Uganda president: US troops not sent in to fight
Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni said Sunday that U.S. military "personnel" being sent to Uganda
to help fight the rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army will not participate in
actual fighting.
Museveni told a news conference it was wrong
to say that the U.S. was sending troops to fight the LRA and its brutal leader Joseph Kony.
"Better to call them U.S. personnel, not
troops," Museveni said.
The Americans will help gather intelligence, he said.
"When you call them troops you are saying
that they are coming to fight on our behalf," Museveni said. "We shall never
have troops coming to fight for us. I cannot accept foreign troops to come and
fight for me. We have the capacity to fight our wars."
President Barack Obama announced Friday he
is dispatching about 100 U.S. troops — mostly special operations forces — to
central Africa to advise in the fight against the LRA, a guerrilla group accused
of widespread atrocities across several countries. Some experts suggest that the
U.S. move is to reward Uganda for its contributions to the African Union force
in Somalia that fights the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militia.
Museveni said Sunday that the U.S. has been supporting its fight against Kony
already, including sharing satellite intelligence and assisting with
helicopters.
The LRA once fought Ugandan troops in the
country's north, but have been flushed out of the country. The LRA now operates
in South Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic.
The LRA poses no known security threat to the United States, and a report
from the anti-genocide group the Enough Project last year said that Kony no
longer has complete and direct command and control over each LRA unit. The LRA
is estimated to have between 200 and 400 fighters but still carries out deadly
attacks on isolated villages.
The group's tactics have been widely
condemned as vicious. The U.S. troops will be helping to fight a group that has
slaughtered thousands of civilians and routinely kidnaps children to be child
soldiers and sex slaves.
Kony is wanted by the International Criminal
Court for his group's attacks.
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