[Ugnet] Britain Doubts PRA Rebel Threat

On the same day that Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi told Parliament that the People's Redemption Army (PRA) was carrying out clandestine operations aimed at overthrowing the government, the British government poured cold water on the Ugandan claims.

Mr. Mbabazi said on Wednesday the PRA was not a fictitious creation of the government. He said the group was carrying out clandestine operations aimed at overthrowing the government.

But the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Mr Chris Mullin, told the House of Commons that his government had not found any evidence to show that the PRA was a threat to Uganda's stability.

"The Ugandan Government alleged shortly after the 2001 presidential election that the People's Redemption Army was an armed group which has been attempting to establish a network in north-western Uganda," Mullin said. "We have seen no evidence of this or that the PRA represents any threat to Uganda's stability."

The minister was responding to MP Mike Hankock, who wanted to know his assessment "of (a) the strength, (b) leadership and (c) political objectives of the Ugandan People's Redemption Army; how long it has been active; what assessment he has made of whether it has attacked any city or village or caused damage to Uganda's infrastructure."

Army spokesperson Maj. Shaban Bantariza yesterday dismissed the British statement.

Said Bantariza, "Mullin has fed the House of Commons with rubbish. People here have been arrested and confessed to taking part in the PRA rebellion. If he [Mullin] wants to be a neo-colonial master, then he is a poor one."

He added, "He should have been serious before making statements otherwise he will turn the House of Commons into a House of Commoners. He is peddling street rumours in the British Parliament."

The Ugandan government has maintained that the PRA is real, although opposition groups and other critics have dismissed it as a phantom created by President Museveni's administration.

Mbabazi said on Wednesday that renegade UPDF soldiers, Lt. Col. Samson Mande and Lt. Col. Anthony Kyakabale, currently exiled in Sweden were the PRA's armed wing commander and deputy commander respectively.

The two men have in the past, denied links to any rebel group, and dismissed the PRA as a fictitious government creation.

But Mbabazi said: "PRA continued to make more manoeuvres in its quest for political power."

Mbabazi said a foreign country, which he did not name, supports the rebel group. He said the PRA was using NGOs to broaden their operations. "UPDF officers are being lured through email and other coordinators," he said. "There is a formation of cells and registration of NGOs."

Relations between Uganda and Rwanda deteriorated last year following Kampala's charges that the PRA had a presence in the neighbouring country.

Rwanda has denied any links to the PRA.

Last October 16 people, including the brother of the exiled former presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, were arrested in what the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) called a crackdown on PRA in West Nile.

The government has in the past, accused Besigye, the leader of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change, of links to the PRA. Besigye denies the allegations.

In Britain, Mullin also answered questions about his department's "assessment of the strength of the Ugandan Presidential Protection Brigade" and whether the UK was offering it technical assistance.

"In our discussions with the Uganda Government concerning implementation of their Defence Review, regrettably they have always declined to identify separately the Presidential Guard Brigade," the minister said.

"We have not and are unlikely to give it any technical assistance. We apply strong controls in the management of our development assistance to Uganda to ensure it is used for the purposes for which it is intended, mainly poverty reduction. Security is required for sustainable development, but defence spending must be justified and affordable."

Answering a question about reports that Ugandan groups were "recruiting, training and deploying militia for political purposes," Mullin said: "There are reports of the reactivation of the illegal Kalangala Action Plan, a pro-Government militia which was implicated in acts of violence during the 2001 elections. We have persistently raised our concerns with the Ugandan authorities. They have assured us that any illegal activity will bring immediate action by the police."

Mullin said there were serious concerns that ethnic militias such as the Arrow Boys, Rhino militia, and Frontier Guards recruited to fight against the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda could be deployed in the 2006 elections.

"We have raised, and continue to raise, our concerns with the Government of Uganda and have urged them to bring all militias under the formal control of the army," he said.

[Ugnet] Britain Doubts PRA Rebel Threat

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