Uganda denies top rebels show up at Sudanese camp
Sept 18, 2006 (KAMPALA) — Two main Ugandan rebel leaders have yet to turn up at a camp where their fighters are assembling under a truce, the government said Monday, despite reports of their appearance.
“According to the most recent information we have today, Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti have not yet reported at Ri-Kwangba,” said Ugandan Deputy Defense Minister Ruth Nankabirwa, referring to a camp in neighboring southern Sudan where the rebels were expected.
Martin Ojul, the head of the rebel team negotiating a peace deal with the government, said Sunday that Kony and Otti had arrived at the camp. He could not be reached for comment Monday.
Under the truce, the rebels were to gather at two points in southern Sudan by Tuesday while a broader peace deal is negotiated. The government has indicated it might extend the deadline because of difficulties in communicating with the rebels. Most are hiding in the bush.
Kony and Otti, along with three other rebel leaders in the Lord’s Resistance Army, are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. U.N. officials estimate the group has kidnapped 20,000 children in the past two decades, turning the boys into soldiers and the girls into sex slaves for rebel commanders.
The rebels, notorious for cutting off the tongues and lips of innocent civilians during the insurgency, signed a truce with the government late last month.
If both sides reach a comprehensive deal, it will be a major breakthrough in pacifying the volatile region comprising northern Uganda, eastern Congo and southern Sudan. Rebels from all three nations operated across the borders with impunity for decades until a peace accord halted Congo’s civil war in 2003 and southern Sudanese rebels joined Sudan’s government in 2005.
Earlier this year the ICC pressed Uganda, Sudan and Congo to hand Ugandan rebel suspects over for trial. However, earlier this month, Otti said a comprehensive peace deal could be threatened by the international arrest warrants and President Yoweri Museveni has promised not to turn the suspects over in return for an end to the insurgency.
Human rights groups have condemned Museveni’s amnesty offer, but the president argues peace is more important than an international trial.
The Lord’s Resistance Army was formed from the remnants of a northern Uganda rebellion that began in 1986 after Museveni, a southerner, overthrew a brutal military junta.
Kony mixed northern politics with religious mysticism, declaring himself a Christian prophet fighting to rule this country of 26 million people by the Ten Commandments.
(AP/ST)