A truce that could spell the end of one of Africa’s longest and most brutal wars came into effect on Tuesday, Uganda’s military said.
Under the pact signed on Saturday at peace talks in southern Sudan, the fugitive rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have three weeks to assemble at two south Sudanese camps while negotiations continue to thrash out a final deal to stop their two-decade insurrection.
Both sides have committed to cease hostilities, and a Ugandan military intelligence chief was due to speak on radio in the evening and announce safe passage routes for the rebels.
”The commander-in-chief, President Yoweri Museveni, has directed us to stop search-and-destroy operations … We are not to shoot at the LRA except in the protection of civilians,” army spokesperson Major Felix Kulayigye told Reuters.
”We are in the process of pulling back to physical protection of displaced civilians. Where there are no camps we are returning to barracks. It seems to be the end of the war.”
Nearly two million people have been uprooted in northern Uganda by fighting between troops and LRA rebels infamous for massacring civilians, mutilating survivors and forcing thousands of abducted children to serve the cult-like group.
The LRA’s top leaders, including Joseph Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti, are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, and have so far stayed hidden in the democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But LRA officials have insisted both men will move to the Sudan camps within the three-week deadline.
”Time is not on their side,” Museveni told reporters late on Monday. ”If they don’t show up, it will be worse for them. They have nowhere to hide.”
ICC prosecutors said on Monday they still hoped for the arrest of Kony and his henchmen, despite an offer of amnesty by Uganda under the terms of the truce.
But with no police force to hunt down its targets, the ICC must rely on Ugandan, Sudanese and former southern Sudanese rebels to bring Kony and his deputies to justice.
‘Give civilians a break’
The truce was given an extra boost on Sunday when Otti called a local radio station in northern Uganda and told fighters in the area to gather at undisclosed locations and await further instructions.
They must not harm anyone or loot food on the way, he said.
”We want to give civilians a break … This time if we work together, peace will come … We are happy the process is going well,” Otti said by satellite telephone from the LRA’s jungle headquarters in eastern DRC.
Uganda’s head of military intelligence in the north, Colonel Charles Otema-Awany, was due to speak on the same station later on Tuesday to announce safe corridors to the Sudanese camps.
”On Mega FM, monitored by the LRA, he will declare routes which we will respect religiously,” said army spokesperson Kulayigye.
LRA fighters in northern Uganda are expected to cross the border to Owiny-ki-Bul, while those in DRC are to assemble at a second camp in the area of south Sudan’s Nabanga village. — Reuters