Members of Parliament (MPs) belonging to Uganda’s parliamentary committee on presidential and foreign affairs are planning a trip to the DRC to investigate reports that senior Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) commanders have been looting the country’s minerals, according to Tuesday’s issue of the semi-official ‘New Vision’ newspaper. It quoted Charles Egou, a member of the committee, as saying the team had agreed with President Yoweri Museveni that it should verify the allegations of “mass-scale looting” by UPDF officers. “The President wants to prove one thing: that there has not been exploitation of the Congolese natural resources, particularly the minerals,” Egou said. Museveni reportedly challenged the MPs to visit diamond and gold mine areas occupied by the UPDF in eastern DRC. Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi were last week named in a UN report as plundering the mineral and natural resources of the DRC. Uganda and Rwanda both have troops in the DRC. Burundi has also been accused of having its troops in the country, a claim it has denied.
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