Ordered to Catch a Warlord, Ugandan Troops Are Accused of Hunting Girls
members and forced to become prostitutes or sex slaves, or to marry Ugandan soldiers," the head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission
wrote in a letter to Ugandan authorities last June, using the initials of the Ugandan People’s Defense Force, the Ugandan military.
According to internal United Nations records, peacekeepers in the Central African Republic have documented allegations
of the rape, sexual abuse or sexual harassment of more than 30 women and girls by Ugandan soldiers.
A United States State Department official said, however,
that American diplomats did discuss the allegations with military and civilian leaders in Uganda, who promised that "any soldiers responsible for such acts would be repatriated and prosecuted." Over almost three decades, Mr. Kony and his fighters killed more than 100,000 people and abducted more than 20,000 children to use as soldiers, servants or sex slaves, according to the United Nations.
"I never heard from him again." Under Ugandan law, the Ugandan military conducts the investigations
and prosecutes its own soldiers for crimes committed while they are deployed outside Uganda.
No longer viewing the group as the threat it once was, the Ugandan military said last month
that it was withdrawing its entire contingent of about 1,500 soldiers in the Central African Republic.
The women and girls entered the Ugandan headquarters "like it was the most normal thing in the world," said
Lewis Mudge, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who has investigated allegations of sexual violence.
The top United Nations human rights official has called the problem of sexual abuse by peacekeepers "rampant."
The former head of the United Nations mission in the country was fired in 2015, after the first allegations.
