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| Uganda to destroy 57,000 guns, ammo
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Kampala, Uganda (PANA) – Uganda will destroy an es
timated 57,000 guns
recovered from illegal sources over the past five years, as well as
unserviceable and obsolete arms, in keeping with a regional protocol
on arms proliferation in the conflict prone Great Lakes region.
On 21 April 2004, members states of the Great Lakes region and the
Horn of Africa agreed in a Nairobi Protocol to undertake prevention,
control and reduction of small arms and light weapons.
The move administered by the army commenced last Saturday with the
destruction of over 7,000 guns at a steel rolling mill in the East
African country's eastern town of Jinja, 80-km east of the capital
Kampala.
"Arms being destroyed were accumulated by the army over the years -
beginning with the King's African Rifles of the colonial times, the
various military regimes and the rebel and guerrilla armies," Army
spokesman Major Felix Kulayigye confirmed Monday.
The UN Development Programme is funding the month-long exercise,
while small arms demobilization experts from the UN and Safe Africa,
a South African agency, are assisting Uganda army's Inspectorate of
Military Equipment in carrying out the exercise.
Kampala set up a national focal point, which organized the
destruction of mines and firearms conducted in Kibuli, Kampala last
year.
The weapons are dismantled – wood and rubber separated from steel,
which is sold to the steel millers as scrap. Proceeds from the sale
are to go to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of
Defence.
Kulayigye said the army will soon move on to destroy bombs and
ammunition in Nakasongola.
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| Kampala - 22/05/2006 |
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