Hunting down Kony harder than fighting him in CAR The rebel leader, Jospeh Kony and his men, who have been fighting President Museveni’s government since 1987, has remained dodgy, even with the intervention of the US with modern technology to capture him. Sunday Monitor’s Risdel Kasasira was in Central African Republic recently and brings you what the UPDF go through in the hunt for the rebels and why Kony still remains elusive. Many people wonder why Joseph Kony, the leader of Lord’s Resistance Army rebels, has not been captured or killed even with deployment of American sophisticated technical intelligence to hunt him down. He has been fighting Uganda Peoples Defence Forces since 1987 and the hunt has gone as far as 2000kms outside Uganda. Four armies; UPDF, SPLA of South Sudan, FARC from Central African Republic, and the Congolese FARDC under African Union authorised Regional TaskForce (RTF) are all hunting this warlord in the thick and vast jungles of Central African Republic (CAR) and he still remains elusive. The question of when, where and how can Kony can be captured is hard to answer even by those actively involved in the hunt. “I cannot tell you when because fighting is not like a wedding where you set a date to know the time of church, printing cards and others. But all our efforts are focusing on capturing or killing him,” says Brig Sam Kavuma, the RTF Commander. In fact, foot soldiers feel happy when they meet and fight the enemy because exchange of fire brings life into this wild goose chase. “The problem is not fighting him but where and how to find him,” says Pte James Musiime under 88 UPDF fighting squad in Kawusa in east CAR. Life like LRA’s Unkempt, ragged but burly, Pte Musiime says they now behave and live like LRA for them to keep up with the seemingly un-ending LRA hunt. Like LRA, they don’t shave, it rains on them, walk long distances and cross crocodile-infested rivers and swamps using ropes. Some of his colleagues have either been killed or injured by these reptiles. Each soldier carries their food, bullets, 10 littre - jerrycan to fetch water, saucepan, a pouch of bullets, beddings and of course, a loaded gun. Life is inherently unhealthy, with various small insects and scorpions that inflict stings which are painful but not fatal. These fighting squads are flown hundreds of kilometres on Mi-17 helicopters and dropped in the middleof these jungles where they spend months hunting the enemy. The planes only come back to drop supplies and go back. Without roads, the area is inaccessible to vehicles and so makes supply and transport difficult, which in turn leaves them with the only option of air transport. The American government pays for jet fuel and the planes. The jungles are vast and span 1,300km from UPDF’s rear base in Nzara, South Sudan to Mbii in the east CAR. An aerial view of these jungles may give an impression of short shrubs but these are large and tall trees whose branches have spread and locked together to form canopies. Underneath these forests, there are thorny and climbing plants that make walking a horrendous experience. Soldiers have to use machetes to cut this meandering and thorny vegetation to create path. In August last year, a soldier got lost as he went to fetch water from a nearby river. He walked 170kms for a month to reach a UPDF base in Zemio, about 500km, east of Obo, the tactical headquarter. “He spent a month lost without food and he was eating leaves and plants. By the time he luckily found one of our bases, he was so, so tired and hungry. He was almost dropping dead. Interestingly, he was still carrying his gun,” says one of the soldiers.
Posted on: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 09:24:05 +0000
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