AFRICOM official defends U.S. role in Ugandan mission

AFRICOM official defends U.S. role in Ugandan mission
By John Vandiver, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Saturday, February 14, 2009

STUTTGART, Germany — Though a U.S. military-backed offensive against a band of Ugandan rebels has fallen under criticism for being poorly executed and leading to several hundred civilian deaths, blame for the slaughter should be directed at the rebel group that butchered as they fled Ugandan defense forces, according to a senior U.S. Africa Command leader.

Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates, a longtime diplomat and AFRICOM deputy who reports directly to commander Gen. William E. "Kip" Ward, said the mid-December attack on the Lord’s Resistance Army also has diminished the rebel group’s ability to abduct children who are forced to serve as fighters.

"I don’t think (the offensive) caused the atrocities or casualties. I think the atrocities and casualties of the LRA constituted the military action that the (Ugandan army) decided on their own that they wanted to take," said Yates, who serves as AFRICOM’s deputy to the commander for civil-military activities.

Seventeen advisers from AFRICOM worked with Ugandan officers on the mission, providing satellite phones, intelligence and fuel, the New York Times reported in a Feb. 7 article that first brought the massacre to light.

Some humanitarian agencies, however, have questioned the tactics used by the Ugandan troops. Critics have argued that not enough was done to protect civilians from the LRA rebels, who hacked, bludgeoned and bayoneted their way through nearby villages as they fled the joint military operation involving troops from Congo, Uganda and Sudan.


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