Ugandan Leader Urges Action Against Militants
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Monday, July 26, 2010
The fight against Somali militant group al-Shabab must be stepped up, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has told an African Union (AU) summit in Kampala.
Mr Museveni called for the Islamist militants to be "swept out of Africa", two weeks after they killed dozens in a bomb attack in the Ugandan capital. Troops from Uganda form a large part of the AU's Somalia peacekeeping mission.
Meanwhile, Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika renewed an attack on the UN for indicting Sudan's Omar al-Bashir. Mr Mutharika, the current head of the AU, said the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for the Sudanese president on war crimes and genocide charges was "undermining African solidarity and African peace and security".
Mr Bashir is not attending the summit. He faces arrest if he sets foot in any ICC member country - and Uganda is signed up to the ICC.
Khartoum has not sent any representation to the summit, but Sudanese sources say the issue is not the arrest warrant, but rather an unrelated rift between Mr Bashir and Mr Museveni. The African leaders gathered in Kampala amid tight security and a heavy military presence.
They observed a two-minute silence for the victims of the 11 July bomb attack, which targeted people who were watching the football World Cup in a restaurant and a sports ground. Mr Museveni told AU delegates that "many of the organisers" of the attack had been arrested and their interrogation was "yielding very good information".
In a statement released before the meeting, Mr Museveni said the attacks would worsen al-Shabab's situation.
"These reactionary groups have now committed aggression against our country," the statement said. "We have a right of self-defence. We shall now go for them."
Some analysts suggest more troops and more guns is not what is needed in a country which has been destroyed by more than two decades of fighting.
But trying to enter into dialogue with the Islamist insurgent groups looks to be a hugely challenging task. About 5,000 AU troops from Uganda and Burundi are based in Mogadishu, propping up the fragile interim government. Amisom (African Union Mission in Somalia) is engaged in frequent firefights with insurgents that control much of southern and central Somalia.
The Somali crisis has overshadowed the AU summit's official theme, which is "Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development".