UNICEF condemns WES killings, calls for anti-LRA strategy
Julius N. Uma
May 19, 2010 (JUBA)-Regional governments and members of the international community must expedite the process of ending Joseph Kony-led Lords Resistance Army (LRA) havoc on innocent civilians, United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement released yesterday.
Among the murdered officials, said UNICEF, were William Baabe, Director of Non-Governmental Organization Co-ordination and Alternative Education and his colleague Gabriel Makana, Director of Planning.
“UNICEF calls upon regional governments and members of the international community to quickly bring to justice the perpetrators of this atrocious act and to put in place measures to ensure acts of this heinous nature are not repeated in Southern Sudan. Justice is cheapened for all when leaders fail to act against injustices carried out in their midst,” UNICEF’s Ken Maskall, Officer in Charge, Director of Operations for Southern Area Programme said.
The duo, according to the statement, played instrumental roles in the implementation of UNICEF-supported projects, focused on advancing education for children in Western Equatoria.
However, while expressing further concern on the plight of children and women reportedly abducted during the attack, UNICEF not only agitated for their safe release, but also appealed to government authorities to recognize this sacrifice to encourage those involved in helping others.
REGIONAL INTERVENTION STRATEGY
Early this year, the US Senate passed a bill authorizing military action in the highly volatile region of Central Africa, one of the regions affected by the insurgency.
The LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act aims to support stabilization and lasting peace in Northern Uganda, the site of conflict between the Ugandan government and the quasi-revolutionary movement since 1986.
The bill calls for an assessment of options through which the United States, working with regional governments, “could help develop and support multilateral efforts to eliminate the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army.”
However, while the law allocates funding towards humanitarian aid and post-conflict justice and reconciliation processes, the primary focus of the US Congress is on a military strategy to ‘apprehend or otherwise remove’ LRA leaders.
And despite the bill’s requirement that the government of Uganda commit to ‘transparent and accountable’ reconstruction efforts, it makes no similar demands of a military operation, thereby giving a green light to extrajudicial executions.
The law, Sudan Tribune has later learnt, emerged in response to aggressive calls, not from the Ugandan people, but from a handful of US-based organizations.
(ST)
julius mowanga
UNICEF condemns WES killings, calls for anti-LRA strategy
It’s very shocking and devastating terrorist act by the notiorious LRA.What LRA gains by assasining those officals,while they are not a millitary personnels?!LRA had crossed all the tolerable measurements,it has to be brought to its end by the South Sudan Authorities,now before being too late.
A government that can’t protect its people is a failed one,and GOSS has ruled out disarmament of the citizens,while the predators roaming free,looting,scorching villages,raping and abducting women. I call upon Gov; Basokoro to militirize the civilian of WES by any means to defend themselves and protect their proberties, especially thopse who live near to DRC boarder,or let SPLA form a no-go-zone between SouthSudan and DRC,period.
GOSS and SPLA has to wakeup and assume their responsibilities to eliminate LRA presence and threats to secure the WES people lives .