By Laban Muhindo
Uganda: The Natural Resource Conservation Network along with Police and in conjunction with Uganda Wildlife Authority has arrested red-handed two Uganda Peoples Defense Forces (UPDF) senior officers in illegal possession of ivory.
Major Allen Rutagira and Corporal Collins Kamugisha, both Uganda Peoples Defence Forces Staff members were on Thursday 24th March at Hotel Africana Kampala nabbed while selling 21.5kgs of pure elephant ivory.
They were finally arrested after a long time investigations by conservationists and police. The arrested senior army officers are attached to Special Forces Command (SFC) attached to Entebbe International Airport, raising suspicions that they might have obtained the contraband from the coffers of the Airport.
Kamugisha`s confession led to the arrest of George Otika an accountant at Entebbe Handling Services (ENHAS), Able Bamonjobora, a State House driver and Mbonye Simon, a miner and business man in Kampala who was waiting for the money from the transaction and was arrested at a petrol station in Kampala. Mbonye said the contraband belongs to Alex Sande a businessman who was also arrested later on the same day
The four civilian suspects remain detained at Central Police Station Kampala awaiting appearance in the courts of law as the hunt for their accomplices still at large intensifies while the soldiers were first detained at Special Investigations Division (SID) in Kireka before transfer to Nalufenya in jinja.
Dozens of the elephants have been killed in recent years by villagers, who regard the Elephants as pests that destroy their plantations. The International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the Elephants as “critically endangered” after their numbers dropped to an estimated 5,000 last year.
CITES lists Elephants in Appendix I (18/01/1990), except populations of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe (Appendix II, 18/09/1997) and South Africa (Appendix II, 19/07/2000) saying Environmentalists say the elephants could be extinct within three decades unless they are protected. This comes at a time when another UPDF officer was arrested in the same vice in Moroto in January.