Mwanguhya Charles Mpagi
29 July 2003
Kampala — The diplomatic row between Uganda and the Sudan deepened yesterday.
Sudan was already angry that two family members of her diplomatic staff had gone missing in Kampala, allegedly kidnapped by the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army.
The Sudanese accused the Ugandan authorities of doing little to rein in the SPLA, the major rebel group fighting the Khartoum government in southern Sudan.
But Uganda's Chief of Military Intelligence, Col. Noble Mayombo, had dismissed the claims by Sudan as "a cover-up" for Khartoum's renewed support for the anti-Museveni Lord's Resistance Army rebels in northern Uganda.
The Sudanese ambassador, Mr Sirajuddin Hamid Yousuf, has now added a new twist to the already foul blame game.
In an interview with The Monitor yesterday, Sirajuddin accused Mayombo of feeding President Yoweri Museveni on "false intelligence".
"You know Mayombo is giving false news to the President that we are giving supplies to [LRA leader Joseph] Kony. This is not true. I'm very much annoyed," the Sudanese envoy said.
Sirajuddin said that the pictures of ammunition boxes recently published in the government-owned New Vision were a fabrication.
The New Vision said that the Sudanese government forces had supplied the ammunition reportedly captured from the LRA by the UPDF.
"Because of the Arabic insignia you try to deceive people. This is very bad," the ambassador said.
"I saw that insignia and I couldn't even understand the Arabic. It could have been Iranian Arabic or Persian. If we wanted to give supplies to Kony, we wouldn't give such small arms. We have our own factories," Sirajuddin said.
The envoy said that Khartoum had long stopped all supplies to the LRA rebels.
But Mayombo yesterday sounded unmoved by the ambassador's accusations that he had "sexed up" intelligence reports on the Sudan.
"If it is Sirajuddin, tell him that he is incapable of judging the quality of our intelligence," Mayombo said by telephone.
"There is no information which we have given to the government of Uganda and not shared with them. If we had any bad intentions, why pass on the information?" the military intelligence chief said.
The row between Kampala and Khartoum deepened even as Sudan's Defence minister, Maj. Gen. Bakri Hassan Saleh, arrived in Uganda yesterday.
Ambassador Sirajuddin said that Bakri is also delivering a "special message" to Museveni from President Hassan el Bashir.
Bakri was this morning due to present to Museveni a report of the Sudan's own investigation into the alleged resumption of supplies to the LRA rebels.
Uganda broke off diplomatic ties with the Sudan in 1995 over the latter's support for the anti-Museveni rebels. Relations have been improving over the last few years until this latest spate of accusations and counter-accusations.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2003 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
