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The East African (Nairobi)
December 22, 2003
Posted to the web December 23, 2003
Among Barbara, Special Correspondent
Nairobi
SOLDIERS from the late dictator Idi Amin's army, who recently returned to Uganda from a 24-year self imposed exile in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are to be absorbed into the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF), the army said last week.
Army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza told The EastAfrican that soldiers loyal to Amin's son Taban Amin would be screened and some of them given a chance to join the UPDF.
Major Bantariza said, "These people are former fighters and have not been fighting at all, but if found fit after screening, those who are willing will be trained and recruited into the UPDF."
Taban is the elder son of Idi Amin, who ruled Uganda with an iron fist between 1971 and 1979.
Before his eventual return in September, Taban was one time reported to be organising a rebellion against President Museveni's government and even occupied the Ugandan embassy in Kinshasa in 1998, following UPDF's involvement in a rebellion to topple the Kinshasa government.
He has since pledged to work with the government and even asked for permission to be allowed to go and negotiate peace with Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony in Sudan. He claims to know Kony personally, after having met him in the early 1990s in southern Sudan.
However, Major Bantariza said the returning fighters, the majority of whom are ex-soldiers in Amin's army, are old and the few young ones need to be retrained.
A total of over 10,000, ex-fighters have for the past two weeks been returning to Uganda with their wives and children from the Kitona military base in Congo, with the help of the United Nation Observer Mission (Monuc) in Congo.
Monuc has been transporting them and is responsible for their settlement within the country in collaboration with the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) and External Security Organisation (ESO).
The 600-strong batch that returned last week had only 221 ex-fighters, while the rest were women and children. They were received by officials from the ISO and ESO and the chairman of the Amnesty Commission, Justice Peter Onega, who said that the former rebels now housed in camps 80km from Kampala in Mityana district but gave no exact locations.
The Taban fighters are believed to be one of the many factions under the former West Nile Bank Front (WNBF).
Other rebel groups that have joined the government include the Uganda National Rescue Front II under Major Gen Ali Bamuze, who surrendered in 2002.
The 25,000 UNRF II ex-combatants have received assistance from the Uganda government under the Amnesty Act and have been rehabilitated.
The returnees who have been operating in Congo for more than 10 years are part of the ex-soldiers of Idi Amin's army regime from 1971 to 1979.
A total of 22 rebel groups have been fighting Museveni's Movement government since it came to power in 1986, however most of them have been weakened or defeated but the LRA rebels who have terrorised the northern part of the country for the last 17 years have remained strong in their activities.
In June this year the LRA which had confined its activities in its traditional areas of Gulu, Pader and Kitgum opened up new fronts in eastern Uganda.
There were also reports that the Allied Democratic Front (ADF) rebels that had been routed in 2000 from the mountains of Rwenzori in western Uganda were regrouping in the jungles of the DRC.
There were also reports that the Uganda Peoples Redemption Army (UPA) linked to exiled former presidential candidate, Col. Kizza Besigye was also planning to attack Uganda from the Congo.
Government has for some time now been trying to negotiate peace with the rebels of LRA but the two groups are suspicious of each other.
Both the donor community and legislators from war affected areas have been telling government that the only way to end fighting in northern Uganda was government to negotiate peace on a round table.
They say that government should accommodate the views of the rebels if they are found to be genuine. The same position is held by religious leaders who say that since the military option has now failed, they should try negotiations.
