The South African government has received no formal request for mediation in the peace process in Uganda, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday.
”We have been inundated with calls about whether South Africa has been asked to mediate in Uganda,” departmental spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said.
”We have received no formal request from the Lord’s Resistance Army [LRA] rebels. We will accordingly await a formal request on that matter before taking a decision on what course of action is to be undertaken.”
This comes after the LRA called for South Africa to mediate at fragile peace talks in Uganda aimed at ending the country’s two-decade war.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his delegation to the negotiations said the LRA request — made on Wednesday — was unwarranted.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and about two million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion among the Acholi ethnic minority in 1988.
Several previous peace efforts have failed and the Juba talks are seen as the best chance yet to end a war described by the United Nations as one of the world’s worst and most forgotten humanitarian crises. — Sapa