Gen.Muhoozi roots for regional integration

The Chief of Defence Forces for the UPDF, Gen David Muhoozi has asked countries in the region to embrace integration as the only way to overcome challenges including armed groups.

Muhoozi was on Monday meeting Senior Command and Staff college students of the Burundi National Defence Forces are on a study tour in Uganda.

“As armed forces of these countries in the region, we share similar ideology to defend the people. We need to position ourselves to overcome the challenges and threats that are common,”Gen.Muhoozi said during the meeting at UPDF headquarters in Mbuya.

He said that the East Africa Community is a region with immense potential and as defence forces, peace and stability is a good that they must deliver to the people.

“It is the sole reason we should be focused on and ready to defend at all times as we integrate.”

The Chief of Defence Forces for UPDF later shared copies of the book: The Black Hawks Rising by Dr Opio Oloya with the delegation which shares the AMISOM success story in Somalia, to which both countries are part of.

The Commandant of the College Col. Justus Ciiza thanked the UPDF for the warm welcome they received and pledged to continue with the partnership between the two partner Armed Forces.

The Chief of Training and Recruitment Brig. Wills Byarugaba applauded the bilateral relationship between the two countries adding that it is for this Pan Africanist spirit that the Burundian Army became the second to join forces with Uganda in the mission to stabilise Somalia in 2007.

The Chief Political Commissar Brig Henry Masiko made a presentation on the Geo-political situation in the Great Lakes Region; emphasising the oneness of the people and a shared destiny.

In attendances were Brig George Igumba the Chief of Personnel and Administration and the Chieftaincy of Military Investigation boss, Brig Abel Kandiho among others.