Peace talks to end northern Uganda’s brutal, two-decade war have snagged as the government and Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels bicker over revisions to a landmark truce, officials said on Friday.
Despite optimistic claims of a breakthrough in a deadlock from Kampala and the mediators of the talks in southern Sudanese capital of Juba, the rebels said they had not yet agreed on the renewal of the late August truce.
The accord, which each side accuses the other of violating, technically expired last month but is still being observed despite the LRA’s refusal to send its fighters back to two neutral camps where they are to assemble.
In Kampala, Uganda’s Deputy Defence Minister Ruth Nankabirwa said she was optimistic the hurdles could be overcome and pave the way for the resumption of stalled negotiations on a comprehensive settlement to end the 19-year conflict.
“The two teams have agreed on a review of the cessation of hostilities agreement and they are likely to sign it tonight [Friday] or at the latest tomorrow,” she told reporters.
In Juba, Wilson Deng, a southern Sudanese military officer who heads a joint truce monitoring team, said a revised agreement could be ready for signing by the end of Friday.
“They have been talking on the revised agreement and we expect the final document to be ready today [Friday],” he said.
But LRA spokesperson Godfrey Ayoo denied there had been a breakthrough, saying that while both Kampala and his delegation had made concessions, the rebels had to be convinced of the government’s sincerity.
“That is far from reality,” he said. “We have not agreed on the truce and we will only sign when we are sure that all the gaps are sealed.”
The rebels are insisting that Ugandan troops deployed in southern Sudan either leave the area around Owiny-Ki-Bul, one of the two sites where their fighters are to assemble, or be quarantined.
Uganda has refused to quarantine its soldiers but officials said it had agreed to withdraw from area.
But Ayoo said the LRA, whose fighters at Owiny-Ki-Bul left the camp fearing attack, would not sign the new truce until it had proof the Ugandan soldiers were gone.
“We will not sign the truce until we are satisfied that they have pulled out, creating a sense of security for our forces,” he said, adding the rebels also want protection commitments from the autonomous south Sudan government.
“We need a commitment from [it] that it is capable of providing security for our forces and that it will make sure that there are no deployments in areas that have been declared free of hostile forces,” Ayoo said.
The rebels, he added, had dropped a demand for its fighters to all be permitted to gather at the second neutral camp, Ri-Kwangba on the border between Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
But they have held firm to their rejection of a government demand for detailed maps of the areas where their forces are now located, Ayoo said.
“If the Ugandan army is professional as it claims, then it has ulterior motives in its demands,” he said.
According to officials familiar with a proposed draft of the revised truce, LRA fighters will have one week from its signing to re-assemble at Owiny-Ki-Bul and four weeks to gather at Ri-Kwangba.
While there, the rebels will be barred from “acquiring, recovering or replenishing” arms and ammunition, they said.
Both sides have conceded violating the truce but indicated their willingness to press ahead with the talks aimed at ending the insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced two million others.
The conflict has raged since 1988, when the elusive LRA leader Joseph Kony took leadership of a regional rebellion among northern Uganda’s ethnic Acholi minority. — AFP