AMISON:UPDF peacekeeper arrive in Somalia in 2008Feeding by calories misinterpreted as starvation-Gen Wamala
In October 2009, anonymous emails and letters flowed into offices of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF), Uganda Police, Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) and Ministry of Defence. Within days, the same emails were also circulating in media houses in Kampala.
The emails, apparently sent on behalf of a group said to be part of the Ugandan peacekeeping contingent in Somalia under AMISOM, talked of unpaid allowances, payment of soldiers in fake currencies, unnecessary delays in payments of allowances, allegations of unpaid benefits to injured and dead peacekeepers etc.
According to one of the emails, the peacekeepers believe their allowances were being siphoned by their commanders. Around the same time last year, the UPDF spokesperson, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye said: “Once the AU sends the money, they will be paid. A few of those returnees are unsettled and have been sending emails to me and the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF). They should rest assured that the UPDF is not about to eat their money.”
However in a recent interview, another UPDF AMISOM peacekeeper, one of the UPDF returnees who came back in September 2009, said the peacekeepers are undergoing hard times in Somalia. He said the Ugandan contingent was leading a pitiful life before the UN took over direct control of the logistics of AMISOM.
“Some senior officers were stealing our food. They were stuffing their fridges in the camp with other soldiers’ juice and powdered milk. One deputy contingent commander instructed junior officers to hide chicken in a water boozer. When they tried to load it on a cargo plane coming back to Uganda, they were stopped by an American soldier,” he alleged. He said the culpable commander had lied to the US soldier that the 1200 litre water boozer had gotten damaged and was being taken to Uganda for repair.
The returnee said the US soldiers at Mogadishu Airport insisted the boozer remains in Somalia for accountability. “The Ugandans convinced the Americans that the equipment needed to get back to Uganda. To help load the boozer onto the cargo plane, one US officer tried to use a crane to lift the boozer onto the plane. He noticed it was too heavy and on checking, he found pre-packed chicken meant for the peacekeepers,” he said.
The returnees claimed the soldiers are sometimes paid in fake dollars by their commanders. The returnee alleged that several AMISOM officers had been arrested in forex bureaus in Kampala after presenting fake dollars for conversion.
However the commander of the UPDF Land Forces Lt. Gen. Katumba Wamala said the UPDF has never paid its soldiers in fake currency. He said the problem is most forex bureaus in Kampala do not accept American dollars printed before 2003 whereas these dollars are accepted anywhere else in the world. Some “Ugandan peacekeepers were paid with such dollars. When they got here, the money was rejected by the owners of some of these Forex Bureaus,” Katumba said.
The returnees also alleged that the delay in getting their allowances would force them to sell their tinned food stuff like biscuits and tinned milk to the locals to get money for personal use. “We are lucky that none of us was ever poisoned or harmed in any way by the insurgents pretending to be friendly locals.” The EU pays $750 for every peacekeeper in Somalia. Of this, US$100 is given to them in Mogadishu. AMISOM is funded by Britain, USA, Sweden and EU. The money is channeled to the African Union (AU) through the EU who pays Uganda and Burundi differently depending on how the two governments negotiated for the payment of their peacekeepers.
Burundi, for example, pays its peacekeepers $650 in advance and later replaces what it has spent on them when the AU pays. US$100 is kept by the Burundian government. Of the US$750, Uganda pays its peacekeepers US$450. US$250 is kept by the government of Uganda. “It’s too much money to be taken from us,” one returnee says. “Why can’t they take US$100 like the way Burundi is doing? They even say this money is for maintenance of the vehicles we use in Somalia. Doesn’t the EU deal with this?” he asked.
However, these claims were refuted by Katumba and Kalayigye. Katumba said Uganda, like Burundi, receives a portion of what the peacekeepers earn. “Burundi takes US$100 and we take US$200 from each soldier. It is however not true that we say the money is for maintaining vehicles. This is what the UPDF and government earn from the services of its officers. Nothing else,” Katumba said. Kulayigye said all the allowances of the UGABAG III contingent were paid by the end of September 2009. “No soldier can complain that they have not been paid. Bring me one,” he says. He adds that UGABAG has never been supplied with chicken for food as alleged. On claims of DYNCORP conniving with commanders to give less or sub-standard food to the UPDF troops, KUlayigye said: “This is outrageous. There are no American soldiers in Somalia. Only AU and EU Troops. DYNCORP is a supplier, not a distributor. Its work stops at delivering the food.”
Katumba said that the soldiers are confusing calories and food. “One time, a soldier approached me, asking why he was receiving half an orange instead of a full orange. We had to bring in a nutritionist when we realised that this was being misunderstood. The peacekeepers are being fed according to how much calories their bodies need, not how much they want to eat. Health is different from the personal desire to fill the stomach.”
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