KAMPALA, GANDA: The President of Uganda H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has revealed that the political balkanization of Africa is the real cause of unending insecurity on the continent.
Wikipedia defines Balkanization as the fragmentation of a larger region or state into smaller regions or states, which may be hostile or uncooperative with one another. It is usually caused by differences in ethnicity, culture, religion, and some other factors such as past grievances.
In his address to the nation on terrorism and security on Thursday evening, President Museveni said that elements like the Allied Democratic Forces would be history is Africa had one political authority.
“The ADF are a weak group that would be nowhere by now but they are hiding in the Democratic Republic of Congo where Uganda has no authority even when we see them”, Mr Museveni noted.
He further stated that when Congolese President Felix Tsesekedi granted Uganda permission to pursue the ADF in the Eastern part of DRC, most of their camps were destroyed but they moved farther to areas where Uganda has no permission.
He also noted that “When the ADF start killing school children and women then attack homes, it is a clear sign that they are now a very weak group because a serious group that needs to fight, attacks barracks, security stations or convoys.”
He noted that Uganda needs to strengthen itself intelligence gathering to completely wipe out the ADF.
“The problem of ADF has been military only for the period between 1996 and 2007 when they were totally defeated. After that, for a long time, in spite of being given free control of big portions of Eastern Congo, the ADF problem remained degraded to an intelligence and diplomatic problem. Intelligence problem, because those who are able to defeat them like UPDF, need to know where they are in Congo and what they are planning,” Mr Museveni said.
The president also commended the tremendous work done by the UPDF in the Eastern part of DRC.
“They also developed linkages with other terrorists like al-Qaeda. By the time “Operation Shujaa” started, ADF had about 2000 fighters. This was on the 30th of November, 2021. They had started to, again, pose a military problem to the Congo Army by attacking some detachments and even attacking the detachments of the UN, like when they attacked a Tanzanian detachment on 7th December 2017,” he said.
“All this was on account of the diplomatic problem of the Congo Government not allowing us to assist them with the ADF, when neither they nor the UN have the capacity.”
President Museveni, therefore, called upon the young generation to embrace the spirit of Pan-Africanism as a long-term solution to issues on the continent.
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