| Pressure Piles On Rebels — M7 |
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MEETING GENERALS: (Left to right) Kivejinja, Kivuna, Rusoke, Tinyefuza, Tumwine, Museveni, Salim Saleh, Kazini, Kyaligonza and Kaihura pose on Heroes’ Day in Fort Portal on Saturday |
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By Vision reporter
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has re-iterated that the LRA is only ‘infiltrating’ north Teso because it is under pressure in Acholiland.
“Now it is a matter of mere survival for those rebels,” he told New Vision yesterday.
He dismissed fears that rebellion was spreading to Teso and other areas. “You can’t say that kondos (robbers) have ‘struck Kampala’ just because a few thieves have robbed some shops on the edge of Kampala.”
“They are just roaming bandits trying to infiltrate but not to ‘attack’. They can’t sustain it.” Museveni said he would be going back to the north in one month to resume supervision of the war campaign.
“But the plan is going very well. The plan was to occupy the forests in the north where the rebels were hiding.
“Their fleeing out of Acholi is to do two things. Number One, they think if they go down there, we might reduce forces in Acholi and they can go back. Number two, they need to get food and drugs. That’s why they were attacking the camps but failing in most cases.
So they thought north Teso had few soldiers, they could go there and that would compel us to thin out our forces. We haven’t done that. We have brought in new forces,” Museveni said.
He said the LRA had a problem of shrinking manpower because they no longer had rear bases in Sudan where they could brainwash abducted children.
“My plan was to end this problem by April but there was delay in delivery of our helicopters,” said Museveni.
“The helicopters have made a big difference.
“All the attacks on the rebels in Teso have been by helicopters out of Gulu. They are prompt. Our only weakness is that we do not have enough transport helicopters to follow up the attack with landing troops,” he said.
He said the army needed to create “air cavalry moving by helicopters.”
“Helicopters are ‘force multipliers’. We need them because we reduced the size of our army in 1991. Force multipliers like helicopters or armoured ca
rs allow one unit to do the work of three or four forces moving on foot. The problem is that donors have been holding us back from acquiring them. This type of war, where the rebels target civilians, needs either very many soldiers or these force multipliers,” Museveni said.
Ends
Published on: Tuesday, 24th June, 2003 |
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