By Raymond Baguma

THE African Union (AU) has begun paying the outstanding allowances of the UPDF troops currently on a peacekeeping mission in Somalia. The troops had remained unpaid since May last year.

Donors had halted payments of the peacekeepers, which are channelled through the AU bank accounts in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Speaking to journalists on Thursday at the defence ministry headquarters in Kampala, defence minister Crispus Kiyonga said: “More than six months ago, the African Union secretariat got problems and payments could not continue. But about a month ago, the flow of payments began. The arrears are being paid and all the soldiers will be cleared.”
He added that the arrears of compensation to the injured and the dead soldiers would also be paid.

A peacekeeper is entitled to a monthly allowance of $750 (about sh1.4m). In the event of death, the soldier’s family receives $50,000 (about sh90m) as compensation.
Since 2007, Uganda has contributed troops to Somalia under the AU peacekeeping mission, AMISOM, to support the transitional federal government, led by president Sheikh Shariff Ahmed. Burundi is the other country contributing troops.

A total of 37 Ugandan peacekeepers have been killed since 2007.
There are six battalions of over 5,200 Ugandan and Burundian troops under AMISOM in Somalia, below the expected 8,000 peacekeepers.

During the press conference, the Chief of Defence Forces, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, said unless other African countries fulfilled their pledges to contribute peacekeepers, the situation in Somalia would remain unstable.

“We continue waiting for friends of Somalia to come,” Nyakairima said, adding that Uganda was considering deploying more forces to the war-torn country.

Commenting on the LRA, Gen. Nyakairima said the rebel group’s leader, Joseph Kony, has only about 250 guns in his possession.

He disclosed that Kony is held up in an area, 2,000 km away from Uganda in a difficult terrain between Central African Republic, south Darfur and the western Bahr el Ghazal regions of Sudan.
“It is almost a month with no reported LRA activities in the Central African Republic and Southern Sudan,” Nyakairima said.

He also said the remnants of the Allied Democratic Forces rebels remain active in neighbouring Congo, but talks about the possibility of a joint military operation on the rebel positions were underway.

Commenting on the Karamoja region, Nyakairima said the area had been made pacified, although small arms keep finding their way into the area from neighbouring countries. He added that the army would also support the Police to quell violence.