Uganda govt, rebels discuss ceasefire

July 16, 2006 (JUBA) — Peace talks between the Ugandan government and Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels aimed at ending a 19-year-old insurgency have resumed after a brief standoff provoked by remarks critical of the government, officials said.

“We have resumed the meeting,” Paddy Ankunda, the spokesman for the Ugandan team, told AFP Sunday.

Earlier, rebel delegate Major Dennis Okitori said both sides were planning to discuss a permanent ceasefire.

The talks stalled on Saturday when the government side threatened to walk out over a rebel verbal attack, just a day after the ceremonial opening of the historic negotiations here which are being mediated by the government of southern Sudan and seek to establish a permanent ceasefire.

Ugandan Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda said they had “compromised” over the statement issued on Friday when LRA spokesman Obonyo Olweny surprised many attending the opening ceremony by accusing Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni of corruption and warning the LRA had not agreed to the peace talks because it was “militarily weak.”

“We compromised so we are moving on smoothly. We are going at the level of formulating positions as to what LRA should do in order for the talks to progress. We agreed on the rules and procedures to guide the talks,” Ankunda said.

The LRA defended the remarks, saying they were “realistic” but the government issued a statement calling on the rebels to apologise for the “absolutely unacceptable” statements that were “full of falsehoods, distortions, and completely out of touch with reality.”

The government said it had taken a “painful decision” and agreed to the peace talks and further given LRA leader Joseph Kony and four of his top commanders indicted by the International Criminal Court “total amnesty” in order to give them “soft landing.”

“This course of action was taken as a way of giving the LRA a soft landing. It was not meant to give them an opportunity to cleanse themselves,” Rugunda said in the statement.

“It is a pity that the LRA is now trying to misuse the forum and opportunity offered to tell lies to the people of Uganda, Southern Sudan and the international community,” Rugunda said.

“The heinous crimes committed by the LRA can in no way put them in any position to speak in such a patronizing manner about northern and eastern Uganda as well as southern Sudan.

“Since they are the ones who have caused destruction and inflicted suffering, they have no moral authority to speak as such and should be humble enough to apologise,” he added.

The Kampala delegation insisted that the army had defeated the rebels, forcing them to flee to the Democratic Republic of Congo in recent months.

“The presence of the LRA in the DRC clearly indicates that they are defeated. The ‘rude surprise’ to intensify military operations they have promised in their statement is nothing but wishful thinking, empty rhetoric and does not show seriousness from the alleged peace seekers,” Rugunda added.

Rugunda took a fresh swipe at the Sudanese government for supporting the rebels.

“The Uganda Government has on numerous occasions stated the fact that the 20-year conflict in northern Uganda has not been between the government and LRA. It has been between the government of Uganda and the Khartoum government of the Sudan,” he added.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and some two million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion among the Acholi ethnic minority in 1988, in a bid to oust Museveni.

The talks in the southern Sudan capital of Juba are seen by many as the best chance to end the war, which is regularly described by aid agencies as one of the world’s worst and most forgotten humanitarian crises.

(ST)