Sudan, Uganda to join hands in hunt for rebel leader: official

KAMPALA, Feb 9, 2005 (Xinhua) — The Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) will join hands with the Ugandan army to hunt for leader of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) Joseph Kony in southern Sudan, local press reported on Wednesday.

SPLA Deputy Governor for Political Affairs in the Equatorial province Johnson Juma Okot was quoted as saying that the SPLA would smoke out the rebel leader and his remaining cohorts and get rid of them if they do not negotiate peace with the Ugandan government to end the 18-year-long northern conflict.

“We shall not leave any stone unturned to get a permanent solution to the LRA problem. The LRA insecurity has continued to devastate both northern Uganda and southern Sudan. Kony rebels have been abducting and killing our people and their blood will pour on them,” Okot said at a celebration rally in Nimule, southern Sudan recently to mark the signing of a peace deal with the Sudanese government.

Okot said Uganda contributed a lot to the existing freedom in southern Sudan and the SPLA would not hesitate to support the Ugandan army to ensure equivalent peace in northern Uganda.

“There are no houses in northern Uganda and southern Sudan due to the long wars. We need to work together to bring peace in the two places since we are one people,” he said.

He said southern Sudan will not be at peace if northern Uganda remains in a state of war, adding that the LRA conflict should be solved politically because both people in northern Uganda and southern Sudan have been affected by the conflict.

The LRA rebels, based in southern Sudan, have killed tens of thousands of civilians, abducted over 20,000 children for their fighters, porters and sex slaves, and displaced over 1.6 million people in northern Uganda in their 18-year rebellion.