Rodney Muhumuza
11 May 2008
Kampala — As Uganda and the DR Congo remain deadlocked in a new border dispute, there are indications that the authorities in Kampala will not be as provocative as the Congolese have been even as President Yoweri Museveni hopes to meet his opposite number Joseph Kabila in Dar es Salaam this week.
Diplomatic and security officials who spoke to Sunday Monitor said Uganda's response to aggression from the DRC would be defined by caution. In a bold attempt to bring their customs post at Vurra- Aru off West Nile from 5km to within 300 metres of the Ugandan one, the Congolese erected a new barrier and deployed heavily around the common border on May 2.
But beyond being stunned by the audacity of the Congolese, who have disregarded the work of an ongoing investigation that seeks to verify the frontier, the authorities in Kampala are not eager to react in ways that might stoke the conflict.
Uganda's attitude reflects a conviction that a less-than-diplomatic solution would not help Kampala in the long term.
With the Juba peace talks now in disarray, and the possibility of renewed hostilities between the Ugandan military and the Lord's Resistance Army never far away, Uganda cannot afford to worsen relations with the DRC, whose remote jun gles in the east may now be home to rebel leader Joseph Kony.
Gen. David Tinyefuza, who coordinates the intelligence agencies in Uganda, has told Sunday Monitor that the current conflict was the result of "the confusion of the Congolese". But though he admitted that "this haphazard movement of borders can be disruptive, especially for security", Gen. Tinyefuza said a solution would be found by "talking to them so that we amicably solve [the issue]".
On September 8, 2007, in what has come to be called the Ngurdoto Agreement, President Yoweri Museveni and the DRC's Joseph Kabila agreed, among other things, to have a joint commission that would verify the border. The pact, signed in the mountain resort of Ngurdoto, Tanzania, was supposed to re-align Uganda-DRC relations. But the Ngurdoto Agreement does not seem to have led to a perfection of relations between the two neighbours.
"Delegations welcomed the Ngurdoto-Tanzania Agreement signed on September 8, 2007 between the Uganda and DRC but expressed concern about the delay in its implementation," reported Mr Sean McCormack, spokesman for the US Department of State, in a December 5, 2007 press statement after a meeting of the Tripartite Plus Joint Commission.
The TPJC, facilitated by the US, unites Rwanda, Uganda, the DRC and Burundi in a collective effort to forge lasting peace in the Great Lakes. There have been several meetings under this arrangement, but it is yet to rid the region of what its members call "negative forces".
The Ngurdoto Agreement, even though it was signed when the government of Uganda and the LRA were negotiating a peace deal, was supposed to result in the disarmament and expulsion of the LRA from the DRC's Garamba National Park within 90 days. It has not happened. Another major aspect of the pact, witnessed by Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, was the recommendation that Uganda and the DRC form a joint commission to define the common border.
The commission, which took long to begin its work, stepped up the tempo only after the border dispute on May 2. The commission's report will provide the basis upon which changes to the frontier, if any, would be announced.
In an interview, Mr James Mugume, the Foreign Affairs permanent secretary, said the joint commission would study maps and documents from 1915, when the British and the Belgians signed an agreement demarcating the border.
"The idea is to introduce an orderly adjustment of borders...The best thing is to wait for the report of the border commission," Mr Mugume said. What is curious is that the Congolese, even though they have always wanted to realign the border, all of a sudden seem to be in a hurry.
"We've known that they had these intentions," said Capt. Robert Kamara, who speaks for the Ugandan army in West Nile. "The only thing is that they are moving very fast." Arua Resident District Commissioner Ibrahim Abiriga, who was involved in an early attempt to defuse the row, said the dispute "is now between the two foreign affairs ministers to solve".
Mr Mugume confirmed that Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa, and Mbusa Nyamwisi, his counterpart in Kinshasa, have recently spoken over the matter. The latest border incident comes less than year after Congolese troops attacked an oil barge belonging to a Canadian firm, Heritage Oil, near the contested island of Rukwanzi, on the Lake Albert killing an expatriate.
The Rukwanzi incident followed the capture of four Ugandan soldiers by the Congolese military who they accused of illegally entering the DRC. There are many issues pending. Nobody can afford to provoke the other," said Mr Aggrey Awori, the former Samia Bugwe North MP and known foreign relations expert. "I really doubt if anything [serious] is going to happen." Uganda, according to Mr Awori, has the "compensation issue" to worry about. And the DRC, he added, would not have many allies i if it attempted full-blown aggression against Uganda.
Uganda, which entered the DRC in the late '90s to fight rebel groups based in the vast central African country, lost a case at the International Court of Justice, which ruled in 2005 that Uganda should pay damages for plundering its neighbour's resources and committing atrocities there between 1996 and 2001.
The DRC claimed reparations of $10billion, but it is only though a protracted process of bilateral negotiations that the DRC can get some or all of that money. There has been joint oil exploration in the Albertine region recently, but uncertainty on the Congolese side, coupled with simmering tension between the two neighbours, could derail new targets.
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