Written question asked by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative) on Tuesday, 18 April 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 20 April 2006. It was answered by Ian Pearson (Labour) on Monday, 24 April 2006 on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the decision of President Yoweri Museveni to send Ugandan troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Answer: The Ugandan Government have raised concerns about the threat posed to regional security by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), some of whom are believed to be in the Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Ugandan Government have said that if Uganda is attacked over the border from DRC by the LRA, Ugandan forces would respond. But we are not aware that President Museveni has taken a decision to send Ugandan troops to the DRC.We agree that the LRA are a threat to regional peace and that those commanders facing International Criminal Court arrest warrants need to be brought to justice. But in signing the Lusaka (1999) and Luanda accords (2002), Uganda undertook to withdraw its troops from the DRC and to stay out.The international community has emphasised the need for the DRC's territorial sovereignty to be respected in a number of UN Security Council Resolutions. In recent weeks my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for International Development, Gareth Thomas, and Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials in Kampala and New York have all underlined to the Ugandan Government the UK's opposition to any unilateral Ugandan military interventions in the DRC.

Secondary information