The Ugandan army announced on Wednesday it had killed at least eight Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in the past week despite peace talks aimed at ending nearly 19 years of insurgency in the region.
Army spokesperson Lieutenant Chris Magezi said the rebel fighters, whose leaders last week declared a unilateral ceasefire, were slain during ambushes in the war-ravaged northern Gulu, Pader and Amur districts as they were ”trying to raid villages for food”.
”We have killed a total of eight rebels in the past one week in ambushes in different places in northern Uganda,” Magezi told Agence France-Presse by phone from his base in the region.
He explained that four were killed last Friday, two on Sunday and two on Tuesday.
The Ugandan government has refused to accept the rebels’ key demand of declaring a truce, arguing that such a move would give them time to regroup, rearm and recruit new fighters.
”There is no formal ceasefire with the LRA, therefore we have a duty to defend our people against the marauding rebel fighters who stage raids for food,” Magezi explained.
Government officials said the rebels posed a threat to civilians because they did not have food in their hideouts.
”These are fighters who have no source of food and if they are not fed, then they have to make raids for food and this will result in breaching the ceasefire,” said Robert Kabushenga, who heads the government information centre.
”Things like recruitment, abduction, acquisition of arms and hostile propaganda would constitute a breach of the ceasefire and we have to agree on these,” he added.
Peace talks, mediated by the semi-autonomous government of southern Sudan, aimed at ending the conflict hung in the balance on Tuesday as the LRA delegation refused to return to the table unless the government declared a truce.
The negotiations in south Sudan capital Juba had been due to resume following the LRA’s declaration of a unilateral ceasefire last week, but the rebels said they would not meet the government delegation until Kampala reciprocated.
Thousands of people have been killed and almost two million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion among the Acholi sub-region in 1988. — Sapa-AFP