Ugandan rebel head seeks peace, denies war crimes – report
June 28, 2006 (LONDON) — The leader of a Ugandan rebel force accused of kidnapping thousands of children and mutilating civilians told a U.K. newspaper he wants to talk peace.
Joseph Kony, founder and leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, was quoted as telling The Times and the BBC in articles published Wednesday that he was innocent of the crimes against humanity charges he faces in an international court. He said he was guided by spirits and started his two-decade-old uprising because he wanted Uganda to be ruled by the biblical Ten Commandments.
“Peace talks are good for me,” Kony said in an interview conducted in a remote camp in Congo near where the borders of Congo, Sudan and Uganda meet. The interview, which appeared to have been conducted in recent weeks, was with a freelance journalist who reported for both The Times and the BBC, which posted a version on its Web site and was to broadcast the interview later Wednesday. The Times story also was published Wednesday.
Leaders in southern Sudan, where civilians also have been victims of LRA attacks, have offered to mediate talks between the LRA and the Ugandan government. LRA negotiators have gathered in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba. The Ugandan government, however, is wary and has yet to send a team to Sudan.
Kony’s public appearances and statements are rare, but last month he appeared in a video meeting with southern Sudanese leaders. At that meeting in the bush, he was reportedly persuaded to enter into negotiations with the Ugandan government and given cash Sudanese officials stressed was for buying food, not weapons. The video of the encounter – given by Sudanese officials to Uganda – was later aired by international media.
Last year, the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court indicted Kony and his top four commanders for crimes against humanity. The court has pressed Congo, Sudan and Uganda to arrest Kony and its top prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has criticized the Sudanese mediation effort.
In a statement released Wednesday in the Netherlands, Moreno-Ocampo offered Kony safe passage to The Hague to respond in court to the charges against him.
Uganda’s Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Felix Kulayigye, told The Associated Press last week that Uganda was willing to negotiate a peace deal, but wouldn’t talk to those indicted by the international court.
A Ugandan government spokesman said Wednesday that a team led by the minister of internal affairs and the junior foreign minister was headed to southern Sudan for talks with Sudanese officials about their mediation effort.
Ugandan government spokesman Robert Kabushenga said officials would then return to Uganda for consultations to decide whether to participate in the peace talks with the LRA. The team wasn’t to meet directly with the LRA delegation during the initial trip and it wasn’t yet clear when they were to depart for the south Sudanese capital.
If Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni “can agree to talk with me it is only a very good thing, which I know will bring peace to the people of Uganda,” Kony was quoted as saying.
Kony’s political agenda has always been murky, obscured by the claims he repeated in the interview that he was guided by spirits and the Bible. In the interview, Kony’s main inspiration appeared to be animosity to Museveni. Kony’s fighters are the remnants of a northern rebellion that began after Museveni, a southerner who took power in Uganda in 1986 at the head of a rebel army.
Kony said it was Museveni’s soldiers, not his men, who cut off the ears and lips of civilians in northern Uganda, then blamed the LRA. He also charged the International Criminal Court indictment stemmed from propaganda Museveni spread about him.
Ugandan officials dismissed Kony’s accusations as “absurd.”
“How can he claim he is not the one doing the killing when there are witnesses and victims who have given testimonies about the horrors of the LRA?” said Ugandan Defense Ministry spokesperson Maj. Felix Kulaigye.
International human rights groups charge the LRA has abducted some 30,000 children and forced them to become fighters, porters or concubines. Rights groups also accuse the LRA of killing thousands of civilians and forcing more than 1 million people to flee their homes. Many of the charges against the LRA have emerged from accounts of boys and girls who have managed to escape the force.
Kony described himself as fighting for the freedom of the people of the Acholi region of northern Uganda, and accused Museveni of wanting to control the region’s land and wealth.
“We are fighting for democracy. We want our leader to be elected – not a movement, like the one of Museveni,” Kony said.
– Newspaper Web site: http://www.timesonline.co.uk