LRA truce on the table
2002-08-27 00:34
Nairobi - The Ugandan army said on Monday it had received a ceasefire offer from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), but the government accused the rebels of immediately violating the offer by killing two people in a roadside attack.
The rebels, led by a self-styled prophet who wants to rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Commandments, made the ceasefire call two days after President Yoweri Museveni repeated his offer of a conditional truce.
"The army commander has received the ceasefire request," army spokesperson Major Shaban Bantariza said. "He will give them a safe corridor to the designated areas where they should assemble, and then he will declare and uphold a ceasefire."
Independent political commentator Andrew Mwenda said allowing the rebels safe passage was "a major step in the right direction" towards peace talks aimed at ending the LRA's 15-year-old rebellion in which thousands have died.
Army offers safe passage
The rebels, led by Jospeh Kony, had initially been reluctant to respond to Museveni's offer, fearing they would be attacked by the Ugandan army as they made their way to the gathering points in northern Uganda and southern Sudan.
While the army's offer of safe passage would go some way to allaying those fears, both sides still have a number of conditions they want met before real talks can begin.
"The rebels don't trust the army and they want to negotiate the assembly points, how they will be fed and who they will talk to," opposition lawmaker Ronald Reagan Okumu said.
A further factor that could undermine the talks is the army, which contains some elements seen as keen to crush the LRA once and for all.
Museveni has long opposed negotiations with the LRA, but on Friday he reiterated an earlier offer to declare a one-week ceasefire for talks with the rebels, provided they stop killing and kidnapping civilians and then assemble at designated points.
Employing the carrot-and-stick approach, Museveni followed up the offer with a statement published on Sunday in which he vowed to crush the LRA by next February.
Hardline elements
The army launched an offensive six months ago to neutralise the rebels, reviled for hacking off villagers' lips and brainwashing children into becoming fighters and sex slaves, but the LRA has evaded army units and stepped up its attacks.
The LRA said on Sunday they were declaring a ceasefire from midnight on Saturday, but on condition the army did not attack them.
"But what ceasefire are they talking about when yesterday they ambushed and killed two people in Gulu," government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo said.
Defence ministry officials said a truck ferrying passengers was attacked and burnt outside Gulu town, northern Uganda on Sunday afternoon.
But Okumu, one of the Ugandan politicians picked by Museveni to negotiate with the rebels, said he doubted the rebels had been behind the attack.
"There are hardline elements in the army who do not want to see a peaceful resolution to this conflict and are stage-managing such attacks," said Okumu, who has been trying to broker peace talks between the government and the LRA.