[allAfrica.com]


UPDF Mission in Somalia Blocked

The Monitor (Kampala)
NEWS
December 2, 2006
Posted to the web December 1, 2006

By Emmanuel Gyezaho and Jude Lugya
Kampala
UGANDA may not be able to send troops to Somalia after it emerged that the UN
Security Council has tightened the enforcement of a 1992 arms embargo slapped
on war torn country.
While the Council has extended the mandate of a group of experts monitoring the
flow of arms in the Horn of Africa for another six months, the development has
put in jeopardy Uganda's ominous deployment there and firmly squashed its quest
for lifting of the embargo.
Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga told Parliament on Thursday that Kampala was
working with Washington and London to broker a partial lifting of the embargo
to facilitate effective troop deployment under the auspices of the
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad).
On Wednesday the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution stressing
that States must comply with the embargo on all delivery of weapons and
military equipment to Somalia.
The resolution follows a November report by the Councils' Somalia Monitoring
group, which implicated Uganda and a host of Igad subscribing nations of
violating the embargo.
Uganda has distanced itself from any wrongdoing but the report spoke of Ugandan
military support to the Transitional Federal Government, which is hanging onto
power by a thread, through combat troop deployment, military trainers and
advisers. Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia are also implicated.
However, Kiyonga has vehemently denied any UPDF deployment in Somalia.
The report said all the ingredients were there for a violent, widespread and
protracted military conflict in Somalia, more so as the Union of Islamic Courts
(UIC), which is fighting the interim government, has stated its intention to
violently oppose any Igad or African Union military force.
"The contest is overwhelmingly military in nature, with rampant arms flows to
both sides," the report said.
"The arms flows are a premier part of a deliberate, ongoing and broader
military build-up taking place on both sides."
The monitoring group, however, also made a number of recommendations for
tightening the embargo, including a "total border surveillance and interdiction
effort involving a combination of sea, air and land military forces as well as
a financial-assets freeze on all Somali-owned and -operated businesses located
inside and outside Somalia that are connected to either side."
Meanwhile, any UPDF deployment to Somalia faces stiff resistance, as Members of
Parliament on Thursday said they would not back it. Responding to a ministerial
statement from Kiyonga on Somalia, the legislators said any deployment there
would be an unnecessary "bloody venture."
"Our house [Uganda] is already on fire caused by electricity shortage, the
closure of Makerere University, shortage of drugs in health centres. Do we have
the capacity to look for more problems?" Beti Kamya [Lubaga North] asked.
"Our history of deploying our troops to foreign lands has been bloody and we
have not benefited at all. We have been to Congo, Rwanda and Sudan but the
benefits are not palatable. We should not risk going to Somalia," said Hussein
Kyanjo [Makindye West].
However, Kiyonga said Uganda had a revolutionary obligation to assist a fellow
African state and was ready to move. "Uganda will not be found wanting in
respect to calls to assist fellow African countries whenever the need arises.
This will, however, be in accordance with our domestic legal framework and the
international law," he said.


===============================================================================
  Copyright © 2006 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica
                        Global Media (allAfrica.com).
===============================================================================