Ugandan president meets UN special team probing killing of peacekeepers in DR Congo

KAMPALA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday met with the UN special team investigating the recent attacks on peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that left 15 Blue Helmets dead.

In state house statement issued here on Wednesday, Museveni told the team led by Dmitry Titov of Russia that the UN is responsible for preserving terrorism in the neighboring DRC.

"The UN operation in DRC and to some extent in Somalia was conservation of terrorism. The terrorists are weak. They have had freedom of movement and space but made no progress in their ventures. If they were strong they would have made a big impact," said Museveni.

The president observed that DRC has a combination of conventional, irregular and terrorist groups, like Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) blamed for the deadliest attack on peacekeepers serving under the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO) last month.

"It must be the people of the affected country to fight and defeat terrorism within their territory, friendly forces, like the UPDF [Uganda People's Defense Forces], should come in not to replace the people but to strengthen them," he said.

Titov said that the UN looked forward to Uganda's assistance in finding answers into the killing of the Tanzanian peacekeepers in eastern DRC's North Kivu Province.

"He [Titov] observed that the terrorist ADF is a common enemy adding that MONUSCO has got the task of eliminating ADF rebels," said the statement.

Titov's team is visiting DRC and relevant countries in the Great Lakes region in their probe into the Dec. 7 attack, which left 15 Tanzanian peacekeepers, 5 DRC soldiers killed and 53 others wounded.

The UN probe team will examine the circumstances surrounding attacks, evaluate MONUSCO overall preparedness and response to the events and provide recommendations on how to prevent such attacks from occurring in the future. Enditem