Uganda talks to start without top rebels – Sudanese official

July 23, 2006 (JUBA, Sudan) — Uganda’s government and Lord’s Resistance Army rebels will soon begin negotiations to end a 19-year civil war in northern Uganda, despite the insurgents’ refusal to send their top leaders to the talks, a mediator said Thursday.

Riek Machar, vice-president of southern Sudan’s autonomous government and mediator for the talks, which are due to take place in Juba, Sudan, said the two sides were committed to beginning the peace talks – although the rebels had not complied with Ugandan government demands that they send negotiators who could make binding decisions for the LRA.

Leaders of the rebel LRA are refusing to attend the planned talks because they fear they might be detained under arrest warrants issued by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court, Machar said.

“You can’t force someone to come to a place (when) he feels insecure,” Machar said after meeting the insurgents’ deputy chief near the border with lawless eastern Congo.

The International Criminal Court last July issued arrest warrants for LRA chief Joseph Kony and four of his lieutenants for crimes against humanity, including the killing of thousands of civilians and enslaving of thousands of children. The court called on Congo, Sudan and Uganda to arrest the five.

“The new position, as far as I know, of the Government of Uganda is that they will negotiate with the LRA delegation unconditionally,” Machar told journalists at Juba International Airport. “So we thought that the LRA should take this advantage and include at least two members (of the indicted group) in the delegation.”

Deputy rebel chief Vincent Otti, who is among those indicted, had not ruled out attending the talks altogether, Machar said.

“He said he will come and join the peace talks later. Hopefully when there is progress and he feels more secure, then he will come,” said Machar.

Ruhakana Rugunda, the head of the Ugandan government’s negotiating team at the talks, said officials had received the list of rebel negotiators and were convinced that they could discuss terms of a peaceful settlement to the conflict on behalf of the insurgents.

“We don’t mind even if Kony and his commanders are not in the peace team so long as it is authoritative,” Rugunda told journalists. “All we want is to meet LRA team which has been authorized and we believe those named have been authorized by Kony himself and LRA leadership in general.”

Rugunda, like Machar, was unable to say when talks would begin in Juba, capital of southern Sudan.

“We have been telling the international community that there is the need to separate the peace process from the legal process,” Machar said. “The peace process can give a better environment for the legal process to take over…I hope they (International Criminal Court officials) can wait for the peace process to be concluded.”

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has promised that if the peace talks go well and the LRA rebels agree to stop fighting, Kony would not be arrested to face the International Criminal Court.

But The U. S. criticized the amnesty offer and the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said that the LRA rebels may use the talks as an opportunity to reorganize and rearm.

But after Uganda’s Minister for Security Amama Mbabazi traveled to the Netherlands Wednesday for talks at the International Criminal Court, the court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said that the arrest warrants remain in effect.

(ST/AP)