Uganda LRA says ICC arrest warrants menaces peace

Sept 6, 2006 (KAMPALA) — A commander of the shadowy movement that has terrorized Uganda for 19 years said a comprehensive peace deal with the government is threatened by international arrests warrants for him and other rebel leaders.

Vincent Otti, the second-in-command of the Lord’s Resistance Army, called on the International Criminal Court to revoke the warrants. He spoke to a local radio station Tuesday night, a week after striking a truce deal calling for rebel fighters to emerge from the bush and gather in largely uninhabited areas across the border in southern Sudan, where they will be protected and monitored while a broader peace deal is negotiated.

The Hague-based ICC earlier this year issued a war crimes indictment of Otti and three other top Lord’s Resistance Army commanders, and has pressed Uganda, Sudan and Congo to hand the suspects over for trial.

Ugandan Deputy Defense Minister Ruth Nankabirwa said Wednesday that the country has no power to void the indictments. President Yoweri Museveni has said he won’t implement the warrants as long as the group negotiates peace.

Otti said the rebels will still attend peace talks in Juba, southern Sudan, but that a broad peace deal is in jeopardy.

“The ICC issue will be first on the agenda,” he said.

The LRA is notorious for cutting off the tongues and lips of civilians and enslaving thousands of children. The violence in northern Uganda has driven nearly 2 million people from their homes.

(AP/ST)