Kampala — The Democratic Republic of Congo is posing more than a tactical problem. From 1995 to-date, between two and three million people have perished in the Congo.

This is more than twice the number of people killed in the decade-long insurgency in northern Uganda, and more than three times the number killed under ex presidents, Milton Obote and Idi Amin.

There are three critical issues that have not been addressed to-date. The Congo intervention continues without formal parliamentary approval. Parliament has failed to discharge its constitutional role to either declare war or succeed in recalling the UPDF troops home.

The second issue is the total lack of accountability for the war effort. No convincing justification has been made for continued presence in the Congo being achieved at such a costly price. No timeline has ever been honoured for the withdrawal of UPDF troops. No cost-benefit analyses, including budgetary outlays are being made.

While Parliament is being asked to co-operate in the ballooning of defence expenditure to a record Shs 27.3bn or 27 percent of total revenue earned, the official excuse is escalation of the conflict in the north.

The third issue is a complete lack of a serious battle plan or military doctrine to pursue Uganda's supposedly strategic goals in the Congo.

In the case of Parliament, numerous attempts to get accountability have been rebuffed. The UPDF, contrary to popular perceptions by the apologists of the regime, is a personal army.

Nothing closer to armed services review, or a nationalistic defence policy has been produced. Defence structures are not subservient to civilian authority.

To the contrary, both the quasi-civilian leadership and the army have continued to hoodwink each other that it exists. The army has direct parliamentary representation, begging one to wonder why they need a minister for defence.

Army commissions are at the sole discretion of the commander-in-chief who happens to be a serving army officer. Terms of service remain chronically poor. At the bottom of the line, enlisted soldiers are almost living hand to mouth, yet they have a 24-hour mission of defending this country.

A practice has continued of poaching qualified officers for deployment to civil service or public service positions, as diversions from fundamental problems in the army.

This could be ignored but the for the continued involvement of the army in the abuse of human rights, corruption and petty theft!

The extortion gangs between Bunia and Kisangani are not official government policy. Serving UPDF officers shuttle back and forth. The diversion of the diamond trade to Kampala and Kigali is not policy sanctioned by Parliament. The deployment of the UPDF against innocent unarmed citizens in many electoral areas has become a routine practice. Now wherever the army goes, its respect is very much in doubt.

In the north, it has stooped as low as having to negotiate with a renegade [Joseph] Kony, due to lack of sound political leadership. Bribes like the Shs 4bn given to now Maj. Gen. Ali Bamuze continue, while the innocent, unarmed opposition gets tear gas canisters.

The political responsibility of the commander-in-chief appears to be permanently handicapped by his limited vision. He continues to be involved in all petty and key decisions in this ministry, as if he did not have a line minister.

His vision incorporates lengthy deployments that have worn thin on morale, to the point that last and early this year, a limited offensive by Mr Kony brought him in the reach of more than five districts at a time.

The initial excuse in the Congo was to support Mobutu Sese Seko's overthrow because he was sheltering Interahamwe dissidents, and supporting the Allied Democratic Forces.

Mobutu is long dead but we are still in the Congo. An entire productive sector of that country is gone to the dogs courtesy of our presence. Where did the utility of air strikes against rebel positions go?

That is an easy answer because the choppers and gun ships we have simply do not fly. What are the deployment needs for the 400-mile stretch between Bunia and Kisangani? How many battalions are you going to deploy for security?

The Congolese are fed up of foreigners attempting to run their own affairs. Where is Prof. Ernest Wamba dia Wamba; where is Jean Pierre Bemba?

Of course the people of Uganda through their representatives continue to back this state of affairs.

No religious leader has come forward to say that murder or genocide, if we are to take the numbers in Rwanda as guidance, is a moral outrage. Nobody even remembers that they once belonged to a universal church, the Church of the Province of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga-Zaire.

How do we continue to go to church, peddling flimsy excuses about moral laxity, when by our own act and taxes, we fund an institution that kills every single day by both covert and overt actions?

Why do we have a parliament if it cannot fulfil its basic constitutional function - checking the executive? Answers, may be, may be not; a third term, may be, may be not!

The author is a Ugandan lawyer now working in the United States