Uganda rebels demand more northern cabinet jobs

Aug 25, 2006 (JUBA) — Lord’s Resistance Army rebels want more top Ugandan government jobs given to leaders from the north and east of the country, LRA representatives said at peace talks in southern Sudan on Thursday.

The northern rebels say those regions have been marginalised by President Yoweri Museveni’s administration during their two-decade war — one of the world’s most brutal insurgencies.

“We propose affirmative action for representation of qualified people from the north and eastern regions on the cabinet and in all government boards, commissions and other statutory bodies,” said an LRA statement handed to mediators.

Museveni has offered the LRA leaders amnesty if they surrender but has rejected any power-sharing deal, saying the rebels would have to compete for office at the ballot box.

Uganda’s spokesman Captain Paddy Ankunda said the LRA negotiators were putting at risk the “soft landing” offered to their commanders, who are wanted by the International Criminal Court and have so far stayed away from the talks.

“If the political wing of the LRA is not careful they could squander an important opportunity for the fighters in the bush,” he told Reuters at the talks in southern Sudan’s capital Juba.

“The president is clear: no power-sharing deal with LRA.”

South Sudan’s regional government says it wants to broker an end to the LRA war, which has uprooted nearly 2 million people in northern Uganda alone and destabilised southern Sudan.

The talks began on July 14 but have been hindered by the failure to agree terms for a cessation of hostilities and the killing in northern Uganda of a top LRA officer by the military.

The head of Uganda’s delegation, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, met south Sudan’s President Salva Kiir on Thursday to discuss issues including designating areas in the south for the LRA to demobilise and disarm.

“The government of south Sudan is looking into possible points of assembly and they will be communicated to both parties soon,” Rugunda told Reuters.

The LRA entered Democratic Republic of Congo last year from southern Sudan. On Saturday, Museveni said Congo’s leaders had agreed to let Ugandan forces attack the rebels there if talks fail. He has set a September 12 deadline for a deal to be reached.

(Reuters)