Helicopter To Flush Out Rebels In Teso

Aug 22, 2003

A SPECIAL helicopter unit will be deployed in the Teso region to flush out the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, President Yoweri Museveni said on Monday.

By Nathan Etengu
and Richard Otim


A SPECIAL helicopter unit will be deployed in the Teso region to flush out the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, President Yoweri Museveni said on Monday.
He said 245 auxiliary forces would be deployed in each sub-county to provide security while the UPDF pursued the enemy.
He said the LRA’s linkage with the government of Sudan was partly responsible for the delay in ending the rebellion.
“Now the Sudanese know that they can no longer play with Uganda, because they also lost much more than we lost,” Museveni said while meeting district leaders during a consultative meeting at Soroti Hotel.
He said the UPDF pursued the LRA rebels up to Kit Valley, about 20 miles from Juba. He added that two of Joseph Kony’s wives were recently killed when the rebel leader tried to sneak back to Sudan.
“Having failed to cross back to Sudan, Kony ordered his commanders to terrorise Teso to divert the attention of the UPDF to vacate our positions in Acholi region and southern Sudan,” Museveni said.
He, however, said not a single soldier had been pulled out of the northern positions to pursue the rebels in the Teso region.
He said the Acholi region lacked good leaders to emulate the efforts put in place by the people from Teso and Lango to end the insurgency.
Museveni said the rebels had forced the Government to shift from a peace budget to a war budget that required more funding.
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