President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has accused Joseph Kabila, a former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, of providing refuge to rebels, allowing them to exploit minerals and forestry, and using the money earned to fortify their position.
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a former rebel organisation with roots in Uganda that in 2019 swore allegiance to the Islamic State (IS), has been active for years in the eastern forests of the neighboring Congo, killing both civilians and security officials.
The group’s members invaded Uganda last month, seized a secondary school, and killed 42 people, mostly pupils. Some were killed by burning.
In a speech delivered late on Thursday, Museveni made reference to the assault and claimed that during Kabila’s rule, the ADF had been able to grow and establish sizable camps in eastern Congo.
“The Congo government of H.E. Kabila, supported by some regional and international actors, gave them free tenancy in North Kivu and Ituri,” Museveni said, referring to Congolese provinces.
“They were mining gold, selling timber, harvesting people’s cocoa, collecting taxes, extorting money from people, etc. They were modestly growing and with money.”
Kabila presided over the Congo from 2001 until 2019. With the consent of Congo’s current president Felix Tshisekedi, Uganda began a military operation with the Congolese army in 2021 to try to crush the rebels.
According to Museveni, the operation had successfully dismantled the majority of ADF camps, and the rebels had divided into stealthy small units that periodically sneaked into Uganda to carry out assaults on people.
“We quickly degraded their strength and they have now … fled to beyond our limit of exploitation line,” he said.
Despite the combined operations against them by the forces of Uganda and Congo, a U.N. delegation of experts claimed last month that the ADF was expanding activities in Congo with money from IS.
