Uganda counts on citizens
2007-08-20 19:22
Kampala - The government is going to ask Ugandans countrywide to recommend measures to take against rebels and others responsible for the killings and brutality during the 20-year insurgency in northern Uganda, said Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda on Sunday.
Government negotiators and those from the rebel Lord's Resistance Army group have taken a break from peace talks taking place in the regional capital of southern Sudan, Juba, to consult their respective sides on the next item on the agenda: how to reconcile the people of northern Uganda, and how to punish those responsible for atrocities.
The talks had been scheduled to resume in July but have been delayed to allow consultations to continue.
The responses - from representatives of non-governmental organisations, human rights activists and judicial officers - will be used during the upcoming talks, said Rugunda.
Lord's Resistance Army
"In all this, we will be looking for a mechanism through which the question of impunity will be answered while at the same time achieving reconciliation," said Rugunda. "This is why it will be necessary to examine the formal criminal justice system, the traditional and cultural reconciliation processes."
Officials will solicit views in 10 towns, Rugunda said.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for the top five leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army for war crimes, but President Yoweri Museveni's government has promised not to turn them over if they sign a peace deal.
The rebels have accused soldiers of killing and beating civilians in northern Uganda.
Southern Sudan has been mediating talks between the LRA and the Ugandan government since July. A truce has been signed, but the talks have not yielded much progress and have repeatedly stalled.
They nonetheless are seen as a good chance to end a conflict that also has affected eastern Congo and Sudan's south.
The Lord's Resistance Army is made up of the remnants of a rebellion that began after Museveni took power in 1986. The rebels are notorious for cutting off the tongues and lips of civilians and abducting thousands of children, turning girls into sex slaves and boys into fighters.
- AP