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Museveni Hails Bashir On Kony War

New Vision (Kampala)
NEWS
June 9, 2004
Posted to the web June 9, 2004

By Felix Osike
Kampala
President Yoweri Museveni has said he is satisfied with the cooperation of the
Sudan government in the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army terrorists of
Joseph Kony.
Museveni gave commendation to Sudanese president Omar el Bashir in a jovial
meeting the two leaders held on the sidelines of the 9th heads of state COMESA
summit that ended yesterday in Kampala.
"I don't need anything more from Sudan," Museveni said, referring to the
protocol of cooperation that Sudan and Uganda signed to fight the LRA.
The protocol allows the UPDF to operate inside Sudan where the LRA retreats
after committing atrocities in Uganda.
Museveni said since signing the protocol in 2002 and launching the UPDF
Operation Iron Fist, the LRA had been crippled and was now on the verge of
being wiped out.
A State House statement signed by acting Press Secretary Onapito Ekomoloit said
Museveni thanked Bashir for stopping his government's previous support to the
LRA.
The statement added that Bashir promised to continue supporting the UPDF to
eliminate the LRA, noting that the group had turned against his people too.
"Bashir said that the recent peace agreement that his government signed with
the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) is going to be the last nail in
the LRA coffin," the statement said.
"It is not only going to be the end of LRA but Kony as well," Bashir said.
He gave Museveni a copy of the agreement signed with SPLA in recognition of his
brokering the historic meeting between him and the SPLA leader, Dr. John
Garang, in Kampala in 2002.
Other presidents Museveni had side-meetings with were Mwai Kibaki (Kenya),
Bingu wa Mutharika (Malawi) and the Egyptian Prime Minister, Dr. Atef Ebeid.
Museveni told Kibaki that the East African stand in the Group of Eight
industrialised countries (G8) summit, which opens in Georgia, USA tomorrow,
would be to advocate market access, infrastructure development and more direct
foreign investment.
Museveni has been invited for the summit along with other selected African
leaders.
Mutharika, making his maiden visit to Uganda, told Museveni that the prospects
for Malawi's economy were bright because donors had agreed to resume aid after
freezing it over corruption reports.

   

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