President Yoweri Museveni has called on regional leaders engaged in the fight against the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency in the Central African Republic to commit themselves and allow military commands to jointly work out a plan to flush out remnants of the LRA and put an end to the suffering of the civilian population.
“It is true the capacity of the LRA has been reduced. In the past they would ambush our troops and try to fight, they no longer do that. Are they attacking troops in camp? No. Are they attacking troops on the move? No. The LRA no longer has that capacity. What they do is attack soft targets.
That is not a strength; it is a weakness but it embarrasses governments because then they are not protecting their people enough. This is dangerous because it still attacks civilian populations,” President Museveni said during a meeting of regional leaders held at the sidelines of the ongoing 28th Ordinary AU heads of State and government Summit at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The meeting was chaired by President Yoweri Museveni and included the President of the Central African Republic Faustin-Archange Touadéra, the President of the Republic of South Sudan Gen. Salva Kiir, Ministers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan and representatives from the United Nations, European Union, USA, African Union etc.
“They (LRA) have been downgraded. Our concept of counter insurgency is for mobile forces to go in to hunt the terrorists by foot and chopper etc. Once we receive credible intelligence information, we must move in day and night and hunt them down. After, we must have a zonal force which remains there. The force must be disciplined…not killing, looting, raping women or talking badly to the people. This will give confidence and security to the people,” Museveni said.