/ 13 March 2007

Uganda’s fragile peace talks back on track, says govt

Stalled peace talks to end a brutal 20-year insurgency by the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army are to resume, government officials said on Tuesday. ''Both parties have agreed to resume talks,'' Ruhakana Rugunda, head of the government negotiating team and Minister of Internal Affairs, told journalists.

Stalled peace talks to end a brutal 20-year insurgency by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are to resume, government officials said on Tuesday.

”Both parties have agreed to resume talks,” Ruhakana Rugunda, head of the government negotiating team and Minister of Internal Affairs, told journalists.

No date was given, but LRA officials indicated a preliminary meeting could take place in early April.

The LRA told the Associated Press that it still harboured concerns, citing security worries because of the proximity of Ugandan government troops to their camps.

”We are still committed to the peace process and are looking forward to the next meeting,” Godfrey Ayo, spokesperson for the rebel group, said from Nairobi, Kenya.

Negotiations broke down in late December 2006 after the rebel movement walked out, accusing the hosts, southern Sudan, of bias.

They had demanded the fragile peace talks be moved from the southern Sudanese capital, Juba.

The apparent breakthrough came after a meeting that took place Sunday at Ri-Kwangba, near the rebel’s jungle base and close to the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo border.

During the meeting government negotiators, including Rugunda, met with rebel chief Joseph Kony and his deputy, Vincent Otti, both of whom are indicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A Ugandan government minister has never before met with the elusive Kony.

The meeting was organised by the United Nations special envoy for LRA-affected areas, Joaquim Chissano, who also attended.

Chissano has been in the region since late last month trying to secure a breakthrough, UN spokesperson Michele Montas said late on Monday.

The LRA is made up of the remnants of a rebellion that began after President Yoweri Museveni took power in 1986. The rebels are notorious for cutting off the tongues and lips of civilians and abducting thousands of children, turning girls into sex slaves and boys into fighters. — Sapa-AP