For us we want peace our people have suffered fo4r twenty long years under wars created by dictator Yoweri Museveni .
This NRM/BRITISH Imperalist latest propaganda about "Konny and the so called Rebels" is rather irrelevant at this point.
Indeed, going by the BBC, Museveni Utterances "konny rebels" were suppose to number only about 200 rebels"!! Now we are told "konny rebels" are I hear recieving i weapons from Arabs in the magaribi... of Africa...
MK
Uganda: LRA Shows Off Brand New Guns
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The Monitor (Kampala)
September 25, 2006
Posted to the web September 25, 2006
Posted to the web September 25, 2006
Grace Matsiko
Ri-Kwangba / Juba
Ri-Kwangba / Juba
THE Lord's Resistance Army, widely perceived as a disintegrating ragtag rebel outfit, is apparently once again well equipped with sophisticated weaponry, most of it brand new.
It is still unclear from where and when the new weapons were acquired.
The seemingly continuous flow of arms and equipment, communication gadgets, medicine, military fatigues and other combat material remains a puzzle to the government, an intelligence officer told Daily Monitor.
LRA deputy commander Vincent Otti said last week that the LRA should not be underestimated, because it has the potential to overthrow President Museveni's administration, a threat the UPDF does not take seriously.
But now, with the rebels continuing to trickle in at the two South Sudan assembly points of Ri-Kwangba and Owiny-ki-Bul, some of these sophisticated weapons are being bared. And the concern in the security services is that the protracted peace negotiations between the government and the LRA may play in the hands of the LRA, effectively allowing the rebels to relax and re-arm.
However, an LRA peace negotiations member, Mr Godfrey Ayoo, denied yesterday the rebels are re-arming. "That is a lie. In fact, they don't need new arms. As you saw, they have enough weapons but they do not want to fight, "Ayoo said.
The strength of the LRA is a contested affair. Ayoo and other delegation members put the LRA strength at over 10,000, but intelligence accounts in Uganda and Sudan estimate the LRA's strength to be between 1,000 and 2,000 fighters, of which 700 are armed. Otti, also the overall field commander of the LRA, has consistently refused to divulge the strength of his forces.
But a visit to the LRA assembly point in Ri-Kwangba revealed that the rebels are in possession of brand new weapons, including heavy artillery, hidden in the jungle. Some rebel units are reported to have recently acquired BMs (Ballistic Missiles) or Katyushas, which can destroy or cripple tanks and
mambas.
All young men at the camp carried gleaming new bazookas, shiny AK 47 assault rifles, grenades, and pistols. The soldiers around Otti and Kony wore fatigues very similar to those worn by the UPDF and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), the national army of the Khartoum government.
"Remember we are rebels. We get these from the UPDF," Sunday Achaya claimed, showing off his bazooka, which he then handed to his escorts to carry as we inspected the rebel camp at Ri-Kwangba. But a closer look at the rebels' big guns revealed Arabic inscriptions, which makes the claim they were captured from UPDF, hard to believe.
Kony ostensibly lives in a grass-thatched house with polythene wrappings around it to shelter him from rain. Next to the house is his office, in which he keeps a personal assistant. Kony's office is said to be the busiest, as the two satellite telephones on his desk ring off the
hook.
Next to Kony's office on the right is a library where he has kept copies of old and latest editions of Daily Monitor and The New Vision, a witness who went inside said.
Despite Ri-Kwangba being over 150km from Juba, a journey that takes seven gruelling hours through potholed roads covered with wild bushes, Kony never misses a copy of the daily Ugandan newspapers. But according to an aide, before the newspapers arrive, the rebel leader gets daily briefs via satellite telephone on news headlines in Kampala. According to the aide, it is in this grass-thatched library that Kony spends most of the time reading newspapers and books.
Although the Press Corps met Otti in Ri-Kwangba last week, Kony is yet to make his presence known. Otti said last week that Kony is only 200 metres behind him.
The peace delegation members said they were impressed by the high level of discipline and organisation in the LRA camp. According to another source in the rebel ranks, non-military personnel manage the LRA's health facilities, though they get most of their medical supplies from Kampala and Gulu.
In any battalion, which in the LRA case features only 100 combatants, there is typical division of labour. There is a group to guard all the encampments, alongside the combat forces. Women take charge of hygiene in the compounds and cook special meals for the commanders, among other
roles.
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