/ 30 August 2006

Uganda: Safe routes for rebels not finalised

Uganda’s army by Wednesday had not chosen the safe routes northern rebels are supposed to take from the bush to camps in southern Sudan as part of a truce that may mark the end of one of Africa’s longest wars.

The delay in announcing the routes, expected to have been broadcast on radio late on Tuesday, should not deter Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) guerrillas in the north from setting off on foot for the remote border, a government spokesperson said.

”Military commanders are still planning where the routes will go, but if LRA members are seen heading in the right direction, obviously no one is going to harm them,” said Robert Kabushenga. ”We are waiting to see what they do.”

Nearly two million people have been uprooted in northern Uganda by 20 years of fighting between troops and LRA rebels notorious for killing civilians, mutilating survivors and forcing thousands of abducted children to serve in its ranks.

Under a truce agreed on Saturday at peace talks in southern Sudan, rebel fighters in northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have three weeks to gather at two southern Sudanese camps as negotiations continue.

Few, if any, LRA are expected at the remote locations for days, where they will be monitored by southern Sudanese forces.

Will they come

If they go at all, LRA’s elusive leader Joseph Kony and his deputies are expected to arrive last because they fear being arrested and sent to The Hague for war-crimes trials at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Guerrilla officials have insisted both men will move to the Sudan camps within the three-week deadline.

Experts say the rebels have few choices left, cut off from years of support from Sudan’s government in Khartoum, which had used them against its own rebels, and ringed by states legally obliged to hand them over to the ICC.

The ICC has no police force, so is relying on Ugandan, Sudanese and former southern Sudanese rebels to make arrests. On Monday, the court said it still hoped that would happen, despite a Ugandan amnesty offer under the terms of the truce.

Experts say if Kony leaves the DRC for the camps, it will be the biggest boost so far for the negotiations, meaning the LRA is ready to sign a comprehensive peace deal.

If the talks collapse, Saturday’s truce lets the rebels leave the assembly areas peacefully, but diplomats say that is unlikely to happen — especially if the wanted men are present.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday he welcomed the truce as a ”step in the right direction” and that he hopes an end to the fighting can lead to better lives for communities driven from their homes.

”The UN stands ready to assist in the resolution of the conflict … and will continue doing its utmost to mobilise resources so that people suffering from the violence can receive much-needed assistance,” Annan’s spokesperson said. — Reuters