Uganda’s fugitive northern rebels accused the Ugandan military on Wednesday of attacking its guerrilla hideouts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and threatening efforts to resurrect peace talks.
South Sudan’s government, which hosted two years of talks between the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and Uganda’s government, blamed LRA fighters for a June 6 attack killing 30 people on the DRC border, including 14 south Sudanese troops.
But a rebel spokesperson said the LRA was defending itself after Ugandan soldiers infiltrated south Sudan’s army to lead missions into eastern DRC’s lawless Garamba Forest, where most of the guerrillas are camped.
”After several provocations, the LRA came back to defend its territory … and the attack took place,” rebel spokesperson David Nyekorach-Matsanga told a news conference in Nairobi, Kenya.
”I think that they learned a lesson that it is not very easy to attack LRA … negotiation does not mean weakness.”
South Sudanese officials could not immediately be contacted. The Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) denied the allegations.
”Matsanga is a consummate liar,” said UPDF spokesperson Captain Chris Magezi. ”We have no presence in that area whatsoever.”
A two-decade civil war in northern Uganda forced two million people from their homes and also destabilised neighbouring parts of oil-producing south Sudan and mineral-rich eastern DRC.
Ugandans told to leave
Ugandan soldiers have hunted the LRA in parts of southern Sudan since 2002. But last week the south’s Vice-President, Riek Machar, told them to leave, saying UPDF had abducted and killed a local man during operations earlier in June.
Machar, who was also chief mediator in the stop-start LRA peace process, said he wanted to avoid any more mistakes.
Machar’s negotiations looked to have collapsed completely in April when the rebels’ elusive leader, Joseph Kony, failed to appear on the Sudan-DRC border to sign a final peace deal.
That prompted Uganda, Sudan and DRC to threaten a joint military attack on the LRA, which is notorious for massacres, mutilating survivors and kidnapping thousands of children.
At an African Union summit in Egypt last week, the top United States diplomat for Africa warned that the LRA boss was re-arming.
Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, broke his silence in recent days and called Machar and the United Nations envoy to the talks, Joachim Chissano, by satellite phone for the first time in months. Both men said he promised them he was committed to ending the conflict through dialogue.
Diplomats and security experts question the credibility of many of the LRA’s representatives and negotiators, who have themselves appeared deeply divided since the talks stalled. — Reuters