NRM elder raps Besigye over Teso mass graves
Jan 23, 2006
The chairman NRM elders’ league, Hajji Umar Okodel, has advised FDC presidential candidate Kizza Besigye (left) to stop using graveyards of rebel victims in Teso to orchestrate his search for votes, reports <b>Nathan Etengu.</b>
The chairman NRM elders’ league, Hajji Umar Okodel, has advised FDC presidential candidate Kizza Besigye (left) to stop using graveyards of rebel victims in Teso to orchestrate his search for votes, reports Nathan Etengu.
Okodel, the former Kumi district LC5 chairman, said Besigye’s visit on Thursday to a mass grave of the LRA victims in Obalanga was a mockery.
“Kizza Besigye did not at any one time send a message of condolence to the families of the people who died during the LRA incursions into Teso.
“He only pre-occupied himself with complaints about the alleged arrest and torture of his supporters. Nothing had come to his mind that the LRA which he himself failed to defeat while still a senior army officer and chief of logistics, had committed atrocities in the region,†Okodel said on phone.
Besigye, while on the campaign trail in Teso region, visited the mass grave and paid his condolences.
He blamed the NRM government for failure to protect the civilians against attacks by the LRA rebels. He claimed that some of the people buried at the mass grave were victims of atrocities by UPDF soldiers.
Okodel said Besigye was national political commissar, chief of logistics in the army and at one time commandant of the mechanised regiment that could have stopped Kony’s LRA rebels from spreading into Teso.
Ends
Okodel, the former Kumi district LC5 chairman, said Besigye’s visit on Thursday to a mass grave of the LRA victims in Obalanga was a mockery.
“Kizza Besigye did not at any one time send a message of condolence to the families of the people who died during the LRA incursions into Teso.
“He only pre-occupied himself with complaints about the alleged arrest and torture of his supporters. Nothing had come to his mind that the LRA which he himself failed to defeat while still a senior army officer and chief of logistics, had committed atrocities in the region,†Okodel said on phone.
Besigye, while on the campaign trail in Teso region, visited the mass grave and paid his condolences.
He blamed the NRM government for failure to protect the civilians against attacks by the LRA rebels. He claimed that some of the people buried at the mass grave were victims of atrocities by UPDF soldiers.
Okodel said Besigye was national political commissar, chief of logistics in the army and at one time commandant of the mechanised regiment that could have stopped Kony’s LRA rebels from spreading into Teso.
Ends