Museveni promises LRA amnesty
2006-07-04 21:13
Kampala - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni pledged on Tuesday to grant Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel leader Joseph Kony total amnesty if peace talks, due to take place in southern Sudan next week, succeed.
Museveni's office said: "The Ugandan government will grant total amnesty (to Kony), despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments, if he responds positively to the talks with the government in Juba, southern Sudan, and abandons terrorism."
Delegates from both sides are in Juba preparing for peace talks to be mediated by the semi-autonomous government of southern Sudan.
The talks are aimed at ending more than two decades of fighting in northern Uganda and southern Sudan.
Several attempts to broker an end to the notorious insurgency have failed in the past.
Two million people displaced
War crimes charges issued last year by the ICC against the elusive LRA supremo and four top lieutenants initially cast doubt on the latest effort.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and about two million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion in 1988.
This was in a bid to oust Museveni, and sparked what the United Nations and other humanitarian groups have described as the world's most brutal and forgotten conflict.