UN urged to expand Sudan mandate to end rebel LRA
May 18, 2006 (NAIROBI) — An international aid agency has called on the UN to strengthen the mandate of its mission in Sudanto disarm Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel which is committing atrocities in northern Uganda and southern Sudan.
In a statement received here Thursday following a visit to northern Uganda and southern Sudan, the Washington-based Refugee International (RI) said the rebel activities which have caused humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda has spread to southern Sudan thus threatening regional peace and security.
The RI said the LRA attacks on civilians in southern Sudan are impeding humanitarian access, slowing the ability of refugees and displaced people to return home, and causing new displacement and refugee outflows.
“The UN Security Council should strengthen UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS)’s mandate to allow it to disarm LRA combatants and cooperate with the Ugandan Amnesty Commission to repatriate them to Uganda, execute International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for the LRA top commanders and protect civilians in southSudan,” the aid agency said.
“The UNMIS must be given a stronger mandate, more resources, and higher troop levels to protect civilians proactively,” the RI said.
“We request donors, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States, to allocate adequate resources to UNMIS for these new responsibilities,” the RI added.
The agency’s statement comes a day after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni offered another chance to the elusive leader of the LRA rebels to end the two decade old war.
Joseph Kony is one of several rebel commanders wanted for war crimes by the ICC but Museveni said the LRA leader had until the end of July to end the war peacefully and said the government would guarantee his safety.
The LRA has abducted thousands of children and forced them to fight since the conflict in the north began.
The Washington-based organization warned that the conflict in northern Uganda has taken on a regional dimension and is spreadingto neighboring countries.
“LRA leaders Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti have been rumored to be in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Although they donot appear to pose a significant threat to civilians there, the LRA appear to be using Garamba National Park as a rear base to launch attacks in Sudan,” it warned.
According to aid agency, military action against the LRA would create further tension between the Sudanese People Liberation Army(SPLA) and the Sudanese government, jeopardizing the peace agreement.
The RI said it interviewed newly-arrived refugee women in Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya who had fled the Equatoria region of southern Sudan who expressed dismay over LRA atrocities.
“They have killed some of our husbands and we had to walk for two weeks until we arrived here where we can be safe. Although there is peace in Sudan, they say, we do not see it,” the RI quoted one refugee as saying.
Over the weekend, Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir, who is also Sudan’s vice president, reportedly passed Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni a message from the elusive LRA leader.
This was Kony’s first attempt to communicate with Museveni in more than a decade, and during a meeting on Tuesday with some visiting British officials, Museveni said he and Kiir had agreed to give Kony “a last chance”.
According to the RI, the LRA attacks on civilians in southern Sudan have intensified over the past six months including recent attacks on UN compounds in Yambio and Yei where they reportedly killed two UN employees.
“The formerly calm area of Western Equatoria is now extremely dangerous both for humanitarian workers and for Sudanese,” it said.
“UNMIS consistently underestimates the threat of the LRA and they are a very real threat contributing to the destabilization ofthe south. They don’t want to take them on so they downplay their seriousness,” said a UN official in Juba.
“We must encourage the SPLA to look after their own problems.The countries that have contributed their troops in Sudan are reluctant to see UNMIS change. They have not sent us troops who are trained to fight the LRA,” said a senior UNMIS official.
“In addition to fears of being unable to ‘do it right,’ UNMIS is already struggling to fulfill its current mandate.”
After almost two decades of brutal attacks on civilians, the ICC intends to prosecute Kony and other LRA commanders for war crimes — if they can be captured.
So offering an amnesty to these rebel leaders may not be legally possible, analysts say.
But past attempts to negotiate an end to the war have failed, with both the Ugandan government and the rebels being accused of lacking commitment to peace talks.
(Xinhua/ST)