Museveni says Uganda could hit LRA if talks fail

Aug 19, 2006 (KAMPALA) — Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Saturday Congo had authorised Uganda forces to attack the base of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in its northeast if ongoing peace talks between the two sides failed.

Kinshasa has rejected repeated requests in the past from Uganda to send its troops into the remote region, where LRA guerrillas killed eight United Nations peacekeepers in January.

But at a joint news conference with south Sudan’s leader Salva Kiir, Museveni said Congo’s President Joseph Kabila and Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba had both approved a joint incursion should ongoing peace talks in south Sudan fail.

Any attack against the rebels in lawless Garamba forest would involve Uganda, south Sudanese and U.N. forces, he said.

“We floated our ideas, specifically the idea of … operating against Kony and both Kabila and Vice President Bemba supported that idea,” Museveni told reporters.

“That is what is on the menu for Kony if he doesn’t want a soft landing,” he said, referring to LRA leader Joseph Kony.

Kony’s fighters have waged a 20-year insurgency, one of the world’s most brutal, which has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 2 million. Its top leaders left hideouts in south Sudan late last year for Democratic Republic of Congo.

Museveni said he believed Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti wanted to end the war, but were being misled by individuals from their northern Acholi tribe now living overseas.

“I know from good authority Kony and Otti really want to save their skins, but there are opportunists who … keep frightening them and misinforming them, because they don’t want this problem to be over,” Museveni said.

South Sudan says it wants to broker an end to one of Africa’s longest conflicts. Talks resumed in its capital Juba on Friday after being postponed this week when Uganda killed a top rebel wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Kiir said his regional government was committed to finding a peaceful end to the war, which has destabilised south Sudan.

“The military option will come in when we are convinced it isn’t deliverable,” Kiir said. “We have a time limit for ourselves and we think that the (LRA) delegates know it.”

Earlier this month, Otti said he was losing faith in the chief mediator — Kiir’s deputy Riek Machar — accusing him of plotting to have him arrested if he came to Juba.

Both Kony and Otti are also wanted by the ICC.

Otti called this week for South Africa to join the mediation effort, but Museveni has rejected that. On Saturday, South Africa said it had not received any formal request.

(Reuters)