Ugandan rebels reject invitation to peace talks in Sudan
Jan 19, 2007 (NAIROBI) — A Ugandan rebel spokesman reiterated Friday that the group will not resume negotiations with the government until the venue and mediator are changed, but the shadowy leader of the group was quoted by an intermediary as suggesting talks were still possible in Sudan.
The talks sponsored by and held in Southern Sudan have been seen as a good chance to end the northern Uganda conflict that has affected eastern Congo and Sudan’s south. But last week, the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army said it no longer trusted Southern Sudan’s neutrality.
Early Friday, the Lord’s Resistance Army wrote to the chief Sudanese mediator Riek Machar, who also is Southern Sudan’s vice president, to reaffirm that position, said rebel spokesman Obonyo Olweny.
“That chapter is totally closed. It will not reopen,” Olweny told journalists, referring to Sudan as venue and mediator of the talks. He said that his group would prefer Kenya or South Africa and had written to Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki to ask whether his country can step in.
His leader, Joseph Kony, however, seemed to have soften his group’s position, suggesting rebels could return to Sudan for the talks, according to Walter Ochora, a government official based in northern Uganda who liaises with rebels.
Olweny told journalists in Nairobi that he did not know of any change of position on Kony’s part.
Mediator Machar said Thursday that written invitations were sent to both sides Wednesday, calling on them to resume negotiations in Juba, the Southern Sudan capital, by Monday. Machar said the rebels had no reason to question his neutrality.
He added that he and the U.N. envoy to the northern Uganda, former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano, decided on Wednesday to invite Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania to act as external observers and guarantors of any peace deal.
On Tuesday, Ugandan government negotiators said they accepted Juba as the venue for talks and believed the rebels’ withdrawal was temporary.
It was not the first time the rebels have withdrawn or questioned the mediators’ suitability. Ugandan government negotiators have also staged brief walkouts.
Lord’s Resistance Army officials first declared they are withdrawing from the talks on Jan. 12. They said then they were reacting to comments three days earlier from Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who said that the only solution to the northern Uganda conflict was a military one, and Southern Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, who said that his government was losing patience with delays in the talks.
(AP)