Without the numbers in the House no amount of pressure from the Opposition could have stopped the government from sending back UPDF troops to DRC without a binding parliamentary resolution.
The NRM dominated the House and the circumstances of the latest military expedition out of Uganda’s borders would have guaranteed the troops would do precisely what they did.
And it showed, when the House debated the issue last week, that the government, which did not seek formal approval, could afford to ignore Parliament.
The Shadow Minister for Defence Hussein Kyanjo (Makindye West, Jeema) among other key Opposition legislators who tried to call the government side to order for failure to seek approval of Parliament before deploying Ugandan troops across the border was simply shouted down.
“It’s painful to see government falling foul of the Constitution with impunity. It’s clearly stated that for any deployment of Ugandan troops across the border, there should be a resolution of Parliament but this was not done and government is not bothered,” Mr Kyanjo said. So what?
This is the second time, the government is defying Parliament to deploy UPDF soldiers in a country. Ugandan troops entered DRC in 1998 to fight the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group fighting President Yoweri Muserveni’s government but ended up involving themselves into local conflicts aimed at toppling the Kinshasa government.
Following pressure from the international community, Uganda later withdrew UPDF troops from Congo in 2003. In 2005 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Uganda must pay $10 billion in compensation to the DRC for looting its minerals during the
1998-2003 war, what the court called “pillaging and plunder”.
DRC brought the case to the ICJ saying its sovereignty had been violated, and demanded compensation for plundered minerals and other resources.
The bad blood continues. DRC maintains the old Congo alliance [ Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda] still supplies arms to Congolese warlords like Gen. Laurent Nkunda while continuing to steal the country’s gold, diamonds and timber.
This is the situation confirmed by the latest UN report on the Congo. [see excerpt]. One would have expected that the government would have treaded carefully.
With the backing of the majority NRM MPs, in his response, the Security Minister, Amama Mbabazi defended the government decision to bypass Parliament.
“The deployment was done by the President and we could not come to Parliament because UPDF was not going for a peace-keeping mission,” Mr Mbabazi said.
Mbabazi, in his brief to Parliament on Tuesday said that the attack on Kony was initiated by the Congolese government after his Lord’s Resistance Army started killing Congolese civilians.
“Kony had exported the atrocities he was committing in Uganda to Congo and there was need for collective effort. This is how our soldiers ended in Congo in a joint operation.”
However, Article 210 of the 1995 Constitution requires the government to seek the approval of Parliament before deploying troops outside the country.
Chwa MP, Livingstone Okello-Okello argued that government failure to seek Parliament approval made a mockery of parliamentary authority and the Constitution. Speaker Edward Ssekandi, long accused of being partial to the NRM, simply ignored him.
While Mbabazi says the attack was initiated by DRC, President Museveni has repeatedly said that Uganda would not hesitate to send troops into DRC (with or without parliamentary approval) if the Congolese government and the UN do not handle the LRA rebels who are hiding in Garamba National Park.
MPs from Northern Uganda are upset that the bombing campaign went ahead without clear security measures for the abducted children in Kony’s hands.
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http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/inside_politics/Museveni_ignores_Parliament_sends_troops_into_Congo_77177.shtml
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