UK Debates Kony War
| | ||||||||||
The Monitor (Kampala)
March 6, 2006
Posted to the web March 6, 2006
Posted to the web March 6, 2006
Peter Nyanzi
Kampala
Kampala
THE conflict in northern Uganda took centre stage on Tuesday in the House of Lords, the upper House of the British Parliament, Daily Monitor has learnt.
Whil
e
responding to a barrage of questions from several members of the House, who wanted to know what UK was doing about the conflict, the Under Secretary of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Lord David Triesman, told the House that his government was in touch with the Ugandan authorities regarding bringing the conflict to an end.
"My Lords, ending the conflict in northern Uganda is government priority," he said. "We encourage the government of Uganda to fulfil their responsibilities, including taking all steps to protect the people, to effect the International Criminal Court warrants for the Lords Resistance Army commanders and to encourage LRA members not indicted to benefit from Amnesty provisions."
"Will Britain encourage the government of Uganda to declare the north a disaster zone and invite outside assistance of every appropriate kind?" the Lord Bishop of Winchester asked.
Lor
d
Triesman responded, "I do not know whether the declaration of a disaster zone on its own would make a fundamental difference."
Not convinced, another member of the House, Lord Renton asked whether there was any hope that President Museveni's government would accept external assistance to help it end the conflict.
Said the Minister: "If we reflect on where Uganda was 15-20 years ago and where it is now, we realise that it has been one of the success stories of Africa."
"There has just been a general election with a substantial turnout, in which President (Yoweri) Museveni was re-elected with a substantial majority. I do not know whether the election was flawless, but all immediate reports suggest that it was very credible," he added, referring to Museveni's 59% win in the February 23 elections in which the people of northern Uganda denied him their votes.
The LR
A, led
by Joseph Kony, have been fighting Museveni's government for the last 19 years, plunging the region into a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented magnitude.
Quoting local opinion leaders, the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) last week reported that Museveni's victory dashed the hopes of the people confined in internally displaced people's camps who thought a change of leadership was their only hope of ending the conflict.
|
The government insists that the local support for the LRA had diminished and the rebel force had been reduced to a handful of them hiding from one place to the other.
Lord Triesman told the House that for the people to go back to their homes was a "desirable outcome" and that Britain would offer "conscious aid" to that effect.
Brings words and photos together (easily) with
PhotoMail - it's free and works with Yahoo! Mail.
_______________________________________________ Ugandanet mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---------------------------------------
