Uganda rebels to return to talks – mediator

Feb 20, 2007 (JUBA) — Representatives of Ugandan guerrillas in peace talks with the government will meet south Sudanese mediators in a bid to restart faltering negotiations stalled by a rebel walk-out, the top mediator said on Tuesday.

Last month, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) delegates quit talks that began in the South Sudanese capital Juba in July, saying they feared for their safety after Sudanese President Hassan Omar al-Bashir vowed to “get rid of the LRA from Sudan”.

They had called for another venue to be found outside Sudan. But on Tuesday, the chief mediator, south Sudan’s Vice President Riek Machar, said he had been given assurances the guerrilla group’s representatives would come back.

“There were differences between those (LRA rebels) who supported coming back to the talks and those who did not. Now they have reunited,” Machar told Reuters.

Two decades of civil war between the LRA and Uganda’s military have killed tens of thousands of people and displaced some 1.7 million more in northern Uganda.

Most LRA fighters are in neighbouring southern Sudan, but the top leadership — who are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague — remained hidden in the dense forests of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“After they (the LRA delegates) arrive I am planning to travel … with them to meet the (LRA) leaders and set a schedule for the resumption of the talks,” Machar said.

LRA delegates were not immediately available for comment, and Machar did not say when they would arrive in Juba.

A truce signed in August and renewed in December is due to expire at the end of this month. Many in northern Uganda are apprehensive about what could happen if it is not extended, though Uganda has ruled out launching attacks on the rebels.

Under the landmark ceasefire, LRA fighters were given until the end of January to assemble in two places in south Sudan.

But both sides accused each other of violations.

The LRA accuses Ugandan troops — who maintain a presence in southern Sudan under a deal with Bashir — of ambushing them.

Sudanese officials have meanwhile grown increasingly impatient with the rebels, and have blamed them for a string of fatal attacks on civilians near Juba.

Aid agencies fear if the LRA re-enter northern Uganda they could start attacking civilians and abducting children again, bringing misery to an already war-weary region.

(Reuters)