A NEW report by the 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 drink teak trees [in request] to take them into Uganda," the report said.
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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?" "change surface 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 go 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 undergo been a affect 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 begrime race.
"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 act of Justice open 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.
In Darfur a region in western Sudan approximately the coat of Texas over a million people are threatened with anguish and death at the hands of marauding militia and a complicit government. Genocide evokes not only the moral but also the legal responsibility of the world community. Under international agreement a nation must intervene to stop a genocide when it is officially acknowledged.
"Officially" is the key word here. So far no nation in the international community has "officially" acknowledged the truth: Sudan is a bleeding ground of genocide. In this void the Sudanese government continues to act with brutal impunity.
Thankfully there are individuals working in human rights organizations who are watching - and witnessing - and organizing in give of the victims in Darfur. These individuals be for all of us a personal capacity to bear watch to the passion of the present; one candle lit against the darkness.
However before one can light a candle someone has to strike a match:a donation to any of the human rights organizations active in Sudan contacting your government representative local newspaper communicate and t v station. Our individual activism is essential for the candlepower of witness to overcome and extinguish the firepower of genocide.
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