South Sudan gift to LRA Kony bothers Uganda
May 28, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Ugandan government expressed anger over the 20,000 US-dollar (36m-shilling) gift the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army recently gave Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) chief Joseph Kony as a goodwill gesture.
Kampala fears that Kony could use the money to rearm, plan and launch more atrocities against Ugandans, the Ugandan Reporter reported Saturday.
In the past 20 years the rebel LRA killed hundreds in northern Uganda have, thousands maimed and 1.5 million displaced into camps.
The Monitor disclosed that Museveni was the first to raise the protest during a meeting he held with the SPLM/A leader and Sudan First Vice-President Salva Kiir in Kampala on 13 May.
But Henry Okello Oryem, a nominated minister and former minister of state for international relations, downplayed Uganda’s protest.
“As far as we are concerned these people [rebel LRA] are like on a holiday,” he said. “Our view was that before they are given the money, there should have been deeper discussions… the LRA should have given an irreversible commitment that they are ready for the talks.
“The SPLA gave an explanation which we felt was genuine…that Southern Sudan needs peace so to give Kony money was in good faith.”
In a meeting held on 2 May, the LRA leader Kony received 20,000 dollars from the Vice-President of Southern Sudan government, Riek Machar.
Machar said at the meeting that the money was from Kiir to facilitate Kony buy food and not arms. If Kony does not follow the gentleman’s agreement he reached with Machar, he can use the 20,000 dollars in his pocket to buy 40 sub-machine guns on the black market, enough to energize his shrinking rag-tag band of fighters. In some bush markets in Southern Sudan, for 100 dollars apiece, he can buy 200 used SMGs, the Ugandan newspaper said.
“Secretly filmed”
However, a Geneva-based international negotiator is angry about the leakage of the details of the meeting to the media saying it was going to reduce Kony’s confidence in the process towards peace talks. The negotiator claims that Kony did not know he was being secretly filmed and that the pictures would be splashed in the media all over the world.
The other problem is that of the International Criminal Court which in September last year indicted Kony and four other top LRA commanders for crimes against humanity. The Hague-based court is unhappy that Uganda is negotiating an amnesty for the LRA leaders when the indictment is on.
The Museveni government has given Kony up to the end of July to make peace in return for possible immunity from prosecution.
Unofficially, Ugandan officials argue that even international court proceedings can be put aside to enable a national peace process to take place. As the diplomatic efforts continue, Uganda is involved in negotiations with several players in the Great Lakes on how to rout the LRA now encamped in Garamba National Park in the northeast of the DR Congo.
Regional cooperation
During his swearing-in ceremony on 12 May, Mr Museveni called on regional powers to join hands to resolve the Kony rebellion. “Some of these issues are not as difficult to resolve as they appear,” the president said. “The region, working with Burundi political parties, successfully resolved the issue of Burundi that had been paraded around as unsolvable. IGAD [Inter-Governmental Agency on Development] contributed decisively to the solution of the problem of Southern Sudan. The region had, earlier on, singly solved the problem of Idi Amin and stopped the genocide in Rwanda.”
The Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Aronda Nyakairima, and the Chief of Military Intelligence, Col Leo Kyanda, on Friday returned from the DR Congo after a bilateral meeting over Kony.
As Aronda and Kyanda were talking in Kinshasa, another regional meeting was simultaneously going on in Kigali where dissidents operating out of DRCongo, including Kony, were on the agenda. The Kigali meeting was expected to end by close of the weekend.
Another security meeting was being planned in the Sudan in which Kony has been invited. Earlier reports indicated that this last one had already taken place in Juba, Southern Sudan on Thursday but the director-general external security, Mr Maku’Iga Angalefo, said he doubted that such a meeting took place.
But these meetings are not a surprise to many observers of the northern Uganda conflict and the Great Lakes generally.
(ST)