Uganda seeks DRC's help to flush out its rebel army

Uganda is seeking help from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help hunt members of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) which have killed and maimed thousands of people in northern Uganda.

Addressing a regional summit in Nairobi on Monday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called for closer regional cooperation to enable his government get rid off the insurgents whom have also been operating in southern Sudan for more than a decade.

The Ugandan leader has made similar pleas since last year when members of Uganda's notorious LRA slipped across the border into the DRC from Sudan but has been repeatedly rebuffed by both the United Nations and Kinshasa.

"Remnants of them (the LRA rebels) have now fled to the Garamba National Park of the Congo - Kinshasa. This area is under the United Nations and the Kinshasa government. We should use the same cooperation to decimate this group," Museveni told the IGAD summit which is underway in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

"The government of the Congo should work with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the government of Sudan and Uganda to finish this problem once and for all time," said Museveni, the outgoing chairman IGAD Heads of State and Government.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, thousands brutally attacked and some 1.6 million people, about 80 percent of the population, have been driven from their homes in fear of the LRA, which is known for its brutal treatment of civilians.

The conflict has dragged on despite attempts to mediate a peaceful resolution and last year the International Criminal Court indicted five of the group's leaders, including its elusive supremo, Joseph Kony, on war crimes charges.

The indictments were followed by new military cooperation agreements between Kampala, Khartoum and the semi-autonomous government of southern Sudan that allowed Ugandan troops to extend the area they were previously allowed to go in southern Sudan in pursuit of the LRA fighters.

The Ugandan leader said cooperation between the Sudan government, the SPLM and his country on the LRA led by Kony from the last three years has helped in flushing out the LRA rebels.

"This cooperation has resulted in the great diminishing of this group and their uprooting from northern Uganda and southern Sudan. Otherwise, these killers are using the Congo now to kill people in southern Sudan," said Museveni.

The LRA, which has waged a 19-year war against the government of Uganda, operates from bases in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, and frequently targets southern Sudanese civilians.

The government of Sudan, the southern SPLA and the Ugandan army recently launched a joint operation to flush out the Ugandan rebels from Sudan.

Kampala and Khartoum signed a protocol in 2002, under which Ugandan troops are allowed to pursue the LRA fighters in southern Sudan.

The LRA is ostensibly in a bid to replace President Museveni's administration with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments, and has gained notoriety for its brutality against civilians and the abduction of children for conscription into its ranks.

The Ugandan army operations inside the Sudanese territory have only succeeded in dispersing insurgents and seizing weapons, and groups of the LRA raiders still manage to carry out attacks inside Uganda occasionally.

Source: Xinhua