Uganda will negotiate with indicted LRA leaders – Sudanese Machar
July 4, 2006 (CAIRO) — Uganda’s government has dropped its refusal to negotiate with leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army who were indicted by the International Criminal Court, raising the hope of success in upcoming peace talks, the chief mediator said Tuesday.
Southern Sudan’s Vice-President Riek Machar said Uganda’s delegation also had assured him they would allow the process to run beyond July 31 — a deadline set by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni — “as long as there is progress in the peace talks.”
Machar has been leading the effort to bring the Ugandan government to the negotiations table with the LRA, a notorious rebel group whose 20-year rebellion in northern Uganda has killed thousands of people, displaced more than a million others and spilled over into southern Sudan.
Five of the LRA commanders, including overall leader Joseph Kony, have been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Until now, the Ugandan government has been wary of negotiating peace with the LRA and has insisted it wouldn’t negotiate if any of the five were in the LRA delegation.
Machar said his talks with a Ugandan government delegation — which flew to Juba, the southern Sudanese capital, on Monday nearly four weeks after the LRA delegation arrived — had gone extremely well.
The delegation was led by Ugandan Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda.
“They even said they would negotiate with a delegation, which is headed by any of the five who are wanted by the ICC,” Machar said in a call from his office in Juba. “So the chances for peace are higher.”
Meanwhile, the Ugandan president promised to grant amnesty to Kony provided he rejects terrorism and talks progress well, the presidential spokesman said Tuesday.
“President Yoweri Museveni has declared that the Uganda government will grant total amnesty to the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, despite the International Criminal Court indictment, if he responds positively to the talks with government in Juba, Southern Sudan and abandons terrorism,” according to the statement.
Asked why the Ugandans had changed their mind about dealing with the five LRA leaders, Machar said: “I think because they genuinely want peace.”
In the Ugandan capital, Kampala on Tuesday, Uganda’s third deputy prime minister said his government hadn’t made plans to negotiate with the indicted leaders.
“We don’t expect the indictees to be in the delegation at the talks,” Kirunda Kivejinja told The Associated Press. “If our delegation reports back to us that this is the case, we will have to answer that question (of whether to deal with them).”
“There were no preconditions for these talks,” he said, adding that “peace is never struck very easily.”
Kivejinja, who is also Uganda’s information minister, said the deadline of July 31 could be extended if the talks are fruitful.
Machar said the LRA and Ugandan delegations had left Juba to report back to their leaders about the negotiations, which he expects to begin on Wednesday next week.
Should the LRA delegation return to Juba with indictees in its ranks, the Southern Sudanese government would find itself in an awkward position. While it has assured the LRA of safe passage, it also has obligations to the U.N., which has 10,000 troops and numerous aid agencies in southern Sudan working to implement a 2005 peace agreement that ended the 21-year civil war there. The International Criminal Court, a U.N. body, has pressed Sudan to detain the LRA Five for trial.
“Our priority is ending the war, bringing a peaceful settlement and then, after that, any legal process can take place,” Machar said.
Any U.N. attempt to detain one of the LRA Five, “would be obstructing a major process, which would enhance the legal process,” he said.
“So I hope the U.N. wouldn’t take such steps,” he said.
Machar came under criticism in May when he met LRA leader Kony in the bush and gave him $20,000 and food on condition that he and his fighters leave Sudan without plundering any more villages. A video tape of the encounter – made by Sudanese officials and broadcast on international media – showed Machar handing bundles of cash to Kony and telling him not to spend it on ammunition.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Machar should “arrest people accused of horrific war crimes, not give them food and money.”
But last month Machar said the payment had been a success as more than 90% of LRA fighters had left Sudan, enabling its people to enjoy greater security. The U.N. said there had been a considerable fall in LRA violence.
(ST)