The government of Uganda is pursuing the option of holding talks with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). State Minister for Information Godffrey Baluku Kabbyanga has revealed that former minister and Member of Parliament for Bughendera County in Bundibugyo district Christopher Kibazanga, is camped in the area working with local leaders and former commanders of the rebel outfit. The efforts are to make contact with the current commanders to start talks that could see an end to the insurgence the ADF have occasioned on Ugandans in the last years.
Kabbyanga’s revelation comes days after what is suspected to be the latest ADF attack on innocent Ugandans. Last Saturday suspected rebels attacked a school in Mpondwe, at the Uganda-DR Congo border, killing at least 42 people, 38 of them students, in a nighttime raid before fleeing across the porous border.
In addition to the 38 students, one guard and two residents of the local community in Mpondwe-Lhubiriha town were killed in the attack according to authorities. The UPDF later released a statement saying the rebels abducted six students who they took as porters of food looted from the school’s store.
The school is located about two kilometers from the Congo border.
Uganda and the DRC launched a joint offensive in 2021 to drive the ADF out of their Congolese strongholds, but are yet to completely stamp out the group’s attacks. The Ugandan army in December 2021 entered the thick DRC forests to hunt for the ADF rebels who were accused of masterminding the twin blasts in Kampala city and several other attacks that led to death of over 10 people and others injured.
The operation code named Shuja, a Kiswahili word for bravery conducted jointly with the Congolese army, FADRC has seen over 400 ADF fighters killed, areas liberated and hostages freed.
The ADF are one of the many armed groups accused of killing thousands in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. They have origins in Uganda and are mostly Muslim, who have been present in the DRC since the 1990s. In 2019, the ADF pledged allegiance to the ISIS. UN experts have reported that the ADF rebels were receiving financial support from the Islamic State (ISIS) group and were seeking to expand their area of operations.
The latest attempt at peace talks are not the first. The Ugandan government has since 2021 contemplated talks with the rebels. Then State Minister for Defence, Dr Crispus Kiyonga informed Parliament that in the wake of intelligence information of the group recruiting more than 1,600 fighters, government had already started planning talks under the guidance of International Conference on the Great Lakes Region. “The NRM government is always ready to resolve conflicts through peaceful means,” Kiyonga told Parliament, which had asked why the government was talking to rebels yet there was no threat of an attack.
