UPDF Won’t Take Part In Fighting M23 Rebels In DRC- Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba
By Uganda Online Media
First son Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba who also doubles as the Senior Presidential Advisor in charge of Special Operations has revealed that the Uganda People’s Defense Forces( UPDF) will only take part in protecting the locals of DRC and work closely with other regional forces to scale up security and ensuring the continuation of the road projects being undertaken in North Kivu.
“In the current EACRF (East African Community Regional Force in Eastern DRC) arrangement, UPDF will restrict itself to protecting the wanainchi of DRC and ensuring the continuation of the road projects,” Gen Muhoozi said in a tweet on Tuesday night.
“We shall work with our brothers in DRC and Rwanda to ensure security in this critical area. Long live a United East Africa!” he added.
Gen. Muhoozi recently defended the M23 rebels saying they are ‘our brothers’ and not terrorists as described by some leaders in the East African region.
”As for M23, I think it is very, very dangerous for anybody to fight those brothers of ours. They are NOT terrorists! They are fighting for the rights of Tutsi in DRC”, Gen. Muhoozi said in a Tweet in November last year.
Gen. Muhoozi’s comments follow suggestions as several people across the region thought that UPDF, which is already fighting ADF terrorists in DRC would take part in offensive operations against M23 rebels who have since advanced to DRC’s capital and other parts of the troubled country.
The M23 (“March 23 Movement”) rebel group has recently created panic and tensions especially when RDC allegedly accused her small neighbour Rwanda of supporting the rebels.
Rwanda has continuously denied these accusations but the United States, France, Belgium and UN experts confirm them.
The group has taken control in recent months of territories in the eastern DRC, a troubled region rich in mineral resources, aggravating tensions with Rwanda.
Talks between the DRC and Rwanda in Angola appeared to pave the way for a truce, but Kinshasa later accused the M23 of massacring civilians in the village of Kishishe. According to a U.N. investigation, 131 people were killed there on November 29 but Rwanda said this was a fabrication.
“The exaggerated +Kishishe massacre+, a fabrication by the DRC government which attributed it to the M23, spread rapidly without any investigation of the facts by any credible entity,” the Rwandan government said in a statement.
“Accusing Rwanda of supporting the Congolese armed group M23 is unfair and prevents addressing the real causes of the perpetuation of the conflict in eastern DRC, as well as its impact on the security of neighbouring states, including Rwanda,” it added.
Rwanda has repeatedly accused the DRC of colluding with the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), a Rwandan Hutu rebel movement, some of whom were involved in the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda.
A Tutsi-majority rebel group, the M23 first made a name for itself when it took the eastern DRC city of Goma in 2012, before being driven out and going dormant.
But it took up arms again at the end of 2021, accusing the DRC of not having kept its promise to integrate its fighters into the army.
