Uganda’s fugitive guerrilla Joseph Kony will meet mediators on Saturday on the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo border and may even sign a final peace deal, a rebel negotiator said on Wednesday. But the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) still wants more details on how Uganda’s government plans to use traditional reconciliation rituals to help him avoid prosecution.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for a fourth militia leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for recruiting child soldiers to fight in the country’s devastating civil war, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Bosco Ntaganda was charged for his actions during the conflict in the eastern province of Ituri.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warned Sudan on Saturday he will move against more officials soon if Khartoum fails to arrest suspects he has sought for a year over crimes in Darfur. Luis Moreno Ocampo told Reuters in an interview he planned to present evidence against new suspects to ICC judges before the end of the year.
Donors funding a multimillion-dollar peace process in Uganda have urged the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to show commitment to ending a two-decade conflict after its leader failed to sign a deal last week. Hopes of ending one of Africa’s longest conflicts were dashed when LRA leader Joseph Kony failed to appear at a signing ceremony.
The signing of a Ugandan deal to end 20 years of war was postponed in chaos on Friday as government delegates quit, the rebel negotiator resigned and fugitive Joseph Kony failed to show. The planned ceremony on the remote Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo border seemed delayed for at least days.
Ugandan government officials quit peace talks on Friday after fugitive rebel leader Joseph Kony delayed signing a final deal, casting doubt over the fate of nearly two years of tortuous negotiations. The draft deal with Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army had been due to be signed on Thursday.
Elders from northern Uganda tried to meet fugitive rebel leader Joseph Kony on Friday to salvage long-running peace talks after he delayed signing a deal to end one of Africa’s longest wars. The draft agreement between Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army and the government appeared to be near collapse.
Uganda’s top rebel leader, Joseph Kony, was expected to sign an historic peace deal on Thursday to end one of Africa’s longest and most brutal civil conflicts. The Lord’s Resistance Army chief was due in the southern Sudan jungle town of Ri-Kwangba to initial an agreement that is to be signed separately by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni four days later.
The leader of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels has delayed signing a peace deal in a setback to efforts to end one of Africa’s longest conflicts, officials and sources involved in talks said on Tuesday. Fugitive LRA chief Joseph Kony was due to sign a final peace accord on Thursday near his hide-out, but was reported to be sick.
Uganda’s fugitive rebel commander Joseph Kony is walking to the Sudan-Democratic of Republic of Congo border to sign a final peace deal this week with the Ugandan government, Western diplomatic sources said on Sunday. Officials said the Lord’s Resistance Army leader will sign two days ahead of an official ceremony in Juba.
Uganda’s fugitive rebel chief Joseph Kony will sign a final peace deal with the government on the South Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo border two days before an official ceremony, South Sudanese officials said on Friday. South Sudan’s Vice President Riek Machar has been chairing long-running negotiations between the two sides in Juba.
Uganda and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army are expected to sign a final peace deal to end one of Africa’s longest conflicts on April 5, about a week later than a Kampala deadline. Progress has slowed because of the rebels’ demand that the International Criminal Court drop war crimes indictments against their leader Joseph Kony.
The Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, is headed for a confrontation with the International Criminal Court after saying he will not hand over to The Hague the leaders of his country’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army indicted for war crimes. Museveni said Joseph Kony, the LRA leader, and his commanders will instead be brought before ”traditional” Ugandan courts.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez accused his Colombian counterpart of war crimes as Venezuela and Ecuador turned up the heat on Bogotá over its military strike on an insurgent camp inside Ecuador. ”A war crime occurred there,” Chávez charged late on Wednesday at a joint press conference with Ecuadorian counterpart Rafael Correa.
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/ 29 February 2008
Uganda’s government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army have signed the last in a series of documents paving the way for a final peace agreement to end one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts. But only hours later, the LRA delegation stormed out of a meeting held after the signing ceremony late on Friday
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/ 25 February 2008
Uganda on Monday accused Lord’s Resistance Army rebels of breaking a truce by attacking civilians in the Central African Republic, threatening apparent progress at talks to end one of the continent’s longest wars. Representatives of the guerrilla group denied the allegation.
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/ 24 February 2008
The Ugandan government said it had signed a permanent ceasefire accord with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group on Saturday, a landmark step in efforts to end more than two decades of civil war. Government delegation spokesperson Captain Chris Magezi called the accord ”another major breakthrough”.
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/ 24 February 2008
Nine months after the first arrest warrants were issued for those suspected of being behind atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region, the chief international prosecutor believes he has the masterminds in his sights. International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has vowed to target the most senior people behind the violence.
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/ 22 February 2008
Ugandan rebels have walked out of peace talks because the government refused their demands for senior government posts, a rebel spokesperson said on Friday. The two sides have been meeting in Sudan-mediated peace talks since July 2006 in an effort to resolve a brutal 20-year insurgency in northern Uganda.
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/ 4 February 2008
Sudan and the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force have agreed the terms under which the 26Â 000-strong force will deploy in western Darfur, removing a major barrier to its operations. Experts estimate about 200Â 000 people have died and 2,5-million been driven from their homes.
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/ 22 January 2008
Kenya opposition leader Raila Odinga vowed on Monday to step up his challenge against President Mwai Kibaki as political unrest re-opened ethnic conflicts across the country. The tribes that voted for Kibaki in the December 27 election disputed by Odinga were being increasingly targeted by rival groups with long-running grievances.
The Attorney General on Thursday called for an independent probe into Kenya’s election after a day of battles in Nairobi between police and demonstrators disputing the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki. The opposition called off a rally in a central park, saying it wanted to save lives, after a day of fighting during which police fired live rounds in the air.
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/ 14 December 2007
The rebels whirred up a cloud of orange dust in the stifling heat when they came to meet their victims at Koch Goma Camp in northern Uganda. They had come to plead for forgiveness. But now the dust has settled, and the 17 500-member camp is questioning the sincerity of November’s visit by the Lord’s Resistance Army.
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/ 26 November 2007
In 2005 I spoke to a traumatised filmmaker who had returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo where he interviewed a 19-year-old woman who 18 months before had been raped by 49 soldiers, one after the other. The pregnant teenager was then shot in the belly by the soldiers, killing her baby and rendering her sterile, writes journalist Charlene Smith.
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/ 20 November 2007
Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) said on Tuesday it would push ahead with talks to end two decades of conflict with the government despite the expulsion of some of its fighters. The LRA is notorious for its brutal methods of attacking civilians, slicing body parts off survivors and kidnapping children to serve as fighters and sex slaves.
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/ 20 November 2007
A commander and several fighters from Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have deserted the movement to escape a treason probe for allegedly collaborating with the government, a spokesperson said on Monday. The group fled in October from the LRA’s hideout along the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo border.
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/ 11 November 2007
Five years ago, Ugandan rebels bayoneted Ellen Atim’s husband and five of her children to death. Atim narrowly escaped and fled with her surviving children to a displacement camp where they have eked out a meagre existence ever since. Yet she says she is prepared to forgive the rebels who tore her family and life apart.
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/ 9 November 2007
An outbreak of cholera has swept a hideout camp housing Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, infecting its leader, Joseph Kony; his deputy, Vincent Otti; and scores of fighters, a spokesperson said on Friday. The outbreak was first reported in September, but details of fatalities remain unclear.
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/ 9 November 2007
Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony has arrested his deputy on suspicion of spying but denies executing him, a top peace mediator said on Friday. Norbert Mao, a top regional politician, said he had just spoken to the fugitive head of the Lord’s Resistance Army by satellite phone at an undisclosed location.
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/ 6 November 2007
Sudan has asked South Africa to mediate on Darfur, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Tuesday as attempts to end a conflict that has killed more than 200 000 and forced 2,5-million from their homes appeared to founder. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir met President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday.
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/ 6 November 2007
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and President Thabo Mbeki were meeting on Tuesday for talks expected to focus on tensions in southern Sudan and the deteriorating situation in Darfur. South Africa played a key role in forging the 2005 peace deal that ended 21 years of civil war in Sudan.
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/ 31 October 2007
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan has accused Gordon Brown of deliberately undermining the Darfur peace talks and has demanded a public apology after the British prime minister’s threat of new sanctions against Sudan if the talks fail.