Sudan’s Kiir says LRA must disclose troops positions for ceasefire
Aug 21, 2006 (KAMPALA) — The First Vice-President and president of South Sudan government, Salva Kiir Mayardit, yesterday handed down another pre-condition for a cessation of hostilities to rebel leader Joseph Kony.
Speaking to Daily Monitor yesterday at Juba International Airport soon after he returned from Kampala, Kiir said the leader of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army must disclose his troop deployments in Sudan, DR Congo and Uganda to allow monitoring and management of the much-sought-after cease-fire.
The LRA declared a unilateral cease-fire on 4 August and called on Kampala to do the same. Kampala, however, rejected the call saying any cessation of hostilities had to be negotiated and carried out under the context of a comprehensive peace deal.
“Since LRA control no territory in Uganda, it would be difficult to monitor a cease-fire.” Kiir said
He said once the rebels agree to assemble in one area, they would make life easy. The president pledged that once a cease-fire is agreed, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) will act as a buffer force to ensure that Ugandan army doesn’t attack the LRA rebels wherever they will be assembled.
Kiir met President Museveni at State House, Kampala over the weekend.
“We have told them (LRA) that after declaring a unilateral cessation of hostilities, they must follow up and make their presence known, then we will use our forces to control UPDF. We told them ‘They will not attack you (LRA) and we shall see how logistics can reach you and we call in other actors’,” Kiir said soon after he arrived at Juba International Airport yesterday.
Talks resumed in the South Sudan capital, Juba, on Friday after being put off for a week to allow the LRA mourn one of their colleagues Raska Lukwiya who was killed by the UPDF.
President Museveni told a press conference he addressed jointly with Kiir at State House, that the rebels must assemble in South Sudan as a pre-condition for a cease-fire. He said unless Kony embraces the new proposal, the UPDF will continue to attack them.
President Kiir said yesterday: “In the case of the LRA, there is no territory they control inside Uganda and so it is always very difficult to control and monitor a cease-fire. But if they were to surface and assemble in one area possibly in southern Sudan, this is when the government of Uganda will be able to cease attacks. What is happening is actually hunting,” he said.
“We (Museveni and Kiir) discussed it (cease-fire) and he said there are no defined lines between the Uganda army and the LRA. If you have to declare a cessation of hostilities there must be a frontline which, if one crosses then that constitutes a violation,” he said.
Museveni said on Saturday, that Congo had allowed Ugandan forces to attack Kony’s base in the northeast of the country should the ongoing peace talks between the two sides fail.
But sources say DRCongo wants Uganda to first pay up to 10bn dollars in compensation for the plunder of that country’s natural resources and loss of life before the UPDF can be allowed in to flush out the rebels.
Meanwhile, the South African government says it has received no formal request for mediation in the peace process, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday.
“We have been inundated with calls about whether South Africa has been asked to mediate in Uganda,” Departmental Spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said. “We have received no formal request from the LRA rebels.”
(Daily Monitor/ST)