African religious leaders to meet Sudan’s Bashir over Kony

KAMPALA, Uganda, Apr 29, 2005 (The Monitor) — A delegation of African religious leaders will soon meet officials of the Sudan government to explore new avenues of ending civil wars in Sudan and northern Uganda in June.

The leaders are from the Baha’i Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Rastafarian faiths.

The group is expected to meet the president of Sudan, Omar El Bashir and his officials this year.

They are concerned that Joseph Kony’s Lords Resistance Army rebels have continued to use Southern Sudan as their base to launch attacks against the civilians and the government troops in northern Uganda.

“We resolved that an inter-faith peace delegation visits Sudan (Khartoum) to talk to ‘the government and civil society to find out what is failing the peace process,” retired Bishop of Kitgum Diocese Macleord Baker Ochola said on Wednesday.

The religious leaders were on Wednesday briefing journalists about the just concluded Inter-Faith Peace Summit in South Africa.

It was organised by the Nairobi-based Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa (Ifapa), with sponsorship from the Lutheran World Federation.

“The war in Northern Uganda is not about to end. It will take generations. Kony is now abducting children from Southern Sudan,” Ms Joyce Nima from the Uganda Joint Christian Council, said.

Government-supported militias, the Janjaweed, in Western Sudan, Darfur region are recruited from local Arab tribes. They are fighting the non-Arabs.

The leaders described the civil war in Darfur as “ethnic cleansing”.

The wars have left thousands of civilians killed in indiscriminate attacks and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Ochora advised the Uganda government to look for another independent party to resume peace talks with rebels in a neutral country.