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news report
 Tuesday October 29, 2002 03:15 by Peasant
 “I showed them my gun register and other records but they were not interested. They said they got the allegations from my competitors. Can you imagine that!” he said. “NEITHER Gen. (Salim) Saleh nor Saracen nor me have been training and arming paramilitary armies among Congolese rebels with a view to destabilise that country. “That is a lot of bull.... It is real bull.... Nonsense. That is extremely irresponsible talk. We are not a gun-running company.” An angry Saracen Uganda managing director, Heckie Horn, fell short of using foul words to express his disgust for the United Nations panel report that Saleh, Horn and Saracen were training and arming paramilitary forces to facilitate commercial activities of top UPDF officers after the Ugandan army withdrew from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN panel led by Egyptian ambassador, Mahmoud Kassem, said Saleh and Horn consulted DRC President Joseph Kabila for consent on the covert operation. The other UN panelists are Jim Freedman (Canada), Mel Holt (USA), Bruno Schiernsky (Belgium) and Moustapha Tall (Senegal). Horn, a former South African Defence Forces soldier, appeared before the Justice Porter commission yesterday to defend Saracen against the UN panel allegations. Saleh dismissed the UN claims as rubbish on Capital Radio on Saturday. Uganda has also criticised the report for ignoring its legitimate security concerns in Congo. The report says, “This military group draws on dissidents from Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC, members of the Uganda-supported RCD-Congo including its leaders Professor Kin-kiey Mulumba and Kabanga Babadi, and others in the north-eastern DRC who have supported UPDF in the past.” “The Panel’s sources have indicated that Heckie Horn...is a key partner with Lt. General Saleh in supporting this paramilitary group and that Lt. General Saleh himself is a 25 per cent owner in Saracen. Saracen’s managing director also provides military training and arms to members of this group,” the report adds. Horn told Porter, Justice Joseph Berko, retired UN official John Rwambuya and Vincent Wagona that Holt and Freedman interviewed him on September 17, in his Kampala office. “I showed them my gun register and other records but they were not interested. They said they got the allegations from my competitors. Can you imagine that!” he said. Horn said the nearest Saracen has been to Congo is in the Semlik valley where it is providing security for the on-going Uganda/Heritage Oil & Gas drilling. He said the South African-based Saracen International, with links in Angola, owns 75% shares in Saracen Uganda Ltd., while Special services in which Saleh is a shareholder, owns 25%. |
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Jump To Comment: 1Fact 1-this thug is the brother of the Ugandan Military Dictator Yoweri Museveni.
Reserve Force Commander Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh is training a force to replace the UPDF in Congo, the UN report has said.
The report, detailing illegal exploitation of Congo’s natural resources, says Saleh’s new paramilitary unit aims to confront RCD-Goma and its Rwandan allies. The report was compiled by an independent UN panel of experts and released on Monday.
“A paramilitary force is being trained under the personal authority of Lt. Gen. Saleh which, according to the Panel’s sources, is expected to continue to facilitate the commercial activities of officers after UPDF have departed,” reads the report in part.
The report says that Saleh’s force recruits dissidents from Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC and members of the Uganda-supported RCD-Congo.
“It has been reported that Saleh discreetly provides financial support for this new rebel group,” the report reads.
It recommended travel bans and financial restrictions against Saleh, Army Commander Maj. Gen. James Kazini, Chief of Military Intelligence Col. Noble Mayombo and Col. Kahinda Otafiire, the minister of state for Regional Co-operation.
Efforts to get comments from Saleh and Kazini were futile.
But Mayombo was quick to dismiss the UN report hours after it became public on Monday.
He said there was no difference from the first one, which was rejected by the Uganda government.
“I would have expected the second report to make public their so called evidence,” Mayombo said.
He said he doesn’t know what he did wrong.
“Let them tell me that on this day you stole this and on that day you stole that,” Mayombo said, adding, “I demand justice from this so-called UN.”
Citing documentary sources, the report says that members of the ‘Ugandan network’ are usually exempted from taxes. Otafiire allegedly got numerous tax exemptions between late 2001 and early 2002.
“Not only did Col. Otafiire benefit financially but, eventually, those exonerations forced local competitors out of markets in Bunia and Beni, leaving the petrol trade largely under the control of the network,” the report reads.
But Otafiire was was in defiant mood when he appeared on ‘Andrew Mwenda Live’ on 93.3 Monitor FM last evening.
“I challenge our accusers, if they are not a bunch of disgraceful people, to produce just one person who is in my network,” Otafiire said.
He denied being involved in any petrol trade in Congo, but confessed to having written to the rebel leaders recommending some Ugandan traders for protection.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council will discuss the panel’s report tomorrow. Anne Siddall, spokesperson to the UN Secretary General in charge of the press, said journalists would be fully briefed about the council’s deliberations on Friday.