Uganda has no plans to participate in Juba peace talks with LRA

June 17, 2006 (KAMPALA) — Uganda has no immediate plans to send officials for peace talks with fugitive Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, the government said on Saturday.

The LRA, notorious for killing civilians and abducting children, has waged war on Uganda’s government for 20 years, driving up to 2 million people from their homes in the north.

They have also staged attacks in neighbouring southern Sudan, and last month the south’s autonomous regional government offered to mediate between the rebels and Uganda.

It had hoped those talks would begin in Juba on Monday.

“We have no immediate plans to send anyone,” said government spokesman Robert Kabushenga. “We have laid out our position very clearly. We cannot talk to any of the rebels who are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).”

Last year the world court indicted LRA chief Joseph Kony and four of his top deputies, accusing them of committing many atrocities against civilians.

Analysts say Uganda is under pressure from ICC supporters not to negotiate with some of the world’s most wanted men.

The LRA, which has kidnapped more than 20,000 children as fighters, porters and sex slaves, has bases in parts of southern Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

An advance LRA team — not including any of the wanted men — arrived in Juba last week to take part in the talks.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had given Kony until the end of July to surrender and receive safe passage.

Kabushenga called for regional cooperation to arrest Kony.

“He is now a big problem for south Sudan. Congo is obliged to hand him over to the ICC, and Monuc (the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo) is there too,” he said.

“They know their job, but nothing has happened.”

(Reuters)