| LONDON
A BRITISH minister has defended the UK government’s insistence on having rebel leader Joseph Kony and his chief lieutenants prosecuted.
An international row has been developing over claims that Britain is hindering the chances of peace in northern Uganda by insisting that the warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for the arrest of the LRA leaders remain in force.
But in an interview with the BBC, Lord Triesman said the demands for the warrants at the ICC had been made by the Ugandan government "and we supported it like the EU."
But he acknowledged that "a balance" needed to be met and that "the critical thing at the moment is to see how the peace negotiations go."
Triesman insisted that there were many people in northern Uganda who say "there have been a hundred thousand deaths, there have been mutilations, there have been young kids abducted, forced to be soldiers, forced to be sex slaves, two million people have lost their
homes in conditions of extraordinary brutality."
Under the terms of the peace deal, which came into effect on Tuesday, the Ugandan government offered a full amnesty to senior LRA commanders in return for them assembling at designated points in Southern Sudan. But Kony and three of his top commanders still face arrest by the ICC. | 
