by Vincent Mayanja
KAMPALA, Oct 20 (AFP) - Uganda on Thursday sought formal approval from its neighbors to send troops into the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to hunt down members of a notorious rebel group seeking refuge there.

A day after the United Nations said Kampala and Kinshasa would create a "joint verification team" to determine exactly where Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters are hiding, Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kuteesa proposed an expanded operation.

Addressing an African Great Lakes security conference here, Kuteesa called for the formation of a joint command under which Ugandan and DRC troops in cooperation with the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) would seek out and engage LRA rebels.

"The LRA is a terrorist organization which has been operating out of Sudan for the last 10 years, now they are moving into the DRC which brings a new dynamic," he told the meeting of senior officials from Uganda, Rwanda, the DRC and Burundi.

"In view of this ... we recommend the idea of joint operations between Ugandan and DRC armed forces with the involvement of MONUC to deal with this group," Kuteesa said.

"We should coordinate first and then operate jointly because of our accumulated knowledge and experience with the LRA," he said. "Without our involvement, this problem will not be solved."

Uganda last sent troops into the DRC during the country's devastating 1998-2003 civil war ostensibly to battle Ugandan rebel groups there but was criticised for allegedly using the opportunity to plunder its vast neighbor's natural resources.

On Wednesday in Kinshasa, MONUC announced that Uganda and the DRC had agreed to put together a military surveillance team to confirm the location of LRA fighters but Kuteesa's proposal includes potential combat missions, officials said.

A MONUC official attending the Kampala meeting said the idea had not yet been approved.

A senior Ugandan official said his country's participation in ground operations in the eastern DRC was key to rooting out the LRA, which has waged a brutal nearly 20-year war against the Kampala government from bases in northern Uganda and southern Sudan.

"We know these people, we have been tracking them for some time, we know how they operate," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"The DRC says it has no capacity, MONUC says it has no mandate, so who will do it?" the official said. "That is why we are asking for joint operations with MONUC as observers so that they don't say that we are there to loot."

Ugandan troops have been allowed to chase LRA fighters in southern Sudan under the terms of a 2002 agreement between Kampala and Khartoum that was recently revised to give Uganda's military almost free rein to pursue the rebels there.

At the end of September about 300 LRA rebels led by the group's number two, Vincent Otti, fled Ugandan patrols in southern Sudan into the eastern DRC and took refuge in the Garamba National Park, then moved close to the town of Aba.

According to Kinshasa and residents near Aba, the group returned to southern Sudan on October 6, but Kampala believes they are still on DRC territory.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has threatened unilaterally to invade the DRC to crush the rebels there unless concerted action is taken by the Congolese military and MONUC to forcibly disarm and deport them.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 1.6 million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion against Kampala in 1988.

The group is accused of massive atrocities in the region, including the abductions of at least 20,000 children who are used as porters, fighters and sex slaves for LRA commanders.

Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for elusive LRA supremo Joseph Kony, Otti and three other top commanders on war crimes charges.

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Copyright (c) 2005 Agence France-Presse
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 10/20/2005 08:19:22


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