Uganda wants Khartoum to deal with rebel chief hiding in south Sudan
KAMPALA, June 24 (AFP) — Kampala has asked Khartoum to deal with Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony who is alleged to be holed up in a government-controlled area of southern Sudan, officials from both countries said Thursday.
Sudan’s ambassador to Kampala, Sirajuddin Hamid Yousuf, told AFP that the Ugandan defence ministry had on Wednesday written to Khartoum to ask that Sudan deal with the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group which, since taking up arms in 1988, has earned itself one of the worst human rights records of any in the world.
“We have since brought it to the attention of our foreign ministry in Khartoum. The Sudanese defence ministry has also been alerted over the same and investigations will be carried out and action will be taken,” said Yousuf.
According to Ugandan army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni “directed the defence minister to write to the Sudanese informing them that Kony was operating in their own area.”
“We want them to handle him from there because we have no access to where he is,” he said.
In 2002, Khartoum allowed Kampala to send troops into southern Sudan, where the LRA has rear bases, but only within a specified area below a “red line” roughly parallel with the border.
Kony is now thought to be north of this red line.
Sudan and Uganda had long fallen out over allegations each was supporting the other’s rebel groups.
Recent years have brought a thaw in relations, one fruit of which was the permisson Khartoum granted to Kampala to operate militarily in south Sudan.
“We have deployed (troops) in southern Sudan but the LRA has fled to areas under the control of the Sudanese army and we want the Sudanese government to do something as per the protocol that indicated that when the LRA flee to areas under their control, then they take over from us,” Bantariza added.
The LRA claims to be fighting to install a government in Uganda based on the Bible’s Ten Commandments.
It has gained infamy for its abduction of thousands of children in northern Uganda, whom it forces into combat or sexual slavery.
The war has displaced around 1.5 million people in northern Uganda. The LRA has conducted several raids on camps for these displaced people in recent months, killing hundreds of civilians.