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****** Uganda: Congo Extends UPDF Mandate ******
Barbara Among
23 January 2009
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Kampala — The DR Congo government has granted the Ugandan forces another 21
days to hunt for reclusive rebel leader Joseph Kony currently held up in the DR
Congo's Garamba jungles.
The initial agreement with the DR Congo was that the military offensive takes a
month. The 30-day mandate expired on January 14.
Uganda, together with neighbours the DR Congo and Sudan launched a joint
military offensive against the LRA on December 14.
In a two day meeting held from Sunday to Monday at Dungu, an Eastern town of
the DR Congo, where the operation's tactical base is, the two army chiefs,
Uganda's Gen Aronda Nyakairima and Lt Gen Didier Etumba of Congo, agreed to
extend the joint operation.
The armies would also use the extension to decide on the way forward. However a
joint operation against the LRA would continue.
"I think this was something that was always going to happen because the
operation was never going to take just one month," former army spokesperson
Paddy Ankunda said last week.
The statement said the two chiefs expressed satisfaction over the level of co-
ordination between the two forces that has dislodged the LRA from their
garrison in Garamba jungles.
They noted that the offensive, code named Operation Lightning Thunder, was
successful as the LRA had lost their safe havens, weapons and ammunitions as
well as abandoning their stores and food, becoming more vulnerable.
The meeting agreed that FARDC, the Congolese army, while working with UN peace
keeping mission in DR Congo, MONUC, would continue devising ways of protecting
civilians from the attack while the UPDF continue to hunt the roaming rebels.
Copyright © 2009 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica
Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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