KAMPALA/KINSHASA: Ugandan police stormed the palace of a tribal king and arrested him on Sunday after fierce clashes between security forces and a separatist militia they believe is linked to him killed 55, while in the neighboring country of DR Congo, 30 civilians were killed when an ethnic Nande militia attacked the Hutus community.
Heavy fighting broke out on Saturday in the western town of Kasese, home to King Charles Wesley Mumbere of the Rwenzururu kingdom, when his royal guards attacked patrolling security forces, killing 14 police officers and 41 militants, said police spokesman Andrew Felix Kaweesi.
President Yoweri Museveni phoned the king on Sunday morning and ordered him to disband the guards, who are believed to be part of a militia agitating for the creation of an independent republic straddling Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“We took time to talk to the king to get those people out but the king was non-compliant. The only option was to storm the palace and get those people out and get him out for his own security and safety,” Kaweesi told AFP.
“He has to explain his involvement in these incidents. He will be charged with inciting violence and brought to Kampala.”
Violence has been simmering in the region all week, with four militants killed when they attacked a police post on Thursday, a police spokeswoman told AFP.
Kaweesi said members of the royal guard threw an improvised grenade at patrolling officers on Saturday, prompting them to open fire and kill four of the “attackers.”
“That incident set off an explosion in all local sub-counties,” he said, adding that fighting between militants — not all of them royal guards — armed with guns and spears and security forces had continued until late in the evening.
The Rwenzururu kingdom is a traditional monarchy based near the Rwenzori mountains which straddle Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, of the Bakonzo people, with supporters among those who share the same culture and language in the DRC.
The monarchy started out as a separatist movement of the same name when the Bakonzo — tired of being subjected to the rule of another tribe under colonial rule — declared their own kingdom in 1962.
The move led to years of bloodshed until a settlement was reached in 1982 in which the movement laid down arms in return for a degree of local autonomy.
An ethnic Nande militia in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed about 30 civilians, mostly Hutus, on Sunday morning, local sources said, in an apparent escalation of deadly violence between the two groups that has flared repeatedly this year.
Joy Bokelele, territorial administrator in North Kivu province’s Lubero territory, told Reuters that fighters from the Mai Mai Mazembe militia attacked the village of Luhanga around 5 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) with guns and machetes.
