According to an article by BBC reporter Catherine Byaruhanga, Uganda has about 2,500 soldiers stationed in the Central African Republic (CAR). The mission, which began in 2009, aims to hunt down Joseph Kony and members of his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
The rebel group has been accused of allegedly committing massacres, abductions, rape and acts of looting. Kony and his men started in Uganda but went on to wage war across the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and the CAR.
But now the Ugandan army is being accused of committing sexual crimes similar to those carried out by the group it’s meant to be fighting.
Many young girls have come out to give their experiences after being raped by soldiers within Uganda troops.
A statement from on of the girls called Eloise indicates that when she was 12 a Ugandan soldier, deployed to protect her town, attacked her.
“My mother sent me to the market to buy something,” she says. “On the way, a Ugandan soldier grabbed me. He dragged me to a nearby lodge [hotel] and raped me.” She narrated.
At a secret location, another girl Marie was interviewed. She is 14 years old and far more confident than Eloise.
She makes a similar allegation.
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“I was going to the field to work and on my way, I was grabbed by a Ugandan. He was violent, he attacked me and he raped me. When I think about this, it hurts me. I didn’t expect it at all.
“If I had a knife or machete I would have tried to attack him.”
Most of the soldiers from the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), are stationed in Obo, in the far south-west of the CAR.
Obo mayor Barthelemy Maickos says: “I’m thankful for the Ugandans being in our locality. If they were not here, Joseph Kony’s men would be.”
But, with all the allegations of wrongdoing, he wishes his own government would take up the responsibility of protecting its people.
But some of these UN soldiers, as well as those from former colonial power France, have been accused of sexually abusing boys, girls and women.
In an effort to be more open about these crimes, the UN has investigated allegations against Ugandan soldiers in and around Obo.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, last July said his office had interviewed 18 women who said they had faced sexual violence and harassment by Ugandan soldiers. Fourteen cases of alleged rape, including cases involving victims who were minors at the time, were also reported, all in and around Obo.
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Several women and girls reported they had been taken from their villages by Ugandans and forced to become prostitutes or sex slaves, or to marry Ugandan soldiers, the statement said.
Mr Al Hussein called on Uganda to investigate the alleged crimes itself and ensure that, where evidence was sufficient, alleged perpetrators were brought to justice.
But the man charged with carrying out public prosecutions in Obo, Max Tina, said he gets little co-operation from Uganda.
“We knew one case where a dog was used to rape a minor,” he says. “When we started investigating, the Ugandan authorities decided to clean their tracks and repatriate those who committed this crime back to Uganda.”
The said allegations were taken to Brig-Gen Richard Karemire, the Ugandan military spokesman, who says an investigation was carried out in Obo but no evidence was found.
“A team went on the ground and did a very good investigation and they never found anything really to implicate any UPDF individual for having perpetrated such crimes,” he says.
Via BBC
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