Kampala — Newspaper headlines: ¡§Kony massacres, butchers, kills, cooks„m¡¨

UPDF: Those are the last kicks of a dying horse.

Question: When shall the horse die?

On January 1, 2002 The Monitor quoted Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi vowed to flush out the Joseph Kony-led Lord's Resistance Army rebels. Said Mbabazi, ¡§I don¡oet expect the LRA to survive beyond 2002.¡¨

On February 23, 2002 the UPDF entered Southern Sudan in pursuit of rebels who had raided Agoro in Kitgum district. Operation Iron Fist was launched shortly with the task of capturing Kony and ending the 16 year-old insurgency. Thousands of UPDF entered Sudan to hunt down the rebels.

At the close of 2002, though Operation Iron Fist has proved as controversial as they come, its successes are as difficult to pinpoint and Defence Minister Mbabazi has extended Kony¡oes expiry to Jan 31, 2003.

Critics say not only did OIF fail to ease the suffering of the people, it was like throwing a stone into a bee-hive. Like the bees, Kony¡oes men went on rampage, killing maiming and burning more and more helpless victims along the way. The rebellion reached an all time high.

¡§Operation Iron Fist has been a disaster,¡¨ said Gulu Municipality MP Norbert Mao, December 20. ¡§The operation itself became a problem. It¡oes like medicine that turns out to be worse than the disease it is meant to cure.¡¨

Mao says that at the beginning of the year, 460, 000 people were displaced; today the population in the camps is well over 700,000. In 2002 alone, he said, some 500 people were killed directly as a result of the conflict, many more as a result of the consequences of displacement.

The Acholi Parliamentary Group, of which Mao is a member, became the leading critics of OIF. In a July 1 press conference at Parliament, APG said their people were living like animals and in constant fear.

¡§The fact that atrocities have continued, and that rebels are moving freely in the north is a vote of no confidence in this operation,¡¨ says Mao. ¡§So definitely 2002 [was] a very bad year for our people.¡¨

While the people and their representatives have blamed OIF for increasing their suffering, the army has been at pains to prove it was winning the war against LRA.

UPDF spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza has kept the press well fed with figures of successes from the war front -- so many abductees rescued, so many rebels killed, so many rebels defected„m

Ironically, the same editions of newspapers that carried his success reports also had more headlines of more Kony killings and maiming, leaving many readers wondering what the real picture was.

¡§What has happened is that the rebels break themselves down into groups of 15-40 and then they cause havoc,¡¨ Bantariza said back in July. ¡§Now, the UPDF cannot deploy in such small groups.¡¨

He said UPDF had split into a force to guard protected villages and a mobile force to track down such small groups.

In a December 23 interview, Bantariza declared, ¡§The war is over!¡¨ He added, ¡§What remain are just skirmishes with the remnants of the rebels.¡¨ Documents allegedly captured by the army show that Kony¡oes force is now down to 514 men. ¡§Just,¡¨ the army authorities would wish to add, though, still 514 men too many.

Between September and December, Bantariza said, OIF had registered remarkable successes: 1,300 people rescued from captivity; 229 rebels killed and 59 captured with 81 rebels surrendering to the UPDF.

In the same period the army captured 11,000 rounds of ammunition and 175 rifles and machine guns. 23 UPDF soldiers were killed and 33 injured. All this information, however, has not been independently verified.

Asked when Kony and his 514 warriors will be finished once and for all, Bantariza, having burnt his fingers earlier over the matter, was shy about setting a deadline this time round.

¡§It will take some time,¡¨ he said. ¡§Just some time.¡¨

Why should Bantariza be believed?

With the UPDF reportedly keeping Kony on the run in Sudan, Bantariza says people should have a little patience; the rebellion will be over soon.

¡§The cycle of the Kony rebellion has been the same,¡¨ he says, opening another booklet of captured Kony documents. ¡§Kony commits atrocities and kidnaps. We fight him. We break his back ¡V like we have done now ¡V and he runs away to Sudan.¡¨

He adds, "There he nurses his wounds, recuperates, re-arms, trains his forces, and returns to Uganda. We beat him again and he runs away to Sudan. The cycle repeats itself again.¡¨

With OIF, said Bantariza, this cycle has been broken thanks to the protocol signed between Uganda and Sudan. This protocol allows UPDF to hunt down the LRA inside Sudanese territory.

¡§The peace we have is now solid, reliable and sustainable,¡¨ he said. ¡§And I can confidently say so because Kony cannot come back to Uganda and he cannot take more arms from the Sudanese.¡¨

Simon Mayende, chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs, says OIF has indeed been a success.

¡§As a representative of the people and as a committee chairman, I feel the operation achieved at least 70% of what it set out to do,¡¨ Mayende said December 20.

He attributed the army¡oes failure to finish the LRA to an underestimation as regards the numbers of soldiers, amount of money and intelligence required.

¡§But we had also thought that Sudan would give us total co-operation when we went in there,¡¨ said the MP. ¡§Now with funds available, I think LRA will be finished in the early part of the year.¡¨

Under the protocol, renewed at the end of November, the Sudanese pledged not to support Kony in any way. Uganda has always accused Sudan of backing Kony while Khartoum accused Uganda of supporting the Sudan People¡oes Liberation Army led by Dr. John Garang.

But that is just what the protocol says. An SPLA commander has since told The Monitor in an interview that Kony was being sheltered in a Sudanese government barracks (See ¡§Kony in Sudan barracks ¡V SPLA,¡¨ Sunday Monitor, Dec. 1 2002.)

¡§We do not know whether the Sudanese are being very honest with us,¡¨ a member of APG had said in July. Analysts say it won¡oet be easy for Sudan to totally give up supporting Kony as long as SPLA leaders roam freely in Kampala ¡V regardless of what the protocol says.

But clearly for Mao, the key to peace in the North is not even in a resuscitated military campaign. "We cannot have any more confidence in the military approach," Mao said. "We have to seriously push for peace talks. It is the only thing left for us to try."

Henry Mayiga of the Uganda People's Congress agrees: "That operation was a fiasco. Going into Sudan really has not solved the problems," Mayiga said. "Our position is that government should seriously pursue peace."

Upon being reminded that President Museveni had set up a peace team headed by internal affairs minister Eriya Kategaya, Mayiga laughed sarcastically.

"How can you say you are talking peace and then you put money on Kony's head? How will that encourage Kony to come out? That kind of carrot and stick approach does not work with peace. Government must seek peace genuinely."

Then came the Operation Wembley

Writing in Ear to the Ground on January 2, 2002, Charles Onyango-Obbo predicted that ¡§2002 looks set to be the year of guns, batons and tear gas.¡¨ He was right.

2002 was indeed the year of guns, although not exactly for the purpose that Onyango-Obbo had in mind. Guns were shot all over the country not so much in pursuit of UPC and DP as in pursuit of armed thugs.

On March 29, local television star Paul Walusimbi, popularly known as Uncle Dick, was shot dead in Kweba zone in Rubaga division. Many business people were murdered in the same manner over the next three months, including the June 24 shooting of businessman James Semwezi at Busega.

Police swung into action. It pursued any rumoured thugs with rare zeal and determination; and often with tangible results. In ten days ending June 30, seventeen thugs were shot dead and 10 sub-machineguns, three pistols, three loading rifles and 393 rounds of ammunition were recovered. Four of the dead thugs were UPDF soldiers.

The country was informed soon after that President Museveni¡oes ¡§Operation Wembley¡¨ was in action. To head the operation was Col. Elly Kayanja, deputy Director General of the Internal Security Organisation. Dozens of thugs were ¡§put out of action¡¨ or ¡§harvested¡¨ ¡V in Wembley speak -- and hundreds of suspects arrested. What started as an operation for the city eventually spread to the entire country, from Mbarara to Gulu from Masaka to Mbale.

But Operation Wembley was condemned by many; including the multi-partyists, judges and human rights activists for what they called ¡§extra-judicial killings,¡¨ in addition to reported extortion of money and torture of innocent suspects. Kayanja pleaded that his soldiers only shot at thugs in self-defence but this did not deter the critics.

¡§Those procedures may help us but they may also kill us," Kayanja said in August when government ordered him to stop the random killing of thugs. ¡§What if the first shot kills me?" he queried back then.

Mayende agrees with Kayanja. He says the operation was timely in view of the ruthlessness with which the thugs were killing innocent people. However, he says the problem was partly with the people who tried to settle personal scores by deliberately providing Wembley operatives with wrong information.

¡§There were cases of business rivalry that ended up in Operation Wembley,¡¨ Mayende said. ¡§Ugandans should know that it is a crime to give wrong information to security personnel and that they can be charged in courts.¡¨

But as 2003 began, and the general court martial tries the suspects, the question will be whether the crisis of armed robbery is truly over. President Museveni himself said July 11 that rogue army officers were loaning out guns to thugs. Have they now stopped? Will they not do it again?

¡§Our position has always been that there was no need for Operation Wembley,¡¨ said Democratic Party Spokesman Jude Mbabaali. ¡§Police should have been equipped to do the job. As soon as the operation ends, the armed robbery will start all over again.¡¨

Uganda People¡oes Congress shares this view. For them Operation Wembley, like Kalangala Action Plan (a paramilitary group headed by Maj. Kakooza Mutale), had political motives on the side. They argue that the mission about the armed thugs will soon fade into the background.

For the majority of city dwellers, and people in other districts, however, Operation Wembley has brought some relief. How long that relief can last is the bigger question.

A new war in 2003?

2002 ended amidst rumours of a new impending war in Western Uganda. As early as March Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi was saying that former presidential candidate Kizza Besigye was plotting to attack Uganda from Kenya. Since then Lt. Col. Noble Mayombo, Chief of Military Intelligence; and David Pulkol, Director General of External Security Organisation; have claimed to have information that links Besigye to rebel activity.

After Besigye said November 25 that all conditions that cause war exist in Uganda, he has been accused of having declared war on Uganda. But Bantariza dismissed Besigye¡oes ¡¥war drums¡oe as being political and not military.

Obviously neither Besigye nor Bantariza nor anyone would want to see another war in Uganda. Yet where there is smoke often there is fire too.