Sudan says Uganda’s rebels now also its enemies

KAMPALA, April 22, 2004 (Xinhua) — Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismaiel has said that the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) against the Ugandan government now had become the enemies of his country.

In an interview with the New Vision when he visited Uganda last week, the minister singled out an attack by the LRA recently on a Sudanese army position. About 37 Sudanese soldiers were killed during the encounter.

But the question of the LRA led by Joseph Kony will be dealt with speedily when the Sudanese government signs an peace agreement with the rebel SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) in the coming days, he said.

He added the relations between the two neighboring countries are now normalizing.

Uganda and the Sudan once accused each other of backing the anti-government forces and as a result Uganda severed its diplomatic relations with the Sudan in 1995. In 2001, the two neighboring countries restored the diplomatic relations.

About Kony, he said that the two countries signed a military protocol in 2002, allowing Uganda troops to operate in southern Sudan and rout Kony rebels from inside Sudan.

“We also furnished Uganda with information in our possession about Kony,” the minister said.

Answering a question whether the Sudanese government can pprehend Kony and hand him over to the United Nations, he said that “of course yes, if we knew exactly where he was. My government exercises only partial control in southern Sudan.

Much of southern Sudan is under the SPLA and Kony keeps on moving from SPLA administered territory to the government territory and back. ”

The minister also said that his government wants to implement Uganda’s success story in the Sudan. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has for the last 18 years kept his country stable and growing. When talking of regional cooperation, Ismaiel said that the Sudan wants to promote regional cooperation and Africa should face globalization as a region and not as isolated countries.