LRA rebels will be attacked if peace fails – Ugandan army

Sept 25, 2006 (ACHOLI-PI, Uganda) — Uganda said on Monday that it was prepared to hunt down rebels gathering on its border with Sudan under a temporary truce should talks aimed at ending one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts fail.

Addressing journalists on a trip to war-ravaged northern Uganda, Army commander Nyakairima Aronda said he could easily attack Lord’s Resistance Army rebels assembling at Owiny-Ki-Bul as agreed under the terms of a ceasefire.

“We know where Owiny-Ki-Bul is, we know how long it takes to get there. There will be no peace talks and it will be a free-for-all,” he said, when asked what would happen if talks in the southern Sudanese capital, Juba, fell through.

A truce signed last month required the rebels to gather at two locations: Owiny-Ki-Bul and Ri-Kwangba, on the Sudan/Congo border, while talks to end their 20-year insurgency continue.

Independent monitors say 60 LRA have assembled in Ri-Kwangba and 850 in Owiny-Ki-Bul.

But many others, including the LRA’s top two commanders, Joseph Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti, missed a September 19 deadline to bring all their forces out of hiding.

Aronda said he believed all LRA rebels who had been operating in northern Uganda were now either at or moving towards the assembly area.

“All the groups (in northern Uganda) have been accounted for as having crossed (the border) towards Owiny-Ki-Bul,” he said.

But he added that passages to the assembly point for any rebels still in Uganda would remain safe.

“The routes are still open for them to go,” he said.

The army’s statement comes two days after a delegation representing the LRA in negotiations threatened to walk out of peace talks because, it said, the army was “besieging” its fighters at Owiny Kibul.

Mediators say deep mistrust persists on both sides.

Kony and Otti are both wanted for war crimes in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague which issued arrest warrants for them last year on a request from Uganda.

The rebels are notorious for killing civilians, hacking body parts off survivors and abducting thousands of children to serve as fighters and sex slaves.

Otti has said repeatedly that the LRA will only sign a peace deal if the ICC drops indictments against its top leaders.

(Reuters)