Text:
http://www.africanews.org/central/congo-kinshasa/stories/19981128_feat3.html
Source App: [Armies spend big to win Congo war - Netscape]
Armies spend big to win Congo war
November 28, 1998
By Robert Mukasa
Kampala - The current rearmament drive by the warring factions in the war dogged
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has seen President Kabila's dominant ally,
Zimbabwe, splash hefty US$ 54m in just a few purchases of weaponry.
Zimbabwe's Defence Minister Movan Mahachi, however, denied the purchase, the country's Standard newspaper claimed this week that Zimbabwe spent generously on Russian helicopter gunships, fighter and spotter planes. Reuters Wednesday and Thursday in reports from Dar es Salaam, had it that Uganda has imported 90 tanks to bolster its armed forces which have been fighting on several fronts. A senior Ugandan official confirmed the purchase to Reuters.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London says the Ugandan armed forces already have around 70 tanks. Most of them were supplied by Ukraine, from where the latest batch of 90 have allegedly been procured. Dar es Salaam port officials said the new tanks arrived late last week and were now covered with sheeting and loaded onto open rail cars.
MP Aggrey Awori claimed Thursday that the Ugandan tanks were worth US$ 32m. The report says the tanks were imported through the Tanzania port of Dar es Salaam. "The armour arrived on Friday and was loaded onto rail wagons at the point," the report said.
The minister of State for Defence, Steven Kavuma in a press statement yesterday was however guarded on the tanks. He neither confirmed nor denied the armour purchase. "It is true the MOD [Ministry of Defence] is to import some military equipment/hardware in the current financial year," a press advisory from the minister said yesterday.
"It will be recalled that the strategy of the UPDF as outlined every year in our policy statements...has been to modernise the army by reducing the personnel, increasing or upgrading our equipment," it said further.
Kavuma said, "Whatever is being imported this year is in accordance with that plan...This equipment [tanks] therefore could not have been destined to the Democratic Republic of Congo..." he said.
An AFP report on November 10 said Namibia committed US$ 5.3m on the Congo war effort. The last rearmament Angola could have made was in late October, when it imported MI-24 and MI 25 combat helicopters.
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