Ugandan rebels won’t sign peace deal while facing arrest

Oct 11, 2006 (KAMPALA) — Ugandan rebels said Wednesday that if international arrest warrants for their leaders are dropped, they will sign a peace agreement to end a brutal 19 year conflict.

Lord’s Resistance Army rebel leader Joseph Kony and four of his top lieutenants are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during one of Africa’s longest-running armed conflicts. The ICC recently renewed pressure for their arrests.

“If ICC drops the case, then we will sign the peace agreement and peace will return to northern Uganda,” Godfrey Ayo, a spokesman for the LRA peace negotiating team, told The Associated Press by phone.

“We are not going to negotiate with ropes around our necks,” Ayo said.

Tuesday the president of the Hague-based International Criminal Court said countries must help track down and arrest fugitives so they can be brought to justice.

“That is the responsibility of states and other actors,” he told the U.N. General Assembly. “Without arrests there can be no trials.”

A day earlier, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni accused the rebel group of trying to avoid a war crimes trial for its top commanders by dragging out the talks, which are being held under southern Sudan’s auspices in the southern Sudanese city of Juba.

Museveni has offered an amnesty against prosecution, despite condemnation by human rights groups, saying peace is more important than a trial.

But his position appears to be hardening.

“The talks have turned into a conversation to enable Kony not to be hunted by International Criminal Court,” Museveni said during a speech to mark the 44th anniversary of Uganda’s independence from the U.K. Monday.

Ayo accused Museveni of trying to undermine the talks.

“They should not expect us to sign an agreement and later cage our leaders in the Hague,” said Ayo. “Our leaders are not fools. We want a guarantee that nobody is going to pounce on them immediately after we have signed a treaty, when they no longer have arms.”

The rebels, notorious for cutting off innocent civilians’ tongues and lips, signed a truce in August after nearly 20 years of conflict in the volatile northern Uganda region.

(AP/ST)