The Lord’s Resistance Army has ‘disengaged’ from peace negotiations with the Ugandan government and will not continue the process until a neutral host country is found, a spokesman for the rebel group said on Friday, according to IRINNews.
– In the circumstances and due to security considerations, [the] LRA delegation are not going back to Juba but would prefer that the talks resume in a neutral venue, preferably Kenya, South Africa or other neutral country,” Obonyo Olweny, the LRA spokesman said.
The talks have been going on in the southern Sudan capital of Juba since July 2006. Olweny said the rebels’ decision followed recent comments by Sudanese President Omar El Bashir and South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit that the LRA was no longer welcome in southern Sudan.
The Ugandan government said the rebels had misunderstood the Sudanese position.
– I am very disappointed with the announcement by the LRA, Okello Oryem, minister of state for international relations and deputy leader of the Ugandan delegation to the talks, told IRIN.
– The statement made by the Sudanese authorities should have been taken in the right context. They said: if there is no peace agreement signed, then the government will kick out the LRA. This shouldn’t have been a basis of argument because we are in talks, Oryem added.
The LRA decision is expected to create concern and disappointment among thousands of people who fled the civil war.
An estimated 230,000 internally displaced persons, IDPs, returned to their villages in 2006 as prospects for peace improved with the Juba talks. However, up to 1.2 million others are still in camps across northern Uganda.
Olweny said the LRA would continue to respect the cessation of hostilities agreement signed in August 2006.
He said the LRA was still committed to a “mediated and negotiated” peace settlement between it and the Ugandan government “as the best way of bringing total peace to the people of northern and eastern Uganda in particular and for the rest of the Uganda in general”.
Regarding indictments by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against four senior LRA officials, including leader Joseph Kony, Ojul said the indictments remained an obstacle to peace. He added that ICC investigations in northern Uganda were one-sided as they ignored atrocities committed by the UPDF.
– We don’t deny that the LRA has committed atrocities, he said.
– The Ugandan army has also committed many atrocities in the north.
