Army looted Sudan timber, says report
A NEW report by the Small Arms Survey accuses UPDF soldiers of illegally logging trees from South Sudan's highly lucrative teak forests. The report accuses "business-minded" UPDF officers of illegally clearing teak timber and ferrying truckloads to Uganda. "Locals regularly reported that the UPDF cut down teak trees [in order] to take them into Uganda," the report said.
The Small Arms Survey is an independent research project located at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. It serves as the principal source of public information on all aspects of small arms, and as a resource centre for governments, policy-makers, researchers, and activists.
Established in 1999, the project is supported by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, and by contributions from the governments of Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the UK.
An eyewitness quoted in the report said: "The UPDF are business-minded soldiers, they are logging timber in the Acholi area. Who gives them permission?" "Even during the withdrawal of the UPDF from the areas around Owiny-Kibul (near the Uganda/Sudan border) under the terms of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoH), locals reported that the UPDF cut down around 200 trees just outside Palataka, and carried them across the border, before it could be reported to the authorities," the report added. Teak trees are highly valued for their timber.
They are tall evergreen trees (Tectona grandis) of south-east Asia, with hard, heavy, and yellowish-brown durable wood used especially for outdoor furniture and in shipbuilding.
The wood is resistant to insects, warping and water. UPDF soldiers, under Operation Iron Fist, deployed in [the] areas of Magwe, Palotaka, and Tibita, in South Sudan, in March 2003 [in order] to flush out the LRA after Kampala and Khartoum signed a protocol.
These accusations are said to have first come up during the Juba peace talks last year, when local leaders from areas bordering Uganda accused UPDF soldiers of illegal logging, torture, and rape. Col. Charles Otema was the intelligence coordinator for OIF for three years. He confirmed that allegations of timber looting have been a subject of investigation.
"Those allegations came up [sometime], and we were concerned, so we launched an internal investigation, but we could not discover any irregular practices such as looting timber," he told Daily Monitor in a telephone interview from Kimaka, Jinja, yesterday [Sunday].
The Defense and Army Spokesman, Maj. Felix Kulayigye, described the claims contained in the report as a smear campaign.
"The SPLA has never made such false allegations against our forces. This is a continuation of a smear campaign against our forces," he said. The UPDF has in the past been accused of looting natural resources in the DR Congo, where their soldiers operated between 1998 and 2003. The International Court of Justice found Uganda guilty of looting Congo's timber, gold, diamonds, and coltan.
The court said [that] DRC's demand for $10 compensation from Kampala is justified. Southern Sudan, which until May 2005, suffered two decades of war, is still recovering with a sparsely populated countryside.
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