How Credible is the UPDF? That is the question. If, as we have now determined, the UPDF IS NOT CREDIBLE, WHY then should the UPDF expect Ugandans and citizens of the world to believe UPDF statements of denials as noted below?
Matek
UPDF Disowns Congo Weapons
The Monitor (Kampala)
July 28, 2003
Posted to the web July 28, 2003
Frank Nyakairu
Kampala
The army has denied that a plane seized in the DR Congo with weapons originated from Uganda.
A Congolese registered Antonov plane was seized late last week carrying 68 mortar shells and 21,000 rounds of ammunition.
"We have detained four men who came from Aru, near the Ugandan border, and seized munitions they were taking to Mongbwalu," said Mr Mbusa Nyamwisi, leader of the Rally for Congolese Democracy-Liberation Movement (RCD-ML). According to the RCD-ML, the cargo came from Uganda and was destined for a Lendu fighting group in Mongbwalu.
The RCD-ML representative in Kampala, Mr Frank Lusambo, said that Lendu tribesmen had implicated the Uganda army upon interrogation.
"When we interrogated the seven Lendu, they told us that they had got the arms from Uganda from one UPDF officer who we can name," Lusambo said.
Uganda government officials have denied the claims.
"It cannot be true that we can engage in such acts at a time when we have a multinational stabilisation force in the region to help us," the Minister of State for Defence, Ms Ruth Nankabirwa, told the AFP.
Uganda's intelligence officer in charge of the DR Congo, Col. Peter Kerim, also denied Nyamwisi's allegations.
"We don't own any plane flying over the DRC and we have information that a rebel commander in the area had chartered the plane to carry his arms," Kerim said.
The former commander of Ugandan forces in the Congo, Brig. Kale Kayihura, said that the plane did not originate from Uganda.
"This is not true. I have talked to the Monuc representative [Col. Peter Harmse] here and he also confirmed that the plane did not originate from Uganda," Kayihura said.
Col. Harmse said: "What he [Brig. Kaihura] told you is true but I'm not mandated to talk about anything."
The men arrested are from the Uganda-backed Congolese Popular Armed Forces (FAPC) with its headquarters in Aru near Uganda.
In retaliation, the FAPC also impounded two planes in Aru yesterday.
Nyamwisi is said to co-own one of the planes.
Mongbwalu, where the arms were reportedly destined, is some 80km north of the Ituri's main town Bunia, where a French-led European Union stabilisation force is based.
Inter-ethnic massacres between the Hema and the Lendu in Ituri have claimed the lives of 50,000 people since 1999 and displaced half a million others.
A Human Rights Watch report released late last month said that Uganda was still arming warring factions in Ituri, an allegation the government in Kampala strongly denied.
Last week, the ethnic Alur community in Ituri complained about "neighbouring countries that arm ethnic militias... using entry points along the Ugandan border with DRC".
The weapons have been handed over to the UN mission in the DR Congo, known as Monuc, and were due to be destroyed, Nyamwisi said.
Two Monuc military observers were killed in Mongbwalu in May.
