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KAMPALA - Senior officers in the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) on Thursday (April 4) briefed the United Nations (UN) Military Staff Committee about their ongoing war against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in eastern DR Congo.

This was during a meeting they held with the visiting committee team at the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs headquarters in Mbuya, a Kampala suburb, according to a statement released by the UPDF on Friday.

The UN Military Staff Committee is the longest-standing subsidiary body of the UN Security Council and its role is “to advise and assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Security Council’s military requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security, the employment and command of forces placed at its disposal, the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament.”

Senior officers in the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) on Thursday (April 4) briefed the United Nations (UN) Military Staff Committee about their ongoing war against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in eastern DR Congo. (UPDF Photos)

The press statement said the meeting aimed at updating the committee team on the progress and situation of the UPDF and DR Congo military joint operation dubbed Operation Shujaa, which is aimed at eradicating ADF and the Islamic State Central Africa Province.

The operation was launched in November 2021, about a fortnight after the Islamic State, a radical Sunni military group affiliated with ADF, claimed responsibility for the twin bombings in central Kampala, which left seven people dead and over 36 injured.

Maj Gen Dick Olum, the commander of Mountain Division, the UPDF force fighting ADF in eastern DR Congo, told the team the circumstances that birthed Operation Shujaa between Uganda and DR Congo to fight a common enemy, the ADF.

He also briefed them on the achievements so far made, the challenges the joint force faces, and strategies to decisively degrade the ADF and pacify the inter-country border and the entire Great Lakes Region.

Maj Gen Silver Moses Kayemba, Uganda’s permanent representative to the UN, deputy chief of personnel and administration Brig Gen GK Kigozi, Mountain Division Intelligence Officer Lt Col George Amandi, Mountain Division Public Information Officer Maj Bilal Katamba, and Lt Emmanuel Ojok, the UPDF Liaison Officer to the UN, attended the meeting.

“The aim of this meeting is to acquaint you with the situation of the war against ADF, inform you of the progress so far made, the enemy situation and to discuss the challenges we still face as a joint force,” Olum was quoted as saying in the statement.
He explained the achievements, which include “successfully redeeming the population from slavery under the ADF spell, which ADF uses to force the civilian population to grow crops that they (ADF) would later harvest for their own survival and attack civilian settlements for food and medicine.”

Olum also said their operation has succeeded in stopping the insurgents from making hit-and-run attacks, improvised explosive device emplacement, infiltration from the area, laying ambushes, attacking civilians, and attacking motorists along public roads.

He also explained that the enemy situation was that the ADF was still carrying out deliberate activities to divert the UPDF from pursuing the small groups they had clustered themselves into, ease the pressure from the joint operation, gain publicity as till formidable force, causing panic among civilians who are beginning to resettle in the villages they had previously run away from and discredit the efforts of the joint force.

He quoted the example of the ADF attack on Mpondwe Lubiriha school on June 16, 2023, where 44 people were killed, 38 of them students and six civilians. Eight students were injured, and four others were abducted and later killed in the jungle, the statement said.

Olum also said their operation has succeeded in stopping the insurgents from making hit-and-run attacks, improvised explosive device emplacement, infiltration from the area, laying ambushes, attacking civilians, and attacking motorists along public roads.

“The joint force has rescued, rehabilitated, and reintegrated a number of minor soldiers with their families and increased socio-economic activity owing to the peace and stability ushered in by the military operation. There has also been recorded an increase in the cross-border trade between the DRC and Uganda owing to the good roads and security. ADF has lost substantive weaponry, and a good number of the insurgents have been put out of action. Thousands of ammunitions have been recovered, which has degraded their ability to fight,” Olum stated.

Some of the challenges highlighted included bad weather, which majorly impedes air operations, collaborators facilitating ADF activities in eastern DR Congo, a poor road network impairing swift movement, heavy rain that destroys and wipes away roads and social media propaganda alleging that the UPDF entered DR Congo to both fight the ADF and support the M23 rebel group fighting against the DR Congo government.

UPDF commits

Olum expressed UPDFs’ commitment to continue with the strategic military operation, reactivate operations in former ADF bases to stop the enemy from reverting to their former bases, intensify intelligence operations and decisively deal with the enemy in Sector Four, where remnant groups still regroup and reorganise.

“The ADF is an international issue that stretches beyond the shared border between Uganda and the DRC. The entire Great Lakes Region ought to get interested in the annihilation of the Islamic extremist insurgent outfit before it spreads to all the other countries in the region,” he said.

The head of the UN Military Staff Committee, Col Carl Harris, expressed his gratitude for the immense update UPDF had given his committee en route to Eastern Congo. He explained that now the committee had a clear picture of the situation in Operation Shujaa.

He further expounded that members of his committee came to Entebbe on their way to DR Congo to visit the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO) and understand better the challenges it is facing in its current environment.

“We have got a much better understanding of what Uganda and DRC forces are doing in eastern DRC, the current operations they are undertaking and the fierce conditions in which they are fighting; the contribution they are making to establish more excellent stability and security in eastern DRC,” he noted.

Harris also said there is no formal coordination between MONUSCO, a UN peacekeeping force in DR Congo, and Uganda in this area because Uganda only deployed bilaterally with the DR Congo.

It's quite clear that they all have some common aims and will benefit from coordination and de-confliction to make sure they avoid casualties on both sides and fight towards the same aim which is a more secure and stable DR Congo, he said.

Maj Gen Silver Moses Kayemba, Uganda’s permanent representative to the UN, deputy chief of personnel and administration Brig Gen GK Kigozi, Mountain Division Intelligence Officer Lt Col George Amandi, Mountain Division Public Information Officer Maj Bilal Katamba, and Lt Emmanuel Ojok, the UPDF Liaison Officer to the UN, attended the meeting.

The UN committee team included Military Advisors from the respective home missions of the United Kingdom, United States, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, Nigeria, Algeria, Mozambique, Angola, the African Union, and Ghana, among others.