Sudan extends deal allowing Uganda to pursue LRA rebels
Nov 20, 2005 (KAMPALA) — Sudan has agreed to extend a deal that allows Ugandan troops to pursue rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) deep into its territory, military officials said Sunday.
“We have agreed to extend the period of the protocol for UPDF (Ugandan People’s Defence Forces) operations in Sudan to January 19, 2006,” the officials said in a statement.
The agreement, renewed after the expiry of an earlier one on November 7, also extends Uganda’s operations into all LRA hideouts and allows it to use the southern Sudanese airports of Yei and Juba.
The operations will be coordinated by ground forces and intelligence of the Ugandan, Sudanese and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) armies.
It also calls on the SPLA and the Sudanese army to ensure that captured LRA camps are not reoccupied.
The deal was signed by Uganda’s military chief General Aronda Nyakairima, SPLA’s Major General Pieng Deng Knol and the Sudanese army’s Major General Elmahi Mahamud.
The trio also vowed to cooperate with the International Criminal Court in the execution of arrest warrants issued against LRA leaders.
The LRA is accused of massive atrocities in the Uganda’s northern region, including abductions of at least 20,000 children who are used as porters, fighters and sex slaves for the group’s commanders.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 1.6 million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion against Kampala in 1988.
(AFP/ST)