Uganda’s rebel leader flees southern Sudan
Feb 6, 2006 (KAMPALA) — An elusive Ugandan rebel leader has fled his rear base in southern Sudan and crossed to neighboring Congo, a Ugandan army spokesman said Monday.
Joseph Kony and 15 fighters of his rebel Lord’s Resistance Army left his hideout north of Juba, capital of the autonomous south Sudan government, early Sunday following pressure from Ugandan troops who have been permitted by Sudanese authorities to operate there, said army spokesman Capt. Dennis Musitwa.
Kony crossed into lawless northeastern Congo on Sunday afternoon, he said.
“Our latest intelligence reports suggest he may be heading to Central Africa and that he passed through Congo’s Garamba National Park,” Musitwa told The Associated Press. “We exerted pressure on their posts and now we’ve got them on the run. It is just a matter of time till they are caught.”
On Jan. 23, Ugandan fighters ambushed Guatemalan special forces soldiers serving with the U.N. peacekeeping mission along Congo’s remote northeastern border with Sudan, sparking a gunbattle that left eight Guatemalan troops and 15 attackers dead in the Garamba park.
Uganda’s Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa had issued a statement accusing the LRA of killing the Guatemalans, and offering condolences to the families of the dead.
The Ugandan rebels operate mostly from bases in southern Sudan, but some fighters fled to eastern Congo late last year following pressure from Ugandan troops.
Small, highly mobile groups continue to hide in northern Uganda, where they launch sporadic attacks on civilians in Pader, Kitgum and Gulu districts.
Last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Kony and four other rebel leaders, calling on the governments of Congo, Sudan and Uganda to help capture insurgents it said were responsible for killing thousands of civilians and enslaving thousands of children.
The Lord’s Resistance Army is made up of the remnants of a northern rebellion that began after Ugandan 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.
Uganda invaded Congo in the 1990s, saying northeastern Congo was used as a base by Ugandan rebels.
Ugandan forces were among armies from six neighboring nations involved in “Africa’s world war,” a conflagration fueled by hunger for Congo’s mineral wealth. Most of the foreign fighters are gone and the worst of the fighting ended in 2002, but Congo has been left in tatters.
Late last year, the International Court of Justice ruled Uganda’s invasion illegal and ordered Uganda to pay reparations to Congo.
(AP/ST)