9 minutes ago
JUBA, Sudan (AFP) - Peace talks aimed at ending nearly two decades of insurgency in northern Uganda have run into trouble after Sudanese mediators abandoned the rebel delegation in protest at a commander's refusal to attend the negotiations.
Obonyo Olweny, spokesman for the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), said Thursday that south Sudan Vice President Riak Machar, who is the chief mediator, abandoned the rebel army's delegation in the bush near the border of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) late Wednesday.
"The vice president got upset and abandoned us here because he could not convince (LRA deputy commander) Vincent Otti to attend the talks in person," Olweny told AFP from Nabanga, a small trading post along the frontier.
"Despite assurances that he will be provided security by the government of southern Sudan, Otti said he would not attend the talks because of the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant and absence of a cessation of hostilities agreement with the Ugandan government," he said.
"The mediators' demand is not acceptable to the top LRA command. If the continuation of the talks is pegged on that demand, then they are on hold. We are unable to proceed until such a time that the demand is
dropped," Olweny said, expressing further regret the "LRA delegation is stranded at the border."
The Ugandan government delegation has insisted the rebels send a top commander to the talks in order to show their seriousness, but the rebels have refused, citing the ICC arrest warrants against LRA chief Joseph Kony, Otti and three other top commanders.
The ICC arrest warrants cover a wide range of crimes including murder, abduction, sexual enslavement, mutilations, as well as mass burnings of houses and looting of camp settlements.
Kony, in a rare public appearance on Tuesday, flatly denied some of the atrocities his forces are accused of, but apologised to the people of northern Uganda and southern Sudan who have borne the brunt of war.
Olweny said Thursday: "The peace talks are on bumpy ground. "The chief mediator is crippling the peace process.
"This is not a good sign ... because it is not the responsibility of
the vice president to dictate to us who should represent the LRA," he added.
The LRA spokesman said that the delegation was being protected at Nabanga by Sudanese security forces as they were mulling a way of getting to Juba.
"We shall have to iron out some of these issues when we get to Juba," he said. "We have communicated to the people close to the vice president, and he is still expecting Otti to attend the talks, but that is not possible."
"This time round, it is the mediators and not the government of Uganda, who are complicating the peace process."
Mediators could not be reached for comment.
The talks that opened in Juba, the capital of the semi-autonomous region of south Sudan, are seen as the best chance to restore peace and stability in Uganda.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and some two million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion
among the Acholi ethnic minority in 1988, in a bid to oust President Yoweri Museveni.
Kony, a self-proclaimed prophet and mystic who claims to speak directly to God, purports to be fighting to replace Museveni's government with one based on the Biblical 10 Commandments.
But the LRA has become better known for atrocities, particularly the kidnapping of an estimated 25,000 children -- girls for sex slaves and boys for fighters.
The United Nations and relief agencies describe the conflict as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Numerous previous attempts to negotiate a peace deal have failed, with each side accusing the other of sabotage.
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