July 2001 Africa News Headlines

Friday, July 20, 2001 - Web posted at 8:43:32 GMT

Probe into alleged plunder of Congo resources commences

KAMPALA - A Commission of inquiry began its investigations yesterday into allegations by the United Nations that the Ugandan government and top officials were involved in the illegal exploitation of resources of the Democratic Republicof Congo (DRC).

The six-man team led by a British expatriate judge will probe senior government and army officials, some named in the UN report.

But commission members were non-committal over whether President Yoweri Museveni and some members of his family who were also named would be questioned.

The exercise, expected to last 3 months, began in Kampala yesterday morning when a former government administrator for two districts bordering the DRC responded to questions from members of the commission of inquiry.

A United Nations Panel of Experts on the DRC released a report accusing Uganda which sent its troops to the DRC in 1998 to back a rebellion against the government in Kinshasa of instead plundering the resources there.

Both Uganda and Rwanda have been backing rebel factions fighting the Kinshasa government which has been held from falling by armies of Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia but a Zambian-mediated truce checked a full scale war from breaking out and allows for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the DRC territory.

The UN panel in its April report said that President Museveni, some members of his family, government and army officials were involved in the illicit exploitation of the DRC resources notably minerals diamonds and gold and timber.

The Panel however advised that individual concerned states could set up their own inquiries on the matter.

The government in Kampala denied the allegations and an angered Museveni who described the report as "baseless", in May immediately ordered the withdrawal of his troops from the Congo and promised to set up a commission of inquiry into the exploitation of the Congo resources."

"The Commission will also inquire into allegations of complicity or involvement of President Museveni and his family in the alleged exploitation," said a circular released yesterday by the probe body.

A lead counsel to the Commission, lawyer Allan Shonubi however told reporters that he was not in position to comment whether Museveni will appear for interrogation.

- Nampa-Sapa-DPA

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