Ugandan rebel LRA arrive in Juba for talks
June 8, 2006 (JUBA) — An advance team of Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels has arrived in south Sudan’s capital to begin negotiations with the Ugandan government, Sudanese government officials said.
After a rare meeting between the vice president of south Sudan, Riek Machar, and the elusive LRA leader Joseph Kony last month, the rebels agreed to negotiations with President Yoweri Museveni mediated by the Sudanese.
Museveni has given the LRA, which is on the U.S. list of terrorist groups, until the end of July to lay down their arms and begin talks. The LRA terrorised northern Ugandans without a clear political aim.
The rebels, wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), have taken refuge in the lawless south of Sudan, embroiled in its own civil war for more than two decades before a peace deal signed last year.
Machar told reporters they were an advance team from the field. Asked why they were in Juba, he said: “peace talks.”
Another source in the south Sudan government said deputy leader Vincent Otti was expected to attend the talks as the head of the LRA delegation.
A Reuters witness saw around six LRA members in the RA International hotel in Juba. The source said the delegation arrived four days ago.
The Ugandan ambassador in Khartoum, Mull Katende, said they had not been informed that the LRA has arrived and that talks were to begin.
Analysts have voiced concerns that the autonomous south Sudan government was ignoring the ICC’s first arrest warrants for five top LRA commanders.
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir defended their decision saying they had to stop the attacks on their people. Sudan has signed but not ratified the treaty that created the ICC.
In a largely forgotten humanitarian crisis, the LRA have abducted tens of thousands of child slaves and forced more than 1.6 million to flee their homes in northern Uganda.
(Reuters)