Fellow Citizens: Apparently, the UPDF ( Yoweri Museveni's Army) cannot defeat the so called LRA rebels....and now the UPDF has declared premature victory over the so called Kony rebels.
Sort of reminds one of the games children. You cannot beat the kid next door, and what do you do, you declare that the fight with the kid next door is OVER ...and that you have emerged victorious. Hopeful mama (as in Clare Short) would have a few goodies waiting for the brave son of the soil who has defeated KONY rebels. Meanwhile, the reality on the ground is different . according to News Vision and other Ugandan News Media , Mzee wakazi Yoweri Museveni Kaguta is still holed up somewhere in a trench in Gulu Barracks busy fighting the so called KONY rebels. One would think that if the UPDF's claim that they have emerged victorious over the so called kony rebels in northern Uganda is true, then there would be NO NEED TO FOR the NRM Military dictatorship to continue with the deployment of over 40,000 UPDF troops in Northern Uganda! Uganda tax payers would be saved a lot of tax dollars now going in to support Museveni army in Northern Uganda. Kazini (Yoweri Museveni's Army commander) made a public statement before members of the International Community and Ugandans that he (Kazini ) would RESIGN BY DEC 31, IF KONY IS NOT CAPTURED and the LRA is totally finished. Point number one: the so called KONY Rebels, are still very much active in Northern Uganda. Secondly. Kazini has NOT CAPTURED KONY. ..and chances are that he will NOT CAPTURE KONY by Dec 31, 2002. Kazini DID NOT SAY THAT he will RESIGNED IF KONY rebels are NOT REDUCED TO 1,200 by December 2002. ! The ONLY natural and logical move to make at this point, is for Kazini to keep his word and resign. Nothing less. Otherwise, Kazini risks destroying all the remaining LITTLE CREDIBILITY, he may still have. If Kazini stays in office past December 31, 2002..... While the so call KONY rebels are still rampant in Northern Uganda, no sane Ugandan should or ought to believe anything which comes of Mr. Kazini's mouth. Matek Uganda declares qualified victory over rebels KAMPALA, Uganda (Reuters) - The Ugandan army said Thursday it had damaged the capacity of Lord's Resistance Army rebels to wage war and only small groups of the guerrillas were still active. "We are declaring victory," Major Shaban Bantariza told a news conference in the capital Kampala. "It's not to say we have finished them, but there will be no more general insecurity in northern Uganda ... what is left is to comb the area for the small groups still running around." The group, feared for cutting off the limbs and lips of villagers, has abducted thousands of children to use as soldiers and sex slaves in a 15-year-old war to overthrow the government and rule Uganda by the biblical Ten Commandments. The group returned to Uganda in June after being flushed out of their camps in southern Sudan by the Ugandan army, which had crossed the border with Sudan's permission in order to hunt the rebels down. Sudan in 1999 withdrew its longtime support for the rebellion but until a few months ago still allowed them sanctuary in the south. Since June this year the group's fighters returning to Uganda have carried out a brutal campaign against the civilian population, displacing hundreds of thousands in the process. President Yoweri Museveni has poured more than 14,000 troops into northern Uganda, often spending long periods in the northern town of Gulu to oversee operations and staking his reputation on finishing the war. Bantariza said the army had killed 229 Lord's Resistance Army troops and captured 59 and rescued 1,025 abductees in its nine-month-old Operation "Iron Fist." "In March the LRA had about 3,000 soldiers but according to their own nominal roll, which we have, they are now only about 1,200," Bantariza said. In November Uganda put a $11,000 price on the head of rebel chief Joseph Kony for the first time, hoping to induce villagers to give information about the feared leader. However, Kony remains at large.
