By Chris Muhizi for MCN.
This week, a controversy erupted over President Yoweri Museveni’s decision to criticize former Congolese President Joseph Kabila for his prior inaction in dealing with the terrorist organization.
On July 13, President Museveni spoke to the nation about security issues. He frequently praised Kabila’s successor Felix Tshisekedi for allowing the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) to operate in the DRC since November 2021. President Museveni claimed that Uganda had enough troops to hunt down the rebels up to Mbandaka, outside the operation area, if the Congo government were to permit it, while also protecting its hinterland in Uganda as well.
According to The east African the ADF’s defeat in 2007 at Semliki Valley, when they launched a mass invasion of Uganda, Museveni said that his government has mainly been able to keep the ADF out of Uganda by relying on a strong army, a relatively stronger intelligence service, and political stability.
The leader of Uganda claimed that Kabila disregarded the ADF because they served as a buffer between his country and Rwanda and Uganda, whom he initially accused of having vested interests in the country’s eastern regions. The ADF didn’t previously confront the FARDC until 2013, when they began attacking them and the soldiers were forced to defend themselves.
He continued that after Kinshasa refused assistance to deal with the group when neither they nor the UN had the ability, the rebels began mining gold, selling lumber, harvesting people’s cocoa, collecting taxes, and extorting people. All of this, he said, was due to Kinshasa’s failure to accept assistance.
Museveni’s comments were mocked by Ferdinand Kambere, the deputy secretary-general of Kabila’s PPRD party, who noted that Museveni only wanted to be a puppet of Kinshasa.
Museveni is telling lies. He is being deceptive. He is afraid because he wants the UPDF to remain in the DRC if the Tshisekedi government falls. On the grounds that they are searching for Islamists, he intends to maintain his soldiers in Congo no matter who the next president is, he claimed.
During Operation Shujaa, rebel camps were struck from the air, and military battles led the rebels to escape further into the DRC as murdering and looting were committed along the route.
They are now mostly terrorizing rural residents, unarmed civilians, and people who are leaving the front lines in smaller groups.
Brigadier Felix Kulayigye, the UPDF’s spokesperson, said that the nation would ask authorization to pursue the rebel organization outside of the existing area of operation known as the Death Triangle in order to completely eliminate it.