UN hires fugitive Karegeya to train Somali mercenaries

Karegeya is allegedly working with Gen Salim Saleh (right), the brother of Uganda President Yoweri Museveni

Kigali: RNA..The UN has given exiled ex-spy chief Patrick Karegeya a US$4million contract to train “mercenaries� for the embattled Somalian government – and Rwanda is furious, according to the latest revelations.

Karegeya is among the four former officers convicted by a military court last month for trying to destabilize Rwanda and ethnic divisionism. He is exiled in South Africa with ex-army chief Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa.

Now, details emerging suggest that Karegeya and Gen. Salim Saleh - the brother of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, have been granted a multi-million dollar contract to train a force in Somalia for the government.

The story goes that because the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) cannot even protect itself from the many militant groups, it is – with help from the UN, seeking to have a private force to boost its military. Uganda has peacekeepers in Somalia helping the government – which only controls small parts of the capital Mogadishu.

The Independent, a Ugandan magazine, reports that Karegyeya’s proposal to the TFG and the UN is for a six months contract worth US$ 4 million. Karegyeya confirmed to the magazine that he indeed had been hired as a “consultant� but refuted the branding of the force as “mercenaries�.

“This was supposed to be a contract with private security firms that are working legally and above board, not a mercenary force,� he said. However, a mercenary force is defined as an army for hire. Therefore, any private security firm that provides soldiers on contract to a sovereign state is supplying mercenaries.

Karegyeya said The Independent has only ten percent truth. “These people gave me a contract to do consultancy for them for six months,� he said, “I told them that they need to train their own people by hiring private security firms. I then pulled out of the contract around the time Kayumba was shot because the government of Rwanda objected to my involvement. I even have a contract I signed with the ambassador in Nairobi and it does not provide for me supplying mercenaries.�

In Rwanda, government is said to be furious that the UN can indeed hire a person who is openly hostile to its government. Sources confirmed that the UN official based in Nairobi at the centre of this controversy is one Bruno Mpondo-Epo.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reportedly told Mpondo-Epo that they strongly objected to the UN paying for a mercenary army organised by a former security chief now turned dissident who is openly hostile to the government. They also expressed concerns that such an arrangement gives Karegyeya opportunity to train an army to destabilize Rwanda.

Rwandan ministry of Foreign Affairs officials were therefore shocked when the UN was willing to go ahead and grant Karegyeya the lucrative contract in the face of their objections, said The Independent.

Rwanda is said to be nervous that Karegeya could use the money from the contract to form a possible rebels group to fight Kigali. The revelations also come at a time when Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo army chiefs said Karegeya and Kayumba had a new 200-strong rebel force in eastern Congo.

They have denied any such force exists.

Back to the alleged Somali mercenary force, the contract for Karegeya is renewable. The Independent says it has evidence of bank transfers by the TFG from the Commercial Bank of Africa in Nairobi to Karegyeya’s personal account in First National Bank, Sandton. The money was paid by the embassy of Somali Republic in Nairobi.

Karegyeya agreed to mobilise two companies in South Africa with “the required competences, skills and experience� and which had the willingness to undertake the task. He held meetings with them in Johannesburg and Pretoria. Later, a meeting was held in Centurion in Pretoria between representatives of the TFG and the UN which endorsed the proposal.

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