Fellow citizens:
According to AP wire dispatch, quoting UPDF Army spokesman (attached below) Yoweri Museveni's UPDF claimed to have attacked and killed 36 LRA "rebels" and "rescued " 22 abducted kids from the "rebels".
Magazi says they used Helicopter gunships in what he called "good battle planning" to kill the "rebels" .
The AP reporter goes on to say that Magazi's claims cannot be "independently verify"...and that "The rebels, who rarely make contact with the outside world, could not be reached for comment."
What this implies is that a) One can believe Magazi's claims at face value
or
b) Question part or all of his claims.
I would go with option b). I believe that 36 acholi children were killed by UPDF. I do not believe that this acholi kids were "rebels".
The NRM/UPDF ,( which by the way lacks credibility) are known to kill acholi kids and then claim to the outside world and then to Ugandans that the UPDF killed so many "rebels".
It does not bother Museveni even one iota that he has been fighting the wars in Northern Uganda for close to 18 years.....and during this time he has been killing acholi kids in the name of "killing Rebels" by the thousands.
Moreover, in spite of Museveni's/UPDF claims of killing the "rebels".... the war in Northern Uganda continues and from what the situation looks like on the ground in Northern Uganda, it is likely to continue for many more years ..so long as Kaguta is in power In Kampala.
Matek
Army Attacks Rebels in Northern Uganda
.c The Associated Press
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - Government soldiers backed by helicopter gunships attacked a group of rebels in a remote village in northern Uganda, killing 36 insurgents, an army spokesman said Thursday.
The attack occurred Wednesday in Ngora, about 242 miles north of Kampala, after the army pursued a group of rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army who had raided a nearby camp for displaced people, said Lt. Chris Magezi.
Besides killing 36 rebels, the army also rescued 22 children who had been abducted, Magezi said.
It was not possible to independently verify the information. The rebels, who rarely make contact with the outside world, could not be reached for comment.
``These rebels had attacked a nearby camp for displaced people. We followed them. It was simply good battle planning and we first encircled the enemy and pinned them down and we destroyed them using ground forces and helicopters,'' Magezi said by telephone from the region.
He said no government forces were killed in the fighting.
Led by Joseph Kony, who claims to have spiritual powers, the Lord's Resistance Army is a shadowy organization that has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni, a southerner, since he came to power in 1986 after a five-year bush war.
The rebels have wreaked havoc across northern and northeastern Uganda, forcing an estimated 1 million people to flee their homes. The group replenishes its ranks with children it abducts to use as fighters, porters or concubines.
02/19/04 07:37 EST
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
