Profile of Maj Gen Dick Olum, New Mountain Division and Operation Shujaa Commander

Maj Gen Dick Olum has been appointed as the new Division Commander of Mountain Division and the Overall Operation Commander of Operation Shujaa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).

“HE the President & C-in-C of the UPDF Gen YK Museveni has appointed Maj Gen Dick Olum as the Commander of UPDF Mountain Division & also Commander of Operation Shujaa,” the UPDF Spokesperson, Brig Gen Felix Kulaigye, said, adding, Hitherto, Gen Olum has been the Defence Advisor at Uganda’s Embassy in Kinshasa.

”We congratulate the General officer & wish him the best in his new assignments,” Kulaigye noted.

He replaces Lt Gen Kayanja Muhanga, the new Commander Land Forces (CLF).

On November 30, the Ugandan and Congolese armies launched joint air and artillery strikes against ADF camps.

The collaboration between the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Force (UPDF) and Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) was later formalized in a defence and security agreement on 9 December. The joint military operation was named Operation Shujaa.

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— – (@UPDFspokespersn) October 12, 2022

In March 2022, President Museveni said Operation Shujaa is a total success, adding that the UPDF had demolished the terrorists.

Maj Gen Richard Prit Olum, commonly known as Dick Olum, has since October 2017 served as Uganda’s military attache at the Ugandan embassy in DR Congo, based in Kinshasa.

Prior to this, he served as the commanding officer of the third division of the UPDF, based in Moroto.

Previously, he served as the commander of the UPDF contingent in Somalia under the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) which has been transformed to ATMIS.

In 2006, when the Uganda Junior Staff College, based in Jinja, was founded, then Lieutenant Colonel, Olum was selected to be its commandant.

In 2010, at the rank of Colonel, he was transferred to the Uganda Military Academy in Kabamba as chief instructor.

In 2012, the African Union (AU) established a 5,000 strong military force, based in Nzara, South Sudan, with the objective of hunting down fugitive warlord Joseph Kony. The force was composed of troops from the African countries affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency, namely Uganda, South Sudan, DR Congo , and the Central African Republic, Colonel Olum was selected as the first commander of the AU force against Kony.