DRC wants Uganda arms embargo

2005-10-04 22:25

United Nations - The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday called for United Nations sanctions against Uganda - including a total arms embargo - over Kampala's threat to send troops across the border to disarm Uganda rebels.

Last month, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said their forces would be deployed to the volatile eastern Congo, unless Kinshasa and the UN mission, known as Monuc, dealt with members of the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who had fled there.

DRC's UN envoy Ileka Atoki said: "This declaration by itself is a violation of the charter of the UN, which forbids any kind of threat against the national sovereignty of any member state."

In a letter to the president of the council, ambassador Mihnea Motoc of Romania, Atoki demanded that the council condemn Uganda, arguing that Museveni's comments "represent a threat to international peace and security under provisions of the UN charter".

Ongoing peace process

The envoy also called on the council to impose a total arms embargo on Uganda and to demand that Kampala refrained from any act that might endanger the ongoing peace process in the Great Lakes region of central Africa.

Museveni said: "I expect Monuc and the DRC government to disarm the LRA rebels, and if they don't, we shall do it ourselves", repeating demands for LRA deputy chief Vincent Otti and his men to be expelled from the Congo.

His comments came shortly after DRC officials accused the LRA of terrorising the civilian population on the outskirts of the park, near the DRC-Uganda border, and of poaching elephants in the reserve.

Otti and a band of LRA fighters that UN officials said number some 380 fled from Ugandan military operations in southern Sudan earlier this month and have taken refuge in the DRC.

LRA troops not invited into DRC

Kampala has demanded that they be disarmed and returned to Uganda, and while Kinshasa said it would expel the rebels and Monuc offered to help, neither had yet acted.

Atoki said: "We do confirm that LRA troops crossed over, but what I can say is that they are not invited into DRC.

"We are now telling them to go back to their country, and there are some talks with Monuc as the best way to deal with that issue."

He said the LRA was a Ugandan issue that Kampala had been unable to resolve for the past 20 years.

Atoki said that while regular Ugandan troops had not yet crossed into DRC, Kampala was "sponsoring various militia groups, mainly in the DRC province of Ituri, where they were involved in the illegal exploitation of natural resources".

The LRA, notorious for its brutal treatment of civilians, had waged a devastating rebellion in northern Uganda against Museveni's government since 1988.

- AFP