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Uganda Dismisses UN On LRA

The Monitor (Kampala)
NEWS
October 24, 2004
Posted to the web October 25, 2004

By Kakaire A. Kirunda
Mbale
Uganda's Ambassador to the UN says Thursday's warning by the world body that
northern Uganda is the most neglected humanitarian crisis in the world with
20,000 children caught up in a war came at a wrong time.
The envoy, Mr Francis Butagira was, Friday morning, speaking on the BBC's The
World Today radio programme. It followed a presentation by the UN's head of
humanitarian affairs, Mr Jan Egeland who urged countries to do more to end what
he called a "litany of horrors" stretching back 18 years.
But Butagira said: "We think the timing, in our view, is not proper because it
is coming at a time when a campaign against the Lord's Resistance Army is
coming to almost a successful conclusion." He argued that the issue taking
centre stage at this time "almost dramatically is really to give unnecessary
boost to the rebel group."
When asked about the child causalities in the crossfire, Butagira denied that
they were being killed. He however hastened to add that the LRA had no right to
use children as a scapegoat and unleash terror.
Earlier, Egeland said: "Northern Uganda equals to Darfur in Sudan in the number
of displaced. And we need now much of the international attention focusing on
what I would consider the biggest neglected emergency and humanitarian crisis
in the world."

   

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