The President Yoweri Museveni has appointed Maj. Gen. Richard Otto as the Commander of Mountain Division and Operation Shuuja in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
His appointment was confirmed by Col. Deo Akiiki, the deputy spokesperson of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF).
According to Akiiki, Gen. Otto replaces Maj. Gen. Dick Olum, who is heading to the South Sudan Stabilisation Mechanism, replacing Maj. Gen. Otto, who has been representing Uganda.
In June last year, he promoted Brig. Gen. Richard Otto to the rank of Maj. General. Maj. Gen. Otto served as a commanding officer of the third army division of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) based in Moroto. He was appointed to that position in May 2017. He replaced Maj. Gen. Dick Prit Olum, who was dispatched to Kinshasa, as Uganda’s Defence Attaché to the DR Congo.
Initially, he served as the commander of the UPDF contingent in the Central African Republic as part of the African Union Regional Task Force (AU-RTF), the regional counter-offensive against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
The force was supposed to be 5,000 troops strong, with units from the African countries terrorised by Kony and his guerilla force, the LRA.
In 2019, he served as contingent commander of the UPDF troops deployed in Somalia under the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM).
