since late last year and was responsible for the Christmas massacres that left at least 143 people dead.

Military sources estimate the total number of LRA rebels left in the Democratic Republic of Congo at 80.
The rest is in the Central African Republic, together with LRA leader Joseph Kony.

In the past year LRA rebels have abducted close to a thousand children in the regions to use them kill their own people.

The UN Security Council on Tuesday strongly condemned the increasingly recent attacks by the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Southern Sudan and CAR respectively.

As the clock is ticking on man who has brought horror to people he self-proclaims to liberate, the simple question one will ask is: Are the days of Lord’s Resistance Army numbered.

(ST)