By Nabusayi L. Wamboka
March 1, 2004
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KAMPALA - Former President Milton Obote has laid the blame for the recent Barlonyo rebel massacre on President Museveni's shoulders. Mr Obote said the February 21 massacre, in which an estimated 200 people died, was meant to show rebel leader Joseph Kony's brutality to officials of the International Criminal Court who arrived in Lira before the February 25 public demonstrations.
"He does not want international peacekeepers but wants the International Criminal Court to investigate The massacres were committed so that Museveni can tell the ICC of numbers killed by LRA" Obote said. "Since the killers used heavy weapons available only to the UPDF, the ICC in their investigations must start with when and at what time they received reports," he wrote. Kony, who faces possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court, has been fighting Museveni's government since 1988. Obote said Museveni is overwhelmed by problems and wants the problem of the LRA to look as if it is an issue between the Langi and Acholi. Obote also said that he was stopped from making a broadcast in Luo about the massacres in Abia and Barlonyo camps last week. Lira's district security committee reportedly cancelled the programme. About 50 people were killed in a rebel attack on Abia on February 5. "Radio Unity FM rang me that I make a broadcast in Luo. It was cancelled on the ground that the situation was very tense and no one, worst of all Milton Obote, must be allowed to fuel it further," Obote said in a letter sent to Dr James Rwanyarare on February 26. Rwanyarare, UPC's Presidential Policy Commission chairman, said he had not received the letter. According to Obote, he wanted to make an appeal to the people in Lango never to think that the Acholi are their enemy. "Whether the massacres were committed by the LRA as being claimed, it is the dictatorship who has the Constitutional responsibilities to protect the lives and property of the citizens they must blame and take to task," Obote wrote. Bantariza laughed off Obote's claim that Museveni was behind the massacres saying, "That is just Obote." |
© 2004 The Monitor Publications
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