Sudan welcomes LRA rebels, but only for talks

March 3, 2007 (JUBA, Sudan) — Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir says the presence of Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army in Sudan will only be tolerated for peace negotiations, a special envoy for the talks said on Saturday.

Bashir threatened in January to “get rid of the LRA from Sudan” and the rebels have refused to resume talks in the southern Sudanese capital, Juba, unless a venue outside Sudan can be found, saying they fear for their safety.

Kampala rejects the request as a time-wasting tactic.

A group of LRA rebels was permitted to stay in south Sudan near the Ugandan border under a landmark truce with Kampala and south Sudanese mediators.

This week the LRA said they would not renew the truce, raising fears of a new chapter in the brutal 20-year war in northern Uganda, which borders southern Sudan.

The U.N. envoy for the conflict, Joaquim Chissano, a former Mozambique president, said the Sudanese president had clarified that he welcomed the LRA in south Sudan, but only for peace talks.

“He clarified his position … These people are welcome to the talks and to dialogue. But if they are not going to participate in peace there is no reason for them to stay in Sudan,” Chissano said Juba.

“The only way forward is to talk with everybody until consensus is reached.”

The ceasefire, signed in August and renewed last December, raised hopes of an end to a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 1.7 million in northern Uganda.

A group of northern Ugandan leaders meeting in Juba to salvage the talks expressed hope that negotiations would resume.

“We are going to be building consensus over where the talks should be and who will mediate,” Kenneth Oketta, from the Acholi Peace Conference said of the meeting which began on Friday and is being attended by more than 100 people.

(Reuters)