Henry Mukasa and Barbara Among
8 January 2009
Kampala — LRA rebel leader Joseph Kony is in Garamba jungles and has not escaped the allies' snare to sneak into the Central African Republic (CAR).
"Many people have been asking, 'where is Kony?' Soon, we shall get him. He is around here. Kony is still around Garamba," said Brig. Patrick Kankiriho, the commander of the joint military offensive against the LRA rebels.
Kankiriho was speaking on phone from Garamba, in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
He said notorious rebel commander Okot Odhiambo was sighted with a small group of rebels heading to CAR. "People saw a commander in red being carried on a stretcher. He was Odhiambo. He was probably injured because he was in the camp when we attacked," he stated.
Kankiriho reported that the captives said another commander, Bok Abudema, who was not in camp when the air strikes were launched, was shell-shocked when he found bodies littered at their base. "When he saw the bodies, he ran away."
The UPDF, Congolese army and SPLA of South Sudan launched a joint operation against the LRA rebels on December 14 after Kony refused to sign the final peace agreement agreed on in Juba, South Sudan for the fourth time. The offensive is code-named Operation Lightning Thunder.
Kankiriho said in the on-going cordon-and-search operations within the densely forested Garamba park, another 15 LRA fighters were killed, four captured and seven abductees rescued. "They have split in small groups. That is why we are capturing them."
He said over 100 guns and several high-tech communication gadgets have been recovered since the operation began.
Kankiriho said the UPDF on Saturday discovered six mass graves four kilometres south of Camp Swahili, which was the rebels' headquarters before the aerial attack. "We thought they had buried guns. When our soldiers dug up one of them, they found rotting bodies."
He said the UPDF was operating in hostile weather where visibility is good only at around noon.
Kankiriho added that the army had continued to destroy gardens of food that the rebels were relying on. He observed that absence of food had decapitated the rebels' ability to fight. Kankiriho added that the rebels killed Congolese civilians during Christmas in a desperate search for food.
The fleeing rebels have killed over 400 people in Oriantele province as they search for food. The UN Security Council and UN mission in Congo have condemned the rebels for the attacks on civilians.
Meanwhile, the LRA have been blamed for killing 38 people in southern Sudanese villages since Christmas. Western Equatoria state governor, Jemma Nunu Kumba, said thousands of civilians had fled the area fearing more raids. "They have caused unprecedented havoc, killing almost 40 people between December 24 and January 1," Kumba told Reuters. "We are now a target area. This is more than hunger. This is revenge."
Dozens of people were hacked to death with axes and machetes. Kumba said a pregnant woman had been disembowelled and a baby smashed against a tree.
SPLA soldiers rescued a man who was thrown into a fire by the rebels, Kumba said, adding that South Sudanese troops were doing all they could to stop the rebels from entering the country. "But they are breaking through because the border is vast."
Kony and his commanders, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen, are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Thousands of people have been killed and over 1.5 million displaced in northern Uganda in a war that has lasted over 20 years.
After an intensive operation against the rebels by the UPDF, the rebels fled to South Sudan and DRC, where they established camps.
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