According to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the UN Security Council is studying his government’s proposal to provide some 20,000 additional troops for the Somalia occupation. The escalation of the African Union-backed war would be conditional on finding funding from abroad.
“Members of the Security Council are studying the proposal to get more familiar with the issue,” Museveni insisted following a meeting with UN envoys dispatched to Kampala. Exact dollar figures were not discussed yet.
Uganda currently provides the majority of the 7,000+ AU soldiers in Somalia, struggling to back the self-proclaimed government in its attempts to control more than a few city blocks along the coast in Mogadishu.
Museveni says the Ugandan government could provide however many troops as the international community wants, but that they can’t afford to pay for them and would leave the funding and arming of their troops up to the international community.
Yes, mercenary Ugandan troops. A ticket to failure in Somalia of course but sure to make some Ugandans rich..
Interesting that Museveni is interested in getting such a large portion of his army into a country that doesn't even border Uganda. Interesting also that he's still in office more than a decade after he was heralded by the west as the great symbol of democracy and free-market capitalism in Africa. I'm sure the capitalism part is still going strong what with all the coltan, cobalt, copper and diamonds his people have been trucking out of Congo for the past decade. The democracy part, not so much I'm thinking.