Uganda’s LRA leader to sign peace deal on Thursday – Machar

April 9, 2008 (JUBA) — Uganda’s fugitive rebel commander Joseph Kony will sign a final deal on Thursday at the remote Sudan-Congo border to end one of Africa’s longest wars, the chief mediator at peace talks has said.

South Sudan’s Vice President Riek Machar said Kony’s shadowy Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) guerrillas had told him their leader was at the location and that the signing ceremony, which was postponed from last week, would take place as planned.

“The LRA delegation has assured me that Kony is in Ri-Kwangba and he is ready to sign the peace deal on Thursday,” Machar told Reuters in the south Sudanese capital Juba.

The elusive Kony and two of his top deputies are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes including rape, murder and the abduction of children during their two-decade insurgency.

Fearing arrest, they have never attended the long-running talks in Juba, instead staying hidden in the lawless wilderness of Garamba Forest in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Diplomatic sources involved in the negotiations said Kony’s final intentions were far from clear.

No outsiders have seen him in months, and even if he breaks cover to sign a final agreement, his fighters have refused to lay down their arms until the ICC warrants are scrapped.

Uganda’s government has said it will ask for the indictments to be lifted only after a final deal is reached. It was not clear whether that meant the rebels had to disarm first too.

“We’ve done everything that could be done to make sure the two sides agree to sign,” Machar said late on Tuesday.

“Let’s wait and see what happens.”

DISTRUST

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is expected to sign the deal at a separate ceremony planned in Juba for April 15 that local officials say will be attended by regional leaders including Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Huge mistrust remains between Kampala and the rebels after a civil war that killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 2 million more in northern Uganda and destabilised neighbouring parts of south Sudan and eastern Congo.

In the latest twist, LRA representatives in Juba accused the Ugandan security forces of using former LRA combatants and negotiators to try to urge their commanders to quit the bush.

The rebels’ chief negotiator David Nyekorach-Matsanga said that violated an earlier truce agreement and must be stopped.

What happens next might depend on the ICC, which says its warrants for Kony and two other commanders — Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen — remain active. The U.N. Security Council could ask it to put them on hold if there was a real chance for peace.

Agreements already signed by Kampala and the rebels set up a special division of Uganda’s High Court to deal with offences committed during the civil war.

The ICC says only a judicial process delivering stiff jail terms for grave crimes is acceptable as an alternative to the world court. And they say Uganda has a legal obligation to arrest and hand over the three men if it can.

(Reuters)