Uganda on Wednesday set a July deadline for the leader of the notorious rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to end a nearly two-decade insurgency and agree to peace talks or face military destruction.
President Yoweri Museveni said his government would assure the safety of LRA supremo Joseph Kony and four lieutenants indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) if they agree to the ultimatum.
Museveni spokesperson Onopito Ekomoloit said the president would give Kony 60 days from receipt of the offer to be delivered shortly to accept the conditions or be dealt with militarily by Ugandan and Sudanese troops.
He said Museveni had agreed to the initiative with Sudanese Vice-President Salva Kiir, the leader of the ex-rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), who is also president of autonomous Southern Sudan.
”President Museveni said that if Kony did not take the latest peace offer, Kiir and he agreed that the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the [Ugandan army] would jointly handle him militarily,” Ekomoloit said in a statement.
Kony and several top rebel commanders are believed to be hiding in Southern Sudan and the spokesperson said the offer would be delivered to the LRA leader in the coming days by Southern Sudan’s Vice-President Riek Machar.
Informed sources in Southern Sudan have said that Machar recently met the elusive LRA leader, a self-proclaimed prophet and mystic, in a bid to help mediate an end to the war that has ravaged Northern Uganda.
Museveni mentioned the offer during a meeting on Tuesday with Hilary Benn, Britain’s International Development Secretary, whose office said afterward they agreed to call for a United Nations envoy to be appointed to deal with the LRA problem.
According to Ekomoloit’s statement, Museveni also offered security guarantees to Kony and the other ICC indictees if they agreed to lay down their weapons and enter talks to end their devastating nearly 20-year rebellion.
”The president said as much as Kony and four of his cohorts had been indicted by the [ICC], if he got serious about a peaceful settlement, the government of Uganda would guarantee his safety,” the statement said.
Museveni’s government had long asked The Hague-based ICC to prosecute Kony and his top aides before their indictments were announced in October and the extent of the security guarantees on offer was not immediately clear.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million displaced in conflict between the government and the rebels who have become infamous for their brutal attacks on civilians and abductions of children.
The LRA claims to be fighting to replace Museveni’s government with one based on the Biblical 10 Commandments but has become better known for atrocities, particularly kidnapping children to be sex slaves and fighters. – Sapa-AFP