LRA rebels to consult public
2007-09-26 08:43
Kampala - Ugandan rebels will next month hold a rare convention to seek public views on current peace efforts before resuming talks with the government, says a spokesperson.
According to Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) spokesperson Godfey Ayoo, at least 500 northern Uganda delegates would meet in Ri-Kwangba, a remote jungle clearing on the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo border in mid-October for a week.
A joint team of rebels and mediators would travel next Monday to the war-torn region to mobilise delegates for the first-ever public forum since LRA leader Joseph Kony took over a two-year-old rebellion in northern Uganda in 1988.
Ayoo said: "The agenda will be to get people's views on comprehensive solutions to the conflict as well as matters on accountability and reconciliation."
Elders urge ICC to drop charges
He said the convention was tentatively scheduled for October 15 ahead of resuming face-to-face talks with the government in the south Sudan capital, Juba.
Previous bids to discuss accountability at the peace talks were hampered by the International Criminal Court's (ICC) arrest warrants for Kony and four top commanders for war crimes.
Northern Uganda elders had urged the ICC to drop charges in favour of traditional justice because Kony had vowed never to sign a final accord amid lingering arrest warrants.
The meeting's resolutions would form the backbone of the LRA position at talks, whose resumption date is yet to be announced.
The ongoing Juba negotiations, seen as the best chance yet to end the conflict, had been tortuous but violence had receded, improving security in the region, where human rights groups had accused both sides of atrocities.
The conflict between the government and the LRA started in 1986 and had left tens of thousands of people dead as well as 1.8 million people displaced, out of a total of 2.7 million people living in northern Uganda.
The LRA had been accused of committing atrocities including murder, rape, mutilations and mass abductions since it took leadership of a regional rebellion among northern Uganda's ethnic Acholi minority in 1988.