UGANDA: Ugandan government and Lord's Resistance Army rebels meet over delayed peace process

Record ID: 349064

  • Title: UGANDA: Ugandan government and Lord's Resistance Army rebels meet over delayed peace process
  • Date: 7th November 2008
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOACHIM CHISSANO, UN SPECIAL ENVOY FOR NORTHERN UGANDA, SAYING: "We have an instrument which will enable us to work further and am sure this will help the two delegations, the delegation of the government of Uganda and the delegation of the LRA to attain our objectives, the objectives of all, the objectives of the people of Uganda, it will start by si
  • Embargoed: 22nd November 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Uganda
  • Country: Uganda
  • Topics: War / Fighting,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA89IZ5CVMWW81PABEL0F3EPAM0
  • Story Text: South Sudan Vice President and Chief Mediator Riek Machar and UN representative Joachim Chissano meet with rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) representatives and Uganda government officials in bid to restart the stalled peace process.
    Ugandan officials and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels met in Kampala on Wednesday (November 5) to try to push forward a stalled peace process aimed at ending a two-decade rebellion in the north.
    Elusive LRA leader Joseph Kony threw two years of tortuous negotiations into disarray in April when he failed to sign a final deal hashed out in neighbouring south Sudan.
    Since then, Kony repeatedly has failed to seal the pact and his rebels -- notorious for mutilations and mass abductions of children in northern Uganda -- have been accused of murders, kidnappings and rapes in the wider region.
    "We have an instrument which will enable us to work further and am sure this will help the two delegations, the delegation of the government of Uganda and the delegation of the LRA to attain our objectives, the objectives of all, the objectives of the people of Uganda, it will start by signing of the document by the leader of the LRA, followed by the signature of the final document by the Head of State of Uganda, and we hope that this will be done according to the wishes of this meeting, which means by the end of November," said Joachim Chissano, Special UN Envoy to northern Uganda and former Mozambican president just before signing an agreement with both sides to restart the talks.
    Chief LRA negotiator David Nyekorach-Matsanga renewed calls to drop war crime indictments against Kony by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and says the rebel group is committed to the process.
    "We have made it very clear that we are committed to sign this agreement and hopefully by the time the Chief Mediator has given to us, we shall be able to sign," he said at the start of a two-day meeting.
    More than 20 years of civil war in northern Uganda forced two million people from their homes, killed thousands of others and also destabilised neighbouring parts of oil-producing south Sudan and mineral-rich eastern Congo.
    Kony's troops were renowned for terror tactics like lip-slicing, chopping off arms and legs as well as abducting thousands of children to bolster its ranks.
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