|
|
Uganda: Mwenda's Report On North Killings Inaccurate
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
New Vision (Kampala)
OPINION
5 May 2008
Posted to the web 6 May 2008
Paddy Ankunda
Kampala
ON May 3, the world celebrated the Press Freedom Day. Uganda being a country where free press is flourishing joined the fray. Those who lived in Uganda before the advent of the NRM Government will tell you that we have come a long way.
Gone are the days when journalists would 'disappear' for writing against the government and no human rights activist raises a finger about it. The passing of the Freedom of Access to Information Act is a development that has enabled this kind of freedom.
Surprisingly, many people continue to take this freedom for granted and abuse it with impunity. In his April issue of The Independent Magazine, Andrew Mwenda developed a deliberate clash between democratic and military values by believing the lies of one Lance Corporal Godfrey Masaba, a deserter from the UPDF. Arguably, Mwenda has been the single biggest beneficiary of Uganda's freedom of press and speech.
Mwenda, quoting Masaba, states that it was not LRA but the UPDF who committed atrocities in northern Uganda.
These claims are false and absurd.
Could the International Criminal Court (ICC), which employs some of the best investigators and trial lawyers in the world, have missed these atrocities blamed on the UPDF in June 2003? A team of 12 international investigators and trial lawyers from 10 countries collected evidence during over 50 missions in Uganda over a period of 9 months. The team recorded 2,200 killings and 3,200 abductions in over 850 attacks between July 2002 and June 2004. All of these, it found, were carried out by the LRA.
Based on those findings, LRA leader Joseph Kony and his deputy, the late Vincent Otti, were charged with 12 counts for crimes against humanity and 21 counts for war crimes.
The ICC has up to now not found any evidence of crimes committed by the UPDF that pass the threshold of gravity, the criteria for case selection.
One questions the motives and credibility of an army deserter, particularly one who claims he acted out of anger for not getting a "prestigious, well-paying deployment". If Mwenda had cross-checked, he would have found flaws and inaccuracies.
Masaba claims his unit was briefed by Brig. Nathan Mugisha, "then army commander". It does not need a journalist of the level of Mwenda to know that Mugisha was never army commander.
In June 2003, Mugisha was the Fourth Division commander based in Gulu while the army commander was Gen. Aronda Nyakairima.
Mwenda could also have figured out that the 401 Brigade, which his source claimed he belonged to, did not fall under Mugisha (Fourth Division) but was part of Fifth Division (Pader), then commanded by Col. John Mugume.
Moreover, Mwenda could have realised that it was unlikely his source would have received orders from Gen. Kale Kayihura who was the UPDF Chief Political Commissar then and had no command responsibilities in northern Uganda.
Had Mwenda researched, he would have found that there was never a Special Force Unit called 181 in the UPDF. He would also have found that there was no battalion "made up of former LRA soldiers" in June 2003. The 105 Battalion, composed of LRA combatants, was only formed in 2004.
Mwenda could have checked his source's credibility by browsing through the UPDF records. He would have found that Godfrey Masaba joined the force on April 8, 2003. As any other recruit, he first underwent nine-month training at Kawamba Military Training School.
If Mwenda would have calculated, he would have found that his source concluded his training in January, 2004. He thus could not have been in the North in June 2003, as he claimed.
The UPDF records show that Masaba was deployed at the Third Division Garrison in Mbale. Until September 2006, when he disappeared and was declared 'absent without official leave', he never served any other unit in the UPDF.
It is, therefore, a shame that Mwenda is again abusing the press freedom he enjoys to peddle lies about his country, the army and the war in the North.
|
The writer is the Defence and UPDF Spokesman
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 New Vision. 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
