SMART: UPDF soldiers march past the pavilion at Kololo

By Alfred Wasike

PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni is soon to issue international arrest warrants for the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, other terrorists and their collaborators who are distabilising Uganda from abroad.
The large crowd listened attentively as the tough-talking Museveni revealed that the LRA that has fought his Government since 1987, would be wiped out of northern Uganda and southern Sudan by the end of the next dry season. The dry spell ends in February 2003.
Museveni issued the warnings during the 40th Independence anniversary at Kololo ceremonial grounds where the British Union Jack was lowered during the night of October 9, 1962 and the Uganda flag was hoisted to end 70 years of British rule in the then British Protectorate.
“The terrorists and their collaborators have been inviting me to the north and they will soon get what they deserve. There will not be any mercy for those killers. I am about to issue international warrants of arrest for those terrorists and their collaborators,” said Museveni who has camped in Gulu since March to head Operation Iron Fist against Kony.
Museveni and his guest, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, arrived at the airstrip in Museveni’s six-door sleek black Mercedes Benz. Mrs Janet Museveni rode with the two leaders. The presidential convoy was escorted by heavily-armed Presidential Protection Unit (PPU) who were dressed in new military fatigues with black bullet-proof crash helmets and vests. Each had a “PPU” golden acronym at the back.
The crowd looked in amazement as the smartly-dressed PPU guards jumped off the moving jeeps and took firing positions in a movie style. Some people in the crowd were heard saying, “Abaana ba Muzeeyi bazze nenkuba mpya (Museveni’s boys have come with a new style).
“There will be no mercy for those killers and their assistants. There are no games. They are going to be severely punished. We are dealing with them decisively. Unless they expeditiously accept the amnesty we extended to them long ago, they are finished,” he stressed as NRA war veterans and the audience shouted “No Change”.
“Completing modernisation of the army is a must. We had to retire 60,000 officers and men from 100,000 in 1991. We were under pressure from our donor partners but we had to modernise the army,” Museveni said
He also said the Government had “finally settled our differences with our donor partners on the need to increase our defence speeding.”