After a flamboyant exiting ceremony, Uganda finally began the long-awaited withdrawal of its army from eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on April 25 — one day later than the deadline it had agreed with the United Nations and Kinshasa.
Four Anatov planes of Ugandan troops, plus weapons and munitions, were shipped to Uganda’s Entebbe airport from Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, in north-eastern DRC. Bunia has been the scene of fierce fighting between rebel factions in recent months.
Thousands more soldiers were moved out over the weekend, some of them marching hundreds of kilometres over land into the Ugandan border province of Arua.
Previously, Uganda had withdrawn most of its forces under the Luanda agreement between President Yoweri Museveni and President Joseph Kabila, mediated by the United Nations and Angola. However, it retained one battalion in Ituri, ostensibly to prevent the region being used as a base for Ugandan dissidents to launch attacks over its western border.
But it fully reoccupied Bunia and surrounding areas after fighting broke out at the beginning of March between Thomas Lubanga’s Union des Patriotes Congolaise (UPC), a former ally of Uganda before they fell out, Uganda’s residual forces and the Front pour l’Integration et la Pacification de l’Ituri (FIPI) a coalition of various Congolese tribal militias.
After defeating both rebel groups, Uganda came under fire from the international community for stirring up trouble in eastern DRC and observers have since repeatedly insisted that Uganda start pulling out by its agreed April 24 deadline.
In the end, all it took was a punctured tyre to stop them meeting that deadline. Bags were packed and scores of eager soldiers had been lined up at Bunia airport when one of the first three planes due to collect them had to make an emergency crash landing, causing the other two to evacuate back to Entebbe.
A day later these mishaps were corrected as soldiers were finally brought home to a warm welcome at Entebbe airbase. Before leaving, they paraded through the streets of Bunia to the march of a military band and cheering Congolese crowds.
But the pomp and splendour of the ”hand-over” ceremony was somewhat overshadowed by fears of what could happen next. For months Uganda’s presence has been the only thing keeping a semblance of order in the troubled province of Ituri — a district in which 50 000 people have been killed in ethnic clashes between Hema and Lendu tribes since 1999.
Last week heavily armed Lendu militias were visibly patrolling the streets of Bunia and its surrounding hills, apparently itching for the Ugandan army to leave them to their own devices. These militias have reportedly been responsible for several massacres in Ituri, most recently one in the village of Drodro last month, in which at least 300 hundred civilians were butchered.
Cannibalism is known to be among the militias’ vices. The heart of the enemy, which is eaten to absorb his vital energy, is a particularly sought after trophy.
Brigadier Kale Kaihura, the army commander in charge of Uganda’s DRC mission, said last week that the head of one of his soldiers was discovered at the scene of a Lendu attack. The rest of his body was never found.
”We are shipping his head back to Uganda after failing to find any trace of the rest of him,” he said.
On April 24 and April 25 the first batch of 200 UN peacekeepers from Uruguay touched down in Bunia, along with 100 heavily armed police flown in from Kinshasa. Another 4 000 peacekeepers from Bangladesh and 3 000 Kinshasa police are expected by June 14.
At a press conference at their Bunia headquarters last Friday, the UN Mission in Congo (Monuc) rejected claims that it had failed to organise a replacement force fast enough. It said the Ituri Pacification Committee (IPC), signed in last month by every faction involved in the conflict besides Lubanga’s UPC, has the elements in place to manage the region’s security.
”The various organs of the IPC on the ground are equipped to deal with the security situation in Ituri,” said Vadim Periliev, head of Monuc for eastern DRC. ”All the elements of the society of eastern Congo are involved in these organs. They have been consulting with us and are well prepared to go by the mandate.”
Not according to Uganda. Kaihura told journalists on the day before
the deadline that Monuc was panicking about their withdrawal and had secretly made a phone call to Uganda’s Museveni pleading with him to stay longer and give them more time to organise a force.
Kampala rejected the UN’s informal, verbal request, saying in an official statement that if the UN Security Council wants it to stay beyond the deadline, they must put it in writing. ”A telephone conversation someone can deny,” explained Kaihura.
Periliev denied the Ugandan army’s claim: ”The position of Monuc is that we want immediate withdrawal. There was never a request to delay. There was only a concern that they pull out in an orderly fashion,” he said, without explaining what he meant by ”orderly”.
Back at Entebbe, returning troops were welcomed by Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi, who wasted no time trying to defend Uganda’s involvement in the DRC as vital for it’s security. He also said that if provoked, Uganda would have no qualms about going back in to eastern DRC.
”The mission in Congo was to defeat terrorists. Uganda will not stand idly by while our people are being threatened from the Congo.”