President Museveni commends the current President of DRC H.E Felix Tshisekedi for allowing UPDF to carry out operations against the ADF hiding in Eastern Congo.
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) has assured the Nation that Uganda’s security is un compromised.
Gen. Museveni made the remarks during his State of the Nation Address on security matters held at Nakasero State Lodge.
“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,” President Museveni said.
He explained that the Allied Democratic Forces who have been terrorizing people in western Uganda mainly in Kasese managed to manifest in their early years because the Congolese Government of former President H.E Kabila, supported by some regional and international actors, gave them free tenancy in North Kivu and Ituri province.
He has advised that the government of Uganda needs to fill some gaps in intelligence collection in order to totally end the aggressiveness of Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) terrorist group both in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
He says internationally Uganda is an island of peace because of having a strong Army,good intelligence service and political cohesion.
He says this is evidenced by the fact that there are no Ugandan refuges any where in the world and who ever is out of Uganda is doing so at their own .
The President also boasted that due to a strong army and reasonably strong intelligence, Uganda has managed to degrade the ADF from a military force to a mere band of terrorists only looking for soft targets (unarmed people) to kill.