Kampala, 23rd February, 2007 - Uganda has signed a memorandum of understanding with the African Union (AU) about the UPDF deployment in Somalia as tanks were seen driven through the streets of Kampala yesterday on their way to Mogadishu.

The memorandum, spelling out the details of the peacekeeping mission AMISOM, was signed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Wednesday.

Minister of Defence, Crispus Kiyonga, signed on behalf of the Uganda Government, while Ambassador Said Djinnit, Commissioner for Peace and Security. signed on behalf of the AU.

Though the UPDF is secretive about the operation, it is believed that an advance party is already in Mogadishu while the bulk of the troops are expected to leave at the end of next week.

“We cannot reveal anything about the operation at this stage”, said commander of the land forces, Gen. Katumba Wamala.

“A few changes are still being discussed in Addis Ababa about the terms of deployment.

All we can say is that we are pre-positioning tanks and other equipment for transport and making arrangements in preparation for the troops to move,” he added.

The over-all AU force, comprising also of Nigerian, Burundian, Ghanaian and Malawian troops, is commanded by a Ugandan, Maj. Gen Levi Karuhanga.

Meanwhile, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said he would hold a national reconciliation conference soon that would be open to all clans in the country.

Three mortar bombs hit the runway and a car park at Mogadishu international airport on Thursday and two government soldiers were killed in clashes with local militiamen in the latest attacks in and around the increasingly violent capital.

Gunmen also shot dead a district commissioner in Mogadishu late on Wednesday.

“We are intending to start this (national reconciliation) congress within two, three weeks,” Yusuf told Reuters in an interview during a visit to London.

“We will start at national level and go down to local and regional levels ... down to grassroots. Our people fought hard, we slaughtered each other ... We have to discuss how to forget and forgive.”

Somalia’s transitional government, backed by Ethiopian warplanes, tanks and troops, drove an Islamist movement out of Mogadishu in late December, ending its six-month rule of the capital and much of the south.

The Islamists who survived scattered back to their clan areas and have vowed to fight an insurgency against the government and the planned 8,000-strong AU peacekeeping force.

Threats to the government also come from criminal gangs and warlords who hope to regain turf lost when the Islamists took control of Mogadishu in June.

Experts say there is little chance of the violence abating until the government reaches out to clans who feel excluded from the political process.

Source: The New Vision