KAMPALA: Ugandan has dismissed a Rwandan news website for claiming that the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) is stealing timber from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Uganda deployed its army, the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF), in DRC on November 30 following bomb attacks in Kampala Uganda by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a terrorist group linked to the Islamic State but with bases in the DRC.
The Ugandan military launched air and artillery raids against the ADF armed group in eastern DRC in an operation code named “Operation Shujaa” agreed on with Congolese forces.
But in a bid to downplay their efforts, the Rwandan news website published a story earlier on today to claim that less than week after Ugandan troops hauled into the DRC to attack ADF terrorists, pictures have emerged showing log loaders and wide trucks shipping gigantic tree logs to an unidentified station near the Ugandan border.
“The claim was meant to imply that the UPDF has joined the logging business and has forgotten its mission. All this is rubbish and should be treated with all the contempt it deserves,” said Col Ronald Kakurungu, the deputy army spokesman.
The publication went on to claim that Uganda had days earlier signed a road construction deal with the DRC and the logs being ferried out of the country were harvested under the guise of road construction.
However, it has emerged that despite the false claim, the picture used was also false, having been obtained from a prominent business news website www.afric.businessinsider.com which published a story titled: ‘DR Congo announces plan to ban timber exports in desperate attempt to save rain forest’ on October 29, a month before the UPDF deployed in DRC.
The story in question can be accessed here: https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/dr-congo-announces-plan-to-ban-timber-exports-in-desperate-attempt-to-save-rain/16r91wz
For his part, Col. Kakurungu dismissed the Rwandan publication as alarmist and aimed at fermenting hatred of the Congolese people towards the UPDF. He said the Ugandan army is busy pacifying North Kivu and was determined to eliminate the ADF problem once and for all.
Patrick Muyaya, the DRC’s government spokesman and communications minister said a week ago that “targeted and concerted action with the Ugandan army started well with air strikes and artillery fire from Uganda against positions of the terrorist ADF in the DRC.”
Ugandan authorities blamed the ADF for the deadly November 16 suicide bombings in the capital, Kampala, and relatedly, the armed group has been accused by different entities, including the UN, of carrying out dozens of attacks in the eastern DRC.
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