Ugandan rebel leader threatens to resume war if talks collapse
Dec 2, 2006 (KAMPALA) — The leader of Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) Joseph Kony has vowed to resume his war in northern Uganda if the ongoing peace negotiations with the Ugandan government collapse.
Kony, who spoke on a local radio station in Lira district on Thursday from his hideout in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, said the rebel group shall resume activities if “the government is not taking these peace talks seriously.”
The rebel leader also contradicted his earlier support for government’s plan to resettle the over 1.4 million people who have been internally displaced by the LRA’s insurgency of two decades in northern Uganda.
“We cannot say the internally displaced people in Teso, Lango and Acholi should return to their villages because we don’t know what may transpire in the Sudan peace talks,” Kony said in the 30-minute talk show.
The LRA on Wednesday withdrew from the talks in Juba, southern Sudan, accusing the Ugandan military of attacking a rebel unit headed for one of the two assembly points, which was a violation of the truce agreement they signed with government.
According to the landmark Cessation of Hostilities Agreement signed by the two warring parities in August, all rebel fighters are supposed to assembly in Owiny-Ki-Bul and Ri-Kwangba, both in southern Sudan.
The rebel leader renewed their earlier complaint that the Ugandan military had besieged Owiny-Ki-Bul, forcing them not to assemble as required by the truce agreement.
“They are alleging that the LRA has violated the truce by not assembling at Owiny Ki-bul. How should we assemble when they have deployed 12 lorries of UPDF around Owiny-Ki-Bul,” Kony complained.
Ruhakana Rugunda, head of the government team in Juba, told the press here on Friday that all the troops of the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) have been withdrawn from areas neighboring Owiny-Ki-Bul.
He also called on the LRA to be serious and return to the negotiation table so that the two-decade-old conflict that has left tens of thousands of people dead can be expeditiously ended.
(Xinhua)