Sudan extends for another month deal that allows Ugandan troops to pursue LRA rebels into Sudan

By HENRY WASSWA Associated Press Writer

BOMBO, Uganda, Sep 12, 2003 (AP) — Sudan on Friday gave Uganda another month to send troops into southern Sudan to flush out Ugandan rebels who are terrorizing the northern third of the country.

In a ceremony at army headquarters in Bombo, 40 kilometers (25) miles north of the capital, Kampala, Assistant Defense Minister Ruth Nankabirwa signed the eighth in a series of protocols extending the original agreement reached in March 2002.

Before then, Sudan had allowed rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army to set up bases in southern Sudan in retaliation for Uganda’s support for southern Sudanese rebels.

Nankabirwa said Ugandan officials would go to Khartoum at the end of the month to discuss strengthening the agreement and also to present evidence that Sudan continues to aid the LRA.

“We shall table a few things to be discussed including allegations that Sudan is aiding LRA rebels,” she told reporters. “We shall go with evidence of new links between Sudan and the LRA.”

After signing the original agreement, Uganda launched “Operation Iron Fist” in what President Yoweri Museveni said would finish off the rebellion that began in 1986 shortly after Museveni took power after a five-year bush war. Since then, attacks and abductions have increased dramatically, and food shortages are worsening as frightened farmers are unable to work in their fields.

Thousands have been killed in attacks, more than half a million people have been displaced and the LRA, a shadowy organization with a vague agenda, has dragged off hundreds of children and teenagers to serve as fighters, porters or concubines.

Sudan has repeatedly denied that it is arming the rebels. A statement released this week by the Sudanese Embassy in Kampala said it was concerned about “the pretentious and protracted (Ugandan) media campaign on the alleged support by Sudan to the LRA.”

The statement said the news reports created mistrust and animosity across Africa by giving the “wrong signals” against African Muslims and Africans of Arab origin and warned that this could adversely affect relations between Sudan and Uganda.

The LRA, led Joseph Kony, a former Roman Catholic who has claimed to have supernatural powers, began attacking towns and settlements in northeastern and eastern Uganda in June.