Uganda wants ceasefire only as part of peace deal
Aug 2, 2006 (ON THE CONGO-SUDAN BORDER) — Uganda wants a cease-fire with rebels fighting a brutal 19-year rebellion, but only as part of a final peace deal, the country’s deputy defense minister said Wednesday, a day after the rebels said they wanted a truce before further talks.
Tuesday, Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony, who rarely appears in public, told journalists he was committed to negotiating peace and denied he had committed war crimes.
Kony, whose Lord’s Resistance Army is fighting a rebellion in northern Uganda, emerged from the bush Monday to meet along the Congo-Sudan border with a delegation of officials and lawmakers from northern and eastern Uganda and representatives of private development and peace organizations.
Tuesday, he held his first formal meeting with a peace mediator and an Ugandan government negotiator. He told reporters afterward that he would remain in the talks even if the government didn’t agree to his demand that a cease-fire agreement be struck before substantive talks could begin.
“I will try…to talk so that we cease the fire,” Kony said.
Uganda’s Deputy Defense Minister Ruth Nankabirwa told The Associated Press Wednesday that though there has been minimal fighting in northern Uganda, the rebels still loot food and abduct children, crossing into Uganda from their bases in neighboring Sudan and Congo.
“That is the reason why we cannot accept a cease-fire before we get assured whether the rebels will stop attacking civilians,” Nankabirwa said.
Just before Kony held a rare news conference Tuesday, Lord’s Resistance Army spokesman Obonyo Olweny read out a statement by the group’s top leaders in which they were categorical that no meaningful negotiations can take place without a cease-fire agreement.
The Lord’s Resistance Army is made up of the remnants of a rebellion that began after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni took power in 1986.
The rebels are accused of attacks on civilians and aid workers in neighboring Congo and Sudan, where they sought refuge as the Ugandan army gained an upper hand in northern Uganda.
The autonomous government of Southern Sudan is mediating the talks involving Kony in hopes of improving its own chances for stability.
The rebels’ political agenda is unclear.
(AP/ST)