Uganda 'behind' Sudan attack

2008-07-01 08:36

Badru Mulumba

Juba - The Ugandan military was behind a recent attack in southern Sudan initially blamed on Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army, said a senior southern politician on Monday.

"This was alleged to be the LRA," said Riek Machar, vice-president of semi-autonomous southern Sudan and the mediator in stalled peace talks between the rebel group and the Ugandan government.

"I sent the committee to go and investigate it. The rest of the evidence is there. Indeed, it didn't turn out to be the LRA, but they were UPDF (Uganda People's Defence Forces)," Machar told parliament in the southern capital Juba.

According to documents presented to parliament, the ceasefire monitoring team attached to the Ugandan peace talks investigated an alleged LRA attack close to the Sudanese-Ugandan border in which a 31-year-old man was abducted.

Abductee found dead

They reported that about 30 gunmen raided a homestead at Nyongwa village on June 14, looted food and household goods and abducted Jino Moga Mandara.

The abductee was found dead three days later, apparently with a head injury and stab wound seemingly from a bayonet, three kilometres away from the homestead on the route down which the attacker beat a retreat.

The Ugandan military had forces at the border with Sudan, but it remained unclear if and how deeply they had penetrated the country.

Machar wrote to the chief Ugandan negotiator - Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda - expressing concern about the incident.

"Apparently it was assumed that the perpetrators were LRA, but as the report clearly states it is a squad of UPDF that masqueraded as LRA," said Machar.

Kony refuses to sign peace accord

Police found a military pack containing green military uniforms, a pair of military boots, two ponchos, three caps and a document, as well as a small bag carrying two saucepans, two plastic plates, beans and cooking oil.

Investigators also found what they considered written evidence implicating the UPDF. Empty cans of tinned beans and empty biscuit packets were found at the scene, where the dead body was found.

The commanding officer of southern Sudanese former rebel fighters close to the Ugandan border told investigators that the items implicated the Ugandan army - a position the committee affirmed.

The ceasefire monitoring team, chaired by a south Sudan major general, also included representatives from Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania.

The ceasefire team, however, confirmed that an attack on June 05 on the Congo-Sudan border, which left 27 dead, was carried out by the LRA.

Sudan-mediated talks between Uganda and the LRA halted in April when the elusive rebel leader Joseph Kony refused to sign a peace accord, on the grounds of outstanding International Criminal Court war crimes arrest warrants.

- AFP