Ugandan rebels stall Army

Press, 14 October 1985, Page 6

Ugandan rebels stall Army

NZPA-AP Kampala An Army offensive to reopen the strategic road to south-western Uganda and break the rebel National Resistance Army’s control of the area was stalled yesterday at a bridge over the Katonga River. In spite of news media reports that 1000 to 1500 soldiers had recaptured the bridge on Saturday after bombarding the rebels with mortar, rocket, and artillery fire during a six-hour battle, the N.R.A. remained firmly entrenched yesterday at the south-west end of the bridge. From their vantage-point the rebels can pick off anyone who sets foot on the 16metre bridge. The Anny reportedly requested heavier weaponry before trying to take the bridge again. The N.R.A. captured the bridge on September 21 while establishing control in the area around Masaka, a trading centre and Uganda’s third-largest city with a population of about 40,000. The road is the main land route to the fertile southwest. the farms of which help feed Kampala. The

road also is an economic lifeline for the landlocked countries of Rwanda and Burundi, and eastern Zaire, which rely on it for imports of fuel and other supplies from Kenya’s Indian Ocean port of Mombasa.

Shortages of petrol and other essential commodities have been reported in those nations because of the guerrilla blockade. Their exports of coffee also have been impeded. Rwanda has resorted to flying coffee to Mombasa.

Meanwhile the Uganda Federal Democratic Movement said yesterday that its military wing, the Federal Democratic Army, had launched “defensive military operations” against the N.R.A. in the Mpigi district near the capital and in the Masaka district of southwest Uganda. “The F.D.A. has been neutral regarding the military conflict between the N.R.A. and the Uganda Army,” the movement said in Nairobi, Kenya. “However, in the month of September more than 90 F.D.A. soldiers have been attacked and killed by. N.R.A. invaders.