/ 26 January 2006

Museveni ready to fight rebels in DRC

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Thursday that he was ready to move his troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to fight Ugandan rebels based there if the government in Kinshasa and the United Nations allowed him.

Speaking at a gathering in the Ugandan capital of Kampala during ceremonies to mark his 20 years in power, Museveni said he had asked the DRC government and the UN peacekeeping force there to allow him to send troops to fight guerillas of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in the DRC but that his request was turned down.

LRA rebels have been fighting in northern Uganda for two decades and have displaced over 1,5 million people. A group of the rebels led by LRA second-in-command Vincent Otti crossed into the DRC last year and are holed up in the country’s north-east.

The UN peacekeeping group in the DRC, Monuc, clashed with the LRA late last year with a number of peacekeepers killed and injured.

Uganda had sent battalions of its soldiers to the former Zaire late last decade to fight dissidents based there but evacuated them back home in 2003 following international pressure. – Sapa-DPA