Kony’s guard buried in Central African Republic

Ugandan soldiers have buried Vicente Binani, the former senior bodyguard of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader, Joseph Kony, in the Central African Republic.

Binani and three other LRA fighters were buried last month after they were killed in an ambush by Ugandan soldiers. The commander of the Ugandan contingent hunting LRA, Col. Michael Kabango, told journalists at the UPDF headquarters in Nzara, South Sudan that “Brig” Binani was given “a decent” burial.

“He was buried but maybe in future if need be, the body can be taken back home,” he said. Sources say his body was identified by one of the LRA fighters captured when they were ambushed by Ugandan soldiers, 280kms north of Djema in eastern Central African Republic (CAR).

During the same press briefing, Col. Kabango displayed six elephant tusks discovered 40kms, north of Djema last week by the Ugandan army after a tip-off by an LRA defector.

Abductions
Col. Kabango said the tusks would be taken to the United Nations for DNA tests to find out the location where the animals were killed.

Most of the LRA attacks and abductions, according to Col. Kabanga, are taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the UPDF is not allowed to operate.

“For the last one year, LRA has carried out 275 attacks and of those, 225 took place in DRC and 50 in CAR. There was none in South Sudan,” he said. The DRC government ordered the Ugandan army out of its territory, saying the deadline for the Ugandan operations against LRA on its territory had ended.

Kinshasa promised to deploy a battalion in Orientale Province to fight LRA, but the troops were instead deployed in Kivu to fight M23 rebels who Kinshasa considers a bigger threat.

rkasasira@ug.nationmdia.com