Sajek “arms recovery”: army conceals facts

On 14 July 2005 the daily Jugantor published a report titled “Huge amount of military equipment including arms and ammunition recovered during army raids in Baghaichari”.

 

According to the said report the army in a predawn raid on 13 July wrested huge amount of military equipment including arms and ammunitions from the terrorists. The report also gave a list of those seized military equipments.

 

The report mentioned Machalong Mukh as the place where the raid took place.

 

The Human Rights Monitoring Cell of the UPDF made an inquiry to verify the Jugantor report and found that no such incident took place in Machalong Mukh village on that day or any other day, for that matter.

 

However, the Cell found that villagers know how and from whom those military equipments have been recovered. They also told the Cell some other facts pertaining to the incident, including the name of the place where the raid actually took place.

 

The Cell inquiry also found that the army has intentionally concealed the name of the place of occurrence and the identity of the “terrorists” to save the ruling coalition government from international embarrassment. The villagers said the incident actually took place at Ujjengchari, approximately 8 kilometers north of Machalong Mukh and the soldiers involved in the so-called raid were from Mandir Chara army camp.

 

The people of Machalong Mukh village are particularly unhappy to read the Jugantor report. One villager said “it is unfortunate that the paper should publish reports without verifying what actually took place and where it took place.” The newspapers should not accept military version of any incident at face value, he added.

Prepared by Human Rights Monitoring Cell, United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF) on 22 August 2005.