Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has ordered the army to resume attacks against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, after last-minute hitches scuppered a truce agreement on New Year’s Eve, the army said on Saturday.
”We have orders (from the president) to resume full operations.
The ceasefire expired last night and in Uganda it is now full operations against LRA rebels,” said army spokesperson Major Shaban Bantariza.
”The president said that the army is going to maintain pressure against the rebels, after 46 days of a ceasefire, because nothing has been achieved,” said Museveni’s spokesperson Onapito Ekomoloit after the Ugandan leader addressed a crowd in northern Gulu district on the turn of the New Year.
Museveni on November 14 announced a limited ceasefire to allow the insurgents to gather in specific areas of northern Uganda to discuss the possibility of launching serious peace talks.
But talks between the Ugandan government and rebels this week failed to clinch a ceasefire that would allow peace talks aimed at ending an 18-year war in northern Uganda. The temporary truce expired on December 31.
”The president however said that the door for negotiations will be left open and called on the rebel leaders, (LRA leader) Joseph Kony and (senior commander) Vincent Otti, to surrender or the army will have no alternative but to kill them,” Ekomoloit said.
”The international community and religious leaders have witnessed what had happened during the negotiations,” that took place over three days this week in northern Kitgum district, Onapito quoted Museveni as saying.
The LRA, which rose up against the government in 1988, is notorious for its brutality against the civilian population, in particular the practice of abducting children: boys to serve as recruits and girls as sexual slaves to rebel commanders.
Several relief agencies estimate that 1,6-million people have been displaced in northern Uganda and up to 20 000 children have been abducted, many of them still unaccounted for. – Sapa-AFP