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Uganda says will not hold direct talks with rebel LRA

June 16, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Uganda’s ambassador to Sudan on Friday welcomed talks between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the southern Sudanese government, but said Uganda would not talk directly to LRA leaders accused of atrocities.

Joseph_Kony-6.jpgThe LRA, notorious for killing civilians and abducting children, has waged war on Uganda’s government for 20 years, driving up to 2 million people from their homes in northern Uganda and triggering a humanitarian catastrophe.

Southern Sudan’s autonomous regional government has offered to organise talks between LRA and Ugandan officials to convince the group to stop fighting and leave Sudan forever.

“We support the negotiation efforts of the government of southern Sudan and encourage them,” Ugandan ambassador to Sudan Mull Katende told Reuters.

The LRA, which has kidnapped at least 10,000 children and forced them to kill or work as sex slaves, has bases in parts of southern Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Katende said there should be regional coordination to implement International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for LRA leaders.

The ICC last year indicted LRA leader Joseph Kony and four other top leaders, accusing them of committing atrocities against civilians. The world police body Interpol has issued arrest warrants for the five.

Last month the south Sudan government gave Kony $20,000 to encourage the talks.

An advance LRA team arrived in the south Sudan capital of Juba last Thursday to take part in the talks. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had given the LRA until the end of July to lay down their arms and begin negotiations.

“We will not hold direct talks with any of the five LRA members … who have been indicted by the ICC. But we are happy to hold talks with any mandated representative of the LRA,” Katende said.

He said no Ugandan delegation would take part in talks with the LRA in southern Sudan until the issues of indirect talks and regional cooperation on the ICC warrants were clarified.

The LRA is deemed a terrorist group by the United States, and the United Nations has criticised talking to LRA leaders responsible for “mass murder of the worst possible kind”.

(Reuters)

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