Peace talks between Ugandan authorities and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) will go on beyond the end this week of a unilateral government ceasefire, officials said on Tuesday.
However, as the talks continue, Kampala will press ahead with military operations against the rebels, whose ranks the government maintains have been decimated by deaths, desertions and surrenders over the past 13 months.
”The military operation is continuing but the door for talks will remain open,” said Information Minister Nsaba Buturo, a day after the 18-day truce expired.
The chief government negotiator, Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, said he has travelled to Gulu, one of the northern districts most ravaged by the conflict, for meetings on the peace process.
”I want to have the feel of the situation there and assess what should be the way forward,” he said.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who announced the ceasefire earlier this month in a bid to jumpstart on-again, off-again negotiations with the LRA, was expected to address the matter later on Tuesday, Buturo said.
The truce began on February 3 in a stretch of land in the Gulu and Kitgum districts as a confidence-building measure after nascent talks appeared to be collapsing following the first face-to-face meetings with the rebels in December.
Military operations have continued in other areas during the truce.
Buturo said the government is still urging LRA fighters — who officials say now number only about 400 — to surrender and take advantage of a government amnesty.
”They have nothing to fear because their former commanders who have surrendered to us have been well treated and we are ready to receive and welcome them,” he said.
Last week, a senior rebel commander who had been leading the LRA delegation at the peace talks, Sam Kolo, surrendered, throwing the negotiations into uncertainty.
But Buturo stressed Kampala is ready to keep talking with LRA officials willing to discuss ending their 18-year insurgency that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and forced up to 1,6-million people from their homes.
Meanwhile, Ugandan army spokesperson Major Shaban Bantariza said that while the military will be resuming its operation, it will respect those LRA members involved in peace talks.
”It will be fighting and talking but pursuing those who are not willing to come to the logical conclusion,” he said.
The LRA has been fighting the government since 1988 ostensibly to replace Museveni’s secular government with one based on the biblical 10 commandments.
But the rebels are best known for their brutality against the civilian population of northern Uganda, in particular its treatment of children.
The LRA has won infamy over the years for abducting between 12 000 and 20 000 children: boys to serve as fighters and porters and girls as sex slaves for rebel commanders. — Sapa-AFP