President Museveni has asked the Kenya government to hand over to Uganda Turkana warriors accused of killing three geologists and two UPDF soldiers in the restive Karamoja rub region in March last year.
In an 18-paged executive order made public Wednesday, President Museveni said that any Turkana pastoralist crossing to Uganda with a gun would be charged with terrorism.
“I have issued Executive Order no.3 of 2023, under the powers given to the President by Article 99 (2) of the 1995 Constitution. They cover the Anti-cattle Rustling efforts in North and North-Eastern Uganda, the damage to the Environment by the charcoal business, the damage caused by the indisciplined nomads known as Balaalo, recasting the Uganda Police Force into a Uganda-wide Police instead of being a Kampala Police and the problem of the Turkana nomads,” Mr Museveni tweeted Wednesday.
In March 2022, security forces in Moroto District in the mineral-rich sub region in northeastern Uganda recovered five bodies belonging to three geologists attached to Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development and two Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) soldiers who were attacked by suspected cattle rustlers.
The geologists, one of whom was an intern identified as Edna Musiime from Makerere University, are said to have been attacked and killed alongside their two UPDF escorts on March 21, 2022 as they conducted mineral mapping in the area.
The other victims were identified as Richard Kiggwwe, the lead geologist and his colleague, Charles Olweny. The UPDF officers are yet to be identified.
“The killers of the geologists must be handed to us for trial for murder. The guns were handed back to us the government of Uganda, but not the killers. In the alternative, the killers, with the co-ordination of the government of Kenya and Uganda, should kukaraba (blood-settlement- mato-put), to the families of the deceased. The price of the kukaraba cannot be the traditional one, of a few cows. It must be adjusted to the full value of what the deceased would have contributed in his/ her life, which life was cut short by those criminals,” Mr Museveni notes in the Executive order noted May 19, 2023.
The president also banned charcoal burning and trade, especially in northern Uganda.
