SUDAN: Long-delayed LRA rebels and Uganda government peace talks continue for second day in south Sudan capita Juba

Record ID: 349847

  • Title: SUDAN: Long-delayed LRA rebels and Uganda government peace talks continue for second day in south Sudan capita Juba
  • Date: 16th July 2006
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) SPOKESMAN OF THE OF THE LRA DELEGATION, OLWENY OBONYO SAYING: "Should the regime in Kampala choose the path of violence and militarism in the belief that they can settle the conflict in a battle field by decisively defeating the LRA, that they shall be in for a rude shock."
  • Embargoed: 31st July 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sudan
  • Country: Sudan
  • Topics: War / Fighting,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9M9VO3KY8CC5QDPYXMI214C37
  • Story Text: Peace talks to end one of Africa's most brutal conflicts opened on Friday (July 14, 2006) after a Ugandan delegation arrived in Sudan for the long-delayed negotiations.
    Talks between the Lord's Resistance Army and the government, scheduled for last Wednesday (July 12) were held up after the cult-like rebel group said it would not send its top leaders to Juba, the capital of the mediator, south Sudan.
    Uganda had wanted either LRA leader Joseph Kony or his deputy Vincent Otti -- both wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes -- to attend.
    Neither was there at a brief ceremony to open the talks, which begin in earnest behind closed doors on Saturday.
    "Let the world see and hear you do the right thing and leave no stone unturned in your search for peace," south Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, said at the opening ceremony.
    The Ugandan team led by Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda had earlier arrived in Juba, to meet guerrilla representatives in a bid to end the LRA's two-decade insurgency.
    "We are satisfied with the LRA delegates to the talks who are now here in Juba. And if we were not, we would have not come here today," Rugunda told reporters at Juba's airport.
    Later, he said Uganda "is working for a speedy, expeditious and thorough conclusion of this effort".
    The LRA's delegation leader, Martin Ojul, in a statement read by a spokesman said: "Never before has there been such an opportunity as this."
    "We implore the Uganda government to search its soul to see whether it is being fair and reasonable in its treatment of the north and east of the country," the statement said.
    But he warned that the LRA's acceptance of the talks should not be taken as a sign the rebels are "militarily weak".
    Sudan's southern government says it wants to broker an end to the LRA conflict, which has killed tens of thousands and uprooted nearly two million people in northern Uganda alone.
    The rebels operate in a large area in east and central Africa known as the "LRA Triangle" spanning northern Uganda, southern Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
    The Ugandan government reaffirmed this week it would not revoke an amnesty offered to Kony as was done for former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was arrested trying to leave Nigeria where he had been in exile.
    Analysts say Kony and Otti fear arrest if they go to the negotiations.
    Kony's rebels are notorious for killing civilians, mutilating survivors and kidnapping some 25,000 children to use as soldiers and sex slaves in their fight to remove President Yoweri Museveni from power.
    But in a rare interview last month, Kony denied committing atrocities and said he was a freedom fighter. Numerous other attempts to get the LRA to peace talks have failed.
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