Uganda violated ceasefire in South Sudan – LRA
April 27, 2007 (NAIROBI) — The Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army said the Ugandan army attacked it Friday in southern Sudan, a day after the resumption of peace talks aimed at ending 20 years of war.
LRA spokesman Godfrey Ayoo said Ugandan forces attacked the insurgents in south Sudan’s Magwi County on two occasions in the early hours, but that the rebels refrained from shooting back.
“If they continue to attack, we will ask our forces to defend themselves,” Ayoo warned.
The Ugandan armed forces denied carrying out the attacks.
On Thursday, the LRA and a government delegation resumed peace talks in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba after a three-month suspension sparked by rebel demands for a new venue and new mediator.
Ayoo said the government had violated a truce agreement first signed in August last year and renewed on April 14 after the intervention of the UN special envoy to the talks, Mozambique’s former president Joachim Chissano.
“We have made our protest known to the leader of the government delegation, Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, who is currently in Juba,” he said.
“We are calling on the government of Uganda to stop acts of violation and we ask foreign nations to intervene since such acts threaten the peace process.”
The Ugandan army rejected the allegations and accused the insurgents of seeking to derail the talks, seen as the best chance of ending the conflict.
“We have not attacked them,” said army spokesman Felix Kulaije, denying his forces were in Equatoria, the area where the LRA said the attacks had taken place.
“They are trying to find a way to delay the process,” he said.
In Kampala, President Yoweri Museveni met with Chissano and they both expressed optimism about the progress of the Juba talks.
But a Brussels-based think tank called for more powers for Chissano and for the United States and Britain to deploy envoys to assist him in pressuring both sides to clinch a deal.
“The peace talks have improved security and begun to allow a few of the 1.4 million internally-displaced northern Ugandans to return home,” said International Crisis Group (ICG) analyst Adam O’Brien.
“But some of the wrong issues are on the table, the wrong LRA negotiators are present, and … Chissano does not yet have sufficient leverage to overcome the mutual mistrust. Simply resuming the talks under the current structure would be a recipe for failure,” he warned.
Rebel supremo Joseph Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti — among five LRA commanders indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes — have refused to participate in the talks and have instead delegated the responsibility to junior officials.
Kony has vowed never to sign a peace deal unless the ICC indictments are withdrawn.
The LRA took over a two-year-old rebellion in northern Uganda in 1988 and vowed to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni, but its campaign has been marked by brutality against civilians.
The war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced up to one million people.
(AFP)