Kampala — President Museveni has ordered an inquiry into alleged killing of Karimojong civilians by UPDF soldiers. Daily Monitor has been told Lt. Col. Abdul Rugumayo and UPDF director for human rights, Maj. Moses Agaba, head the on-going investigations.

This follows a dossier Jie County MP Peter Lokii sent to the President detailing harrowing tales and preliminary findings by the Uganda Human Rights Commission incriminating the army in various atrocities.

For instance, President Museveni, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, was told by Mr Lokii that soldiers killed anywhere between 28-43 civilians during an April 24 operation in Lokitelangilam in Rengen Sub-county to recover animals the Jie allegedly raided from the Dodoth in Kaabong.

Kotido Resident District Commissioner John Achela, who chairs the district security committee, confirmed to this newspaper yesterday that they found 10 bodies during an on-the-spot assessment following the army onslaught. "Vultures had eaten flesh off some of the corpses but we could see six of the bodies were of children and four adults," he said by telephone from Kotido.

Ten people died immediately but Rengen Sub-county chairman Matthew Lochoto told a district security meeting on May 1 that many more bodies of fleeing civilians were later found in the bushes, the RDC said. MP Lokii, who spoke to us yesterday, said it was surprising the army reportedly recovered only two guns from the 28 people killed, initially all reported to be armed. "Witnesses said the dead were mostly shot in the head and at close range," he said. "I am of the strong opinion that the leading cause of poverty in Karamoja currently is the disarmament exercise because it has no human face."

In another incident on January 3, 18 residents and 200 animals were allegedly bombed dead using a helicopter gunship as the military tried to rein-in Jie and Dodoth factions that sparred over the sharing of 6,000 stolen cattle the UPDF 61st battalion collected at Kacheri Sub-county headquarters. RDC Achela said a small boy was killed in that attack and an old man wounded but other accounts put the death toll to near 20.

Nervy residents

In yesterday's paid-for-advert in The New Vision newspaper, UHRC said several Kotido District residents are nervy over the army's alleged involvement in extra-judicial killings and torture of civilians. "(Our) investigations are still on-going, but preliminary findings confirm that a number of people, including children and the elderly, were killed in various (cordon and search) operations carried out by the UPDF in Kotido between January and April, 2010," the statement signed by UHRC chairman Med Kaggwa reads in part.

Mzee Aramutori Lokodo, who identified himself as a chief elder of the Pokot, first brought the plight of the Karimojong to the public arena in February when he tried to demonstrate at Parliament over alleged UPDF highhandedness. He said then that soldiers from Anguruma detach on January 15, this year raided 350 cattle from his kraal.

The local army commanders allegedly failed to retrieve the stolen livestock. "I collapsed crying," he told Sunday Monitor then. "We thought the army was to give us security; the UPDF has now become a tribe in Karamoja raiding cattle!"

UHRC is now asking the Ugandan military to punish its own officers implicated in wayward conduct; three months after defence officials denounced Mzee Lokodo as a Kenyan warrior chief and dismissed reports of indiscriminate manhandling of civilians in Karamoja as smear campaign by politicians. "The Commission calls upon the leadership of the UPDF to institute thorough investigations into the allegations which the commission has drawn to their attention," read the press statement.

Yesterday, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, the military spokesman, said once their officers conclude continuing investigations, those found culpable will "be prosecuted". "We want to assure UHRC and indeed all Ugandans that we don't intend, whatsoever, to abandon our long cherished tradition of enjoying cordial relations with civilians," Lt. Col. Kulayigye said.

While touring Karamoja nearly a fortnight ago, President Museveni harangued his field commanders there, accused by residents of brutalising them under the guise of searching for illegal arms. "If these soldiers here have failed (in the disarmament exercise), I will get those who can do the work better or I will come and do it myself," he said.

And shortly after Gen. Museveni promised a military shake-up, the commanding officer for 503 Brigade, Lt. Col. Emmanuel Kanyeisigye was sent on a course abroad and replaced with Lt. Col. Julius Biryebarema. More than 27, 523 illegal guns have reportedly been collected and 450 suspects prosecuted. The army estimates about 1, 000 small arms remaining in wrong hands.