UN Envoy Deplores Life in Pagak Camp
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The Monitor (Kampala)
July 30, 2004
Posted to the web July 29, 2004
John Muto-Ono P Lajur
Gulu
The United Nations Secretary General's Special Envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa, Mr
Stephen Lewis, has called for a quick solution to the 17-year-old conflict in northern
Uganda.
Lewis was on a two-day visit to Gulu to assess the impact of HIV/Aids and the conflict
in northern Uganda.
He was speaking to journalists on Tuesday after visiting Pagak Internally Displaced
People's camp, 20 kilometres north-west of Gulu town. It houses 18,000 displaced
people.
"The situation in the camp is desperate and deplorable. No people anywhere in the
world should ever be forced to live the way people in camps in Gulu are living."
He said there must be a quick solution to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebellion.
He said the international community had not yet found a solution to the rebellion.
Hesaid he met Sudanese President Omar Bashir and his Foreign Minister at three summits
of the African Union (AU), and appealed to Sudan to stop supporting the LRA.
"They never fulfilled their promises. They are fabrications. What they are doing with
the LRA is exactly what they are doing with the Arab militia in Darfur," he said.
Speaking during a dinner hosted in his honour at Hotel Pearl Afrique, Lewis said
dealing with the Sudan government was very difficult. "I have no apology to make when
you are dealing with the most difficult government in the whole world," he said.
He said he would recommend to the UN Security Council to put pressure on Sudan to stop
LRA support. Lewis was taken around Gulu town by the head of the World Food Programme
(WFP) Sub-Office in Gulu, Mr Pedro Amulat.
The RDC, Mr Max Omeda, said the United Nations should intervene in the conflict
immediately. He said the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, is shielded by bases deep inside the
Sudan, where the UPDF cannot reach, as per an agreement which was signed by both
governments. ( you mean Mbabazi was lying...the man told us that the Sudan Government
was cooperating with the UPDF ..and now this Max Omedia is telling us a different
story...
The envoy also visited several NGOs dealing with HIV/Aids in Gulu.
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