Fearsome discovery of the Ugandans: two Somali rebels had been trained by them
(BRUSSELS2) Two of the Al Shabaab fighters involved in the fighting near Medina Hospital in Mogadishu in December had been trained, as part of a program to structure the Somali armed forces, by the Ugandans, according to
l'Observer, Ugandan daily. They are the men of the UPDF (Uganda Peoples Defense Forces) themselves, engaged in
the peacekeeping forces in Somalia (AMISOM) who found out. One of the fighters was killed, the other injured and taken to the Amisom forces hospital in Mogadishu for treatment and questioning. Both men had been trained at the Bihanga military training center. NB: Since 2007, the Ugandans have trained one and a half battalions of Somali soldiers.
The fears that Africans and Europeans had (1) that trained soldiers would return their weapons thus proved to be well-founded. According to the military spokesman, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, questioned by our Ugandan colleague: “If Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples, why not men?”. The information does not stop there. According to AMISOM officials some of the al Shabaab fighters are Ugandan, coming from a rebel movement (the ADF operating in the Rwenzori mountains on Uganda's western border with Congo).
Comments. The incident can make one shudder. However, should all training missions for Somali soldiers be stopped? This is politics, in the literal sense of the term. Should we leave the Somalis to fend for themselves as we left the Bosnians or the Croats at the start of the Yugoslav war of the 1990s? Or are they getting help with the risks that this entails? If we refer to the Yugoslav conflict, we must not delude ourselves. It was not political pressure on Serbia that played a decisive role. But the rearmament, the training, the presence of Western advisers (especially American, as well as weapons) which favored the reconquest of Croatian territory and the first defeat of the Serbo-Yugoslav power. Ditto in Bosnia a few years later. Moreover, in the rebel or terrorist networks, there are many people trained by Westerners (including among the Afghan Taliban), even serving them (cf. the last incident which caused the death of several CIA agents in Afghanistan)...
(1) Belgians, Dutch, Spaniards expressed it openly in July. Read: Europeans not very enthusiastic about an SSR mission in Somalia