Karimojong rustlers killing us - Muhoozi

Kampala

The blame game for criminal acts committed during ongoing Karimojong disarmament took a new twist last evening with the elite Special Forces accusing warriors of deliberately killing soldiers.

In a statement last evening, Capt. Edson Kwesiga, the Special Forces Group spokesman, said; “The Special Forces Group has not killed innocent Pokot in Karamoja region.”

Accusations
Capt. Kwesiga was responding on behalf of First Son Lt. Col. Muhoozi Kainerugaba to our email enquiries and said Pokot MP Francis Kiyonga who alerted the nation last week to civilian deaths allegedly at the hands of the special army unit is a “desperate” man.

“It’s on record that Special Forces Group has lost its combatants and others are still wounded as a result of the engagements we have had with the rustlers and raiders,” Capt. Kwesiga said, without giving specifics. “Mr Kiyonga’s claims that SFG has killed 12 innocent Pokot is baseless and false.”

Gen. Katumba Wamala, the commander of the Land Forces, on August 3 told MPs that between June 2009 and June 2010 Karimojong warriors killed 55 soldiers and injured 86. He, however, did not say if these were regular troops or from the SFG.

The Pokot legislator, during a press conference on Friday accused the army of terrorising civilians in Karamoja and named Lt. Col. Muhoozi, President Museveni’s son and commander of the elite crack unit, among perpetrators.
“Our people think he (President Museveni) has failed to punish the (culprits) because most of the commanders are his relatives,” he said.

“This includes his son Lt. Col. Muhoozi, who has been commanding the elite force on Mount Moroto, and whose unit is responsible for the killing of the 12 innocent Pokot people between April and June 2010.”

Last night, Mr Kiyonga said he stands by his comments irrespective of the consequences because “I am speaking the truth”.

“I expect two things to happen; either they (military leadership) will come up and seek the truth so that I can guide them to the victims to resolve this matter or they will arrest me on trumped up charges.”

Other leaders from the region, among them two district chairpersons and a couple of legislators, said some individual commanders and soldiers have committed crimes while conducting the disarmament operations but the offences should not be generalised or institutionalised.

Human rights abuses
“The disarmament is going on well except some soldiers who have bad behaviour of torturing the innocent people,” said Ms Christine Nachap, the vice chairperson of Amudat District. She said the military recently detained an unspecified number of young boys at Komoret detach and scalded them using hot blades.

According to MP Samuel Pirir (Matheniko; NRM), the soldiers during cordon-and-search operations, sometimes “misbehave and there are some Karimojong who run away with their [illegal] guns, causing the army to react in a certain way.”

“The guidelines on the disarmament exercise don’t go deep enough and need to be revisited to bring the army and the Karimong people together,” he said.