page_title: Dick Olum
section_title: Military career
hierarchical_section_title: Dick Olum / Military career
caption_attribution_description: English: AMISOM's Brig. General, Dick Olum, speaks to his soldiers before the launch of Operation Indian Ocean in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia on August 29. Operation Indian Ocean aims to liberate several new towns from of the terrorist group Al Shabab in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia. AMISOM Photo / Tobin Jones
context_page_description: Brigadier Richard Prit Olum, commonly known as Dick Olum, is a military officer in the Uganda People's Defence Force, who serves as Uganda's military attache at the Ugandan embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, based in Kinshasa, since October 2017.
  Immediately prior to his present assignment, from April 2015, until October 2017, he was the commanding officer of the third army division of the UPDF, based in Moroto. Before that, he served as the commander of the UPDF contingent in Somalia as part of the African Union Mission to Somalia. He was appointed to that position in June 2013 by Yoweri Museveni, the commander in chief of the UPDF and the president of Uganda. He took his position in Mogadishu Somalia, in September 2013. His mission to Somalia ended in November 2014 when he was replaced by Sam Kavuma.
context_section_description: In 2006, when the Uganda Junior Staff College, based in Jinja, was founded, 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, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic.  Colonel Olum was selected as the first commander of the AU force against Kony. In June 2013, he was assigned to lead the UPDF contingent to AMISOM and was appointed acting brigadier. He assumed his post in Somalia in September 2013. In November 2013, Olum was promoted to full Brigadier in the UPDF. In April 2015, he was appointed commanding officer of the UPDF third division, based in Moroto.
caption: Olum addresses UPDF soldiers during Operation Indian Ocean (2014)
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