Uganda will never invite UN peacekeepers to fight in the country, says President Yoweri Museveni who added that it inviting the peacekeepers “would suggest a vote of no confidence” in Ugandans.
While speaking at the launch of an app for Global Peace Leadership Conference (GPLC) at State House Entebbe with the former Zanzibar President Abeid Karume, Museveni asked why regional leaders have failed to quell the civil war in DR Congo which has persisted since the late 1990s adding that the war is because of sectarianism and the collapse of the country’s state structure.
The Ugandan president expressed shock when he learnt of UN peacekeepers from Uruguay who were killed by rebels in the DR Congo.
The United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Monusco) is the largest and most expensive UN peacekeeping mission, with a total of 19,000 peacekeepers.
“You have a country [DR Congo] which does not have an army, which depends on UN. For me to invite the UN into Uganda would be a vote of no confidence in ourselves. Why can we not guarantee our own stability? We would never invite the UN to come and fight our wars. If there is no fighting to be done, we fight ourselves because we are here,” Mr. Museveni was quoted by the Daily Monitor.
“Those conflicts [in DR Congo] are centred on a number of problems. One of the problems is conflicts of identity, tribalism and religious sectarianism-like the conflict between Lendu and the Hema. There, you have a weak state structure,” he added.
The summit in Kampala, that is set to convene between August 1-3 at Speke Resort Munyoyo, will discuss, among other topics, the conflicts in DR Congo that have led to refugees fleeing into Uganda.
The website that was launched by Mr. Museveni and Mr. Karume listed moral uprightness, education, unity in diversity and business as some of the prerequisites of peace. Mr. Museveni said corruption affects sustainable peace, the newspaper reports.
“You need moral uprightness because corrupt people cannot create peace for long,” he said.
