Fist Your recent report that “suspected Lord’s Resistance Army rebels on Friday hacked to death 45 civilians in a church in the DR Congo, bringing the number killed in the central African country and South Sudan to 90 in four days” (“Massacre: Kony slaughters 45 in church,” Daily Monitor December 29), is a graphic reminder of the unspeakable massacres that followed Operation Iron Fist in Southern Sudan five years ago.
Under the March 2002 agreement signed with the Sudan government, tens of thousands of UPDF troops entered deep inside Southern Sudan, ostensibly to search and destroy the Lord’s Resistance Army. Instead, the UPDF only succeeded in guiding the LRA back to Uganda, where they spread out and occupied not only the Acholi sub-region, but also Madi, Lango and Teso sub-regions.
The tragic outcomes of Operation: Iron Fist were the unspeakable massacres and abductions of children from in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in these regions.
In Acholi, suspected LRA rebels cooked their victims in pots and in Lango they attacked Bar Lonyo IDPdora and massacred over 400 defenseless men, women and children. Curiously, the Government claimed that only 68 people had been killed, and hurriedly buried them.
It was these massacres that prompted Ms Dora Byamukama, then a Member of Parliament for Mwenge, to table a parliamentary motion calling on government to declare the north a disaster area in order to attract the badly needed humanitarian assistance. But in his wisdom, President Museveni refused, yet he had a few years earlier declared the West a disaster area following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease!
However, the LRA onslaught overwhelmed the UPDF, leading to the creation of tribal militia groups such as Boarder Frontiers in Acholi, Amuka in Lango and Arrow Boys in Teso. Many of these are still armed and killing civilians.
If these are the lessons from Operation Iron Fist, and if the recent massacres by the LRA of 90 people following Operation Lightning Thunder is any indicator of what might follow, Ugandans have reason to fear that the LRA will almost certainly return and spread death and destruction in Uganda.
And if the Ghost Soldiers saga, which followed Operation Iron Fist is any pointer, then it is safe to conclude that only a few UPDF commanders will benefit from Operation Lightning Thunder. Those commanders who were implicated in the ghost solders case were first taken to court but then released and promoted.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that despite the official statements, the real reason for the Operation Lightning Thunder and the attack on Camp Swahili was not to capture or kill Joseph Kony. For that reason, Ugandans and Great Lakes countries, especially Rwanda should be watching these developments with keen interest.
Samwiri Akaki,
Agulu Parish
Apach District
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/letters/Recalling_Operation_Iron_77547.shtml
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