Kampala promises to punish those involved in looting

The Ugandan government has said it plans to take legal action against all individuals identified by the Ugandan Judicial Commission of Inquiry (JCI) as having been involved in the plunder of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) natural resources, IRIN has learnt. However, the government indicated that it would ignore all other allegations made by an expert panel set up by the UN to investigate the illicit plunder of the DRC's natural resources. "The government accepts to implement all recommendations in the Judicial Commission of Inquiry report within the timeframe demanded [six months, starting 30 April]", says a draft government White Paper to be published on Monday. "We will abide by them in taking legal action against all culprits and investigating them further." The JCI report, which was released on Wednesday, implicated Army Commander Maj-Gen James Kazini and Maj-Gen Salim Saleh in the illicit looting of DRC's wealth but absolved the Ugandan government of any wrongdoing. In particular, President Yoweri Museveni and his son Maj Muhoozi Kainerugaba were cleared of having had any involvement. The JCI report was completed in November 2002 in response to a comprehensive report by the UN expert panel, published in April 2001, accusing Uganda of massive looting of the Congo's mineral and other resources. "There is no basis for the Panel's accusation in Paragraph 211 [of the UN report] that President Museveni is on the verge of becoming the godfather of the illegal exploitation of the natural resources," concluded the JCI. "There is no evidence to suggest he has given criminal cartels unique opportunity to operate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo". Uganda has said it was not involved in mineral exploitation in the Congo, and that it was individuals acting on their own who did the looting. The JCI report essentially repeated this defence. The JCI also said that some of the accusations of looting in the UN report lacked evidence. For instance, the charge that the Ugandan army was trading in illegally logged timber from the forested areas surrounding Beni and Mambasa was rejected as groundless. Bruno Schiemsky, one of the investigators on the UN expert panel in Nairobi, said that he could not comment on the Ugandan report because it had not been sent to them, but that Uganda's plunder of the Congo was not "just a few isolated incidents". "Perhaps it wasn't overt policy as in Rwanda but it was very organised", Schiemsky told IRIN. "It was not just a few independent soldiers going alone to do business. It was tightly orchestrated from Kampala, even if this was for private gain rather than the national treasury." Ugandan government officials sought to downplay the allegations even further, arguing that only one charge against Saleh had demonstrative proof that any crime was committed. This was the charge that Saleh registered his then seven-year-old son as a ghost director of a company called Air Alexander, alleged to have been involved in exploiting Congo's resources. "This is the only proven criminal charge identified by the report," said Ugandan Minister of State for International Affairs Tom Butime, "and that is only illegal because he registered a minor as a director in the company".