Major peace hurdle in Uganda

2005-05-20 15:33

Kampala - The Ugandan army said on Friday it had killed a senior Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commander who attended the first-ever direct talks with the government last year, throwing new doubts into halting peace efforts.

"We killed Brigadier Samuel Okullu who has been chief of operations and training in the LRA," said Kicoco Tabaro, the army spokesperson in the northern district of Gulu, the epicentre of the long-running conflict.

He said Okullu had been killed on Wednesday in Kilak about 40km northwest of Gulu town, which is about 360km north of the capital Kampala.

Okullu, better known by his nickname "Acel Calo Apar" was a senior member of an LRA team that met government negotiators in December in a bid to bring an end to 19 years of civil war that has devastated northern Uganda.

Those talks failed and despite repeated attempts to revive discussions since the expiration earlier this year of a unilateral government ceasefire, fighting has intensified in recent weeks with increasing LRA attacks on civilians.

A member of the government team involved with the December talks confirmed Ukullu had attended the historic December meeting but said it was not immediately clear how his killing would affect efforts to restart a dialogue.

Worst current catastrophe

"He was part of the rebel team, but we don't know how this will impact on the dialogue and the confidence-building process we have embarked on," the source said.

Mediators and local leaders in northern Uganda have been trying to lure the rebels back to peace talks amid a surge in brutal LRA violence but have thus far been unsuccessful.

Last week, following LRA attacks on war-displaced people and a passenger bus in which 20 were killed and 15 wounded, there were calls for United Nations (UN) intervention in the crisis, which UN officials have said is one of the world's worst current humanitarian catastrophes.

The LRA, which operates from bases in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni's secular government since 1988, vowing to replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.

The group is best known, however, for atrocities committed against civilians and abducting villagers as bearers, child soldier conscripts and sex slaves.

The subsequent conflict has displaced more than 1.6 million people, who are living in squalid camps in northern Uganda.

- AFP