Ugandan rebel chief Joseph Kony just escaped a weekend military strike by a joint regional force against the insurgents in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an army officer said on Thursday.
”He left shortly before the aircraft attacked the camp,” said Chris Magezi, the spokesperson of the joint force, referring to the rebels’ hideout.
Forces from Uganda, DRC and south Sudan launched an offensive against the rebels on Sunday, in an operation Kampala said was to force them back to the peace process, whose final agreement reached in April Kony has refused to sign.
Magezi said Konys’ lieutenants, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen, who also face International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants, were at the camp during the strike, but could not elaborate on their fate.
”The rough terrain and unavailability of connecting roads through the forested Garamba park made it difficult for the ground troops to be deployed within striking distance to capture the fleeing rebels,” Magezi explained.
He added that top military officials went to the camp on Thursday but did not find any bodies; however, he said that two fighters had surrendered.
”Strategically our operation has achieved a lot. The strikes were a major blow to the Lord’s Resistance Army [LRA],” Magezi said.
But LRA spokesperson David Nyekorach Matsanga said the forces would not capture Kony and urged for the resumption of negotiations.
”They cannot capture him [Kony], they will not succeed. They have to talk,” Matsanga said.
Kony has repeatedly refused to sign the final peace deal already inked by Uganda, citing the outstanding ICC warrants over war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Matsanga and Ugandan lawmakers from the country’s northern region worst affected by the two-decade civil war have condemned the raid.
The United States has hailed the military action, but the New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the forces to protect civilian lives.
On Wednesday, state minister for defence Ruth Nankabirwa said Ugandan forces were dropping flyers urging the rebels to gather at designated areas to avoid being attacked.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million displaced in two decades of fighting between the LRA and the government.
Kony took charge in 1988 of a regional rebellion among northern Uganda’s ethnic Acholi minority. He is accused by the ICC of raping, mutilating and murdering civilians as well as forcibly recruiting child soldiers. — AFP
