The United Nations Panel of Experts on South Sudan says it has “irrefutable evidence” that Uganda is among the countries either directly supplying or using conduits to deliver weapons to troubled South Sudan.
Details of the report are emerging as the United States of America is pushing the UN Security Council to institute an arms embargo on South Sudan following warnings of a possible genocide in the world’s youngest nation.
In its report presented to the UN Security Council on October 28, the panel of experts says weapons originally purchased by Uganda’s ministry of Defence were part of the arsenal used to cause carnage during recent clashes in South Sudan.
One of the weapons from Uganda, which the panel experts identified among the arms it documented, is a Micro Galil rifle manufactured by Israel Weapons. The rifle bears serial number 36100549.
“This is the third weapon of its type identified by the panel, with two others (serial numbers 36100566 and 36100588) having been documented in the Upper Nile in 2015. Each of the weapons was, according to an interview with SPLM/ A in Opposition members, taken from South Sudan government stocks either through battlefield capture or by defectors,” says the report.
According to information provided to the panel by the manufacturer, the report adds, the three weapons are from a batch sold to Uganda’s ministry of Defence in 2007.
“There is no provision in the end user certificate for their transfer to South Sudan. That the panel has now identified three such weapons from this batch supports the conclusion that they are part of a larger group of weapons transferred from Uganda to South Sudan,” it adds.
ARMS TRANSFERS
The 39-page report further reveals that in September, the panel received information and documentation from ‘a confidential high-level South Sudanese source’ that in July 2014, Bulgarian Industrial Engineering and Management Jsc delivered a shipment of small arms ammunition and 4,000 assault rifles to Uganda’s ministry of Defence.
“According to the documentation, Bosasy Logistics, a company registered in Kampala and described in previous reports by the panel, including its report of January 2016 (S/2016/70), acted as an intermediary in the transaction.
The weapons and munitions were subsequently transferred to South Sudan,” claims the report, adding that the panel is carrying out further inquiries into the transaction.
However, going by the results of the investigations that the panel has concluded so far, it says “recent arms transfers from Uganda to South Sudan, as described, are likely to be using the same modality as the earlier transfers from 2014, with Bosasy Logistics and its chairman, Valerii Copeichin, facilitating the sales.”
UPDF, SPLA RESPOND
Efforts to speak to the minister of Defence Adolf Mwesige, his deputy Charles Engola Okello, and the Chief of Defense Forces Gen Katumba Wamala, were futile as they failed to respond to our calls.
However, UPDF and ministry of defence spokesman Lt Col Paddy Ankunda said he was not aware of such a report.
“Honestly speaking, I haven’t seen such a report; I’m hearing about it for the first time,” Ankunda said, before adding, “In any case, if the UN has any complaint about Uganda, it can serve such information to government and it [government] will respond accordingly through the ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The chairperson of parliament’s Defence and Internal Affairs committee, Judith Nabakooba, also said she had not seen the report.
“I haven’t received such a report and I don’t want to comment before I read it,” said Nabakooba, who is also Woman MP for Mityana district.
Similarly, the spokesman of Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), Brigadier Lul Ruai Koang, told The Observer by telephone yesterday that he had not seen, let alone read, the report.
“I have not seen that report you are talking about and, therefore, I wouldn’t be in position to respond appropriately. I need to read it and then get responses from higher military authorities, then I will be able to respond accordingly,” Ruai said.
South Sudan first descended into chaos in 2013 after a political contestation for the leadership of the ruling SPLM party turned violent. On December 15, 2013, violence broke out in Juba, the capital, resulting in the death of thousands of civilians.
With President Salva Kiir accusing his former vice president Riek Machar of fomenting a failed coup, the killings quickly spread beyond Juba to other parts of South Sudan, especially the Upper Nile region where Machar hails from.
The fighting went on until August 2015 when the regional country grouping IGAD brokered a deal that led to the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement.
However, the peace agreement crumbled just three months into its implementation after rival forces loyal to Kiir and Machar clashed in Juba, resulting in more killings and displacement of South Sudanese both within and without the country.
According to UNHCR figures, more than one million South Sudanese are living as refugees in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan, among other neighboring countries.
The renewed fighting forced Machar out of Juba. Shortly after, Kiir replaced him as first vice president with Gen Taban Deng Gai, the renegade leader’s former chief negotiator. Analysts say Kiir’s decision foreclosed a meaningful political and reconciliation process and could lead to further instability in the world’s youngest nation.
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