Ugandan deputy rebel chief seeks asylum in Congo – official

Sept 23, 2005 (KAMPALA) — The deputy chief of rebels waging a 19-year civil war in northern Uganda has fled to Congo and sought political asylum, Uganda’s defense minister said Friday.

Congolese officials told their Ugandan counterparts that Vincent Otti and 50 fighters of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army applied for asylum after fleeing into the Garamba National Park in northeastern Congo, Defense Minister Amama Mbabazi told journalists.

The Lord’s Resistance Army has little contact with the outside world and its leaders couldn’t be contacted for comment.

Using rear bases in Sudan, the Lord’s Resistance Army has launched a campaign of murder, rape and abductions, killing tens of thousands of civilians and forcing more than 1.6 million people to flee their homes.

Sudan’s former government supported the Ugandan rebels in retaliation for Uganda’s support of former southern Sudanese insurgents. The two countries later signed a deal to allow Ugandan troops to fight the elusive rebels in southern Sudan.

The deputy rebel chief fled southern Sudan following persistent attacks by Ugandan troops in recent days. A second group of insurgents is moving toward the Congolese border, but a third group – commanded by rebel leader Joseph Kony – remains in the territory controlled by Sudanese troops, Mbabazi said.

The Lord’s Resistance Army is made up of the remnants of a northern rebellion that began after President Yoweri Museveni, a southerner, took power in 1986. It holds no territory and is best known for kidnapping thousands of children and forcing them to become soldiers or sex slaves.

(AP/ST)