South Sudan president hopeful of LRA-Uganda deal
July 17, 2006 (NAIROBI) — Despite a fraught start to talks to end the 20-year war in northern Uganda, the president of mediator southern Sudan said on Monday he expected a deal to end the conflict will be struck by September.
Talks to end the Lord’s Resistance Army’s brutal insurgency began on Sunday with Ugandan government demands for the rebels to withdraw graft claims and give up their weapons in order to win amnesty.
That came after the LRA threatened to continue their insurgency — notorious for the mutilation of victims — while accusing Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s government of warmongering, graft and political persecution.
Salva Kiir, president of southern Sudan’s regional government which is brokering the talks, said on Monday both sides had pledged to negotiate “in good faith”.
“We expect they will commit themselves to the responsibilities they have assigned themselves … so that they reach a peaceful agreement,” he told a news conference in Nairobi.
Last week, Uganda extended a deadline for thrashing out a peace deal to Sept. 12 from July 31.
“We’re expecting a peaceful solution to the conflict at the end of the period,” Kiir added.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted nearly 2 million more in northern Uganda and destabilised southern Sudan, which is itself emerging from a two-decade civil war against the Khartoum government.
The rebels, led by self-styled prophet Joseph Kony, have raided both sides of the Uganda-Sudan border and late last year set up camps in the lawless jungles of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Kiir said the decision to broker talks between the Ugandan government and LRA, whose top five leaders are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, was a difficult one.
“We were forced into this position because it is our people who are dying,” he said.
“We have two choices — to fight the LRA militarily, which of course would take time, or to talk to them, which is easy. Until they prove not to be forthcoming in the field of negotiation then we can resort to other solutions.”
Kiir was en route to Washington, where he was expected to brief President George W. Bush on the LRA talks, progress made in implementing the peace deal that ended southern Sudan’s war and sentiment towards U.N. troops in the troubled Darfur region.
Kiir became Sudan’s first vice president last year under a deal between the north’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) to end more than two decades of fighting.
Kiir urged foreign powers to put pressure on the NCP to implement the peace accord, which has been violated and lagging behind schedule, according to a commission monitoring the deal.
(Reuters)