Pressure from the international community is mounting on Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila to have Ugandan troops out of Congolese territory but Uganda will ignore this and push for more time, Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa said yesterday.

High powered delegations of the two governments are meeting at Kasindi, near the Uganda-Congo border this week to map out a way forward, which will determine whether Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) leave the north eastern part of the vast Central African country. The delegations are at military, senior officials and political levels.

The Foreign Affairs Minister was yesterday scheduled to fly to Kasindi is a few miles into the Congo after the Mpondwe border point in Kasese District, where would meet his Congolese counterpart later this week. Mr. Kutesa emphasized that Kampala will push for its forces to remain in Congo.

“Of course we will seek more time,” Mr. Kutesa told journalists in Kampala. “We want more time so that we can properly end this mission.” “There are no more killings now. Kony (LRA leader) was killing before we moved in.”

He added that the presence of the Uganda forces on Congolese territory has created stability.

The UPDF entered Congo in a joint operation with Congolese and Southern Sudan forces on December 14 last year to flush out the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that were camped in the jungles of Garamba National Park. The rebels had also abducted hundreds of Congolese and displaced hundreds of thousands.

The operation, codenamed ‘Operation Lightening Thunder’ started in the night, with aerial raids on several LRA bases, including the main Swahili Camp in which Joseph Kony was suspected to live. Special Forces under the command of Lt. Col Muhoozi Kainerugaba moved in once the camps had been razed.

The operation was to last a few weeks, but has already been pushed beyond its deadline twice, after the combined forces failed to capture LRA boss Kony as proof of relevance of their prolonged stay in Congo. The postponements have brought concerns within the international donor community, the United Nations and the African Union, who now view Uganda’s continued occupation of its neighbour’s territory as a repeat of the 1998 invasion of that country.

In the late 1990s, UPDF went into Congo, in what the government sold the public and international community as “hot pursuit” of the ADF, a rebel outfit terrorist Ugandan that often made incursions onto Ugandan territory. The Ugandan army would stay longer, even after the AFD had been disbanded, eventually pulling out of Congo in 2003.

During that period, Uganda recorded a number of misadventures in that country including costly battles that ended in clashes with forces of former allies Rwanda, which left scores dead on the Ugandan side. The UPDF also helped themselves to a couple of Congolese women, but the biggest bungle was to loot the country’s natural resources—mainly minerals and timber—for which Uganda was dragged before the International Court of Justice and found guilty. The ICJ slapped on Kampala a $10 billion reparation fine, which to this day has never been paid.

Various reports of Uganda’s role at the time squared on key figures in the Ugandan army as having led the groups that plundered the DRC, a country that is vastly endowed in mineral wealth. The Uganda government, not surprisingly, shelved the reports.

It is on this background that the international community and the Ugandan public begin asking questions again as Defence looks to prolong Operation Lightening Thunder.

Asked whether General Laurent Nkunda was on the agenda for this week’s meeting, Mr. Kutesa ruled out discussion over the renegade Congolese general who was captured by Rwanda army early this year.

Ends