'Employ SA mercenaries'
2003-06-27 20:31
Andrew Kaggwa
Kampala - Uganda must use South African mercenaries "to crush the Lord's Resistance Army." The fire-arm wielding members are kidnapping children and attacking towns.
This is the view of the Ugandan parliamentary defence and home affairs committee after an attack on a town in northern Uganda earlier this week.
Two South Africans, Johan Eksteen and Johan Oosthuizen, both Kimberley residents, lived to tell the tale after the bloody attack on Soroti on Tuesday morning. Numerous people were killed in the attack.
They fled to Kampala with just a few belongings.
Aggrey Awori, member of parliament for the Samia Bugwe district in Uganda, says "the government must stop the sect's leader, Joseph Kone, just like the Angolan government eliminated the rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi."
"Savimbi fought the government for many years and he always refused to enter into peace talks with the government. Didn't the Angolan government hire specialists to kill him?" Awori asked during a debate in parliament.
Awori and other parliamentarians suggested the Ugandan government hire the services of Executive Outcomes to stop the LRA, which has killed thousands of people during the past 17 years.
Executive Outcomes was forbidden to do business in South Africa after the activities of mercenaries in Angola and Sierra Leone became an embarrassment for the government.
South African mercenaries are nevertheless still operating in several African countries.
Several Ugandan parliamentarians supported the suggestion and said it "was essential to strengthen the Ugandan defence force to halt the latest LRA offensive".
- Beeld