DRC warns Uganda against sending troops

UNITED NATIONS – Congo warned neighbouring Uganda on Monday against sending troops across the border to disarm a Ugandan rebel force camped in Congo’s eastern jungles, saying the UN Charter entitled it to defend itself.

A Ugandan threat to take action against Congo if some 400 heavily armed guerrillas from Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) were not disarmed was “a threat to international peace and security,” Congo UN Ambassador Atoki Ileka told the UN Security Council. He asked the 15-nation council to impose an arms embargo on Uganda, suspend all international aid to the country, freeze the assets and travel of top Ugandan officials and tell the Kampala government to refrain from any action that might damage the peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Ileka’s demands, set out in a letter sent to the council on Monday, came days after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called Congo and the UN peacekeeping mission in the vast central African nation “sponsors of terrorism” for failing to disarm the LRA rebels.If the peacekeepers did not act, then Uganda would, he said, without elaborating.Uganda was one of six neighbouring countries that sent troops into Congo during a five-year civil war that was officially declared over in 2003 after the foreign armies withdrew and the belligerents joined a transitional government in Kinshasa.Ileka said that even after it withdrew its forces, Uganda provided weapons to armed groups in the mineral-rich but lawless eastern Ituri region so they could continue to illegally exploit Congo’s natural resources.He attributed Museveni’s threat to the approach of Ugandan presidential elections in March 2006.Uganda’s parliament voted in August to abolish presidential term limits, clearing the way for the 61-year-old general to seek to remain in power.The threat also pointed up Uganda’s inability to deal with the LRA threat over nearly two decades’ time, Ileka said.- Nampa-ReutersHe asked the 15-nation council to impose an arms embargo on Uganda, suspend all international aid to the country, freeze the assets and travel of top Ugandan officials and tell the Kampala government to refrain from any action that might damage the peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Ileka’s demands, set out in a letter sent to the council on Monday, came days after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called Congo and the UN peacekeeping mission in the vast central African nation “sponsors of terrorism” for failing to disarm the LRA rebels.If the peacekeepers did not act, then Uganda would, he said, without elaborating.Uganda was one of six neighbouring countries that sent troops into Congo during a five-year civil war that was officially declared over in 2003 after the foreign armies withdrew and the belligerents joined a transitional government in Kinshasa.Ileka said that even after it withdrew its forces, Uganda provided weapons to armed groups in the mineral-rich but lawless eastern Ituri region so they could continue to illegally exploit Congo’s natural resources.He attributed Museveni’s threat to the approach of Ugandan presidential elections in March 2006.Uganda’s parliament voted in August to abolish presidential term limits, clearing the way for the 61-year-old general to seek to remain in power.The threat also pointed up Uganda’s inability to deal with the LRA threat over nearly two decades’ time, Ileka said. – Nampa-Reuters