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Uganda: Museveni Insists On Kony ICC Arrests
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The Monitor (Kampala)
October 28, 2006
Posted to the web October 27, 2006
Posted to the web October 27, 2006
Solomon Muyita, Grace Natabaalo & Emmanuel Gyezaho
Munyonyo
Munyonyo
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni insists that the International Criminal Court should maintain the international arrest warrant against LRA commanders.
He said it would be a "tactical error" to comply with the rebels' condition that the indictment and warrant be lifted before they sign the peace pact in the ongoing talks in South Sudan.
"The ICC is actually very good for us (Uganda) because it makes the terrorists (rebels) come up to seek peace and end impunity. ICC was
created to fight impunity," the President said.
He was addressing the annual conference and general meeting of the East African Law Society at Speke Resort Munyonyo in Kampala.
Museveni told over 400 lawyers from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda that peace in Northern Uganda would come irrespective of what comes out of the talks.
"To ask the ICC to withdraw the warrant without any remedy is to condone impunity," the President said. "Here is a terrorist, you have not reconciled with and you throw away the stick (warrant)? We need to first create a new situation then we can talk to the ICC. I'm told it can review it," he said.
Museveni gave a background to the Kony war, which he said started as an indirect conflict between Uganda and Sudan. He said the Arabs in Sudan who were at war with the black southern Sudanese got scared of him when he came into
power.
"The Arabs became suspicious of us because we were pan Africanists and they feared we would support the blacks in southern Sudan whom they wanted to 'Arabanise'. "On August 22, 1986, they attacked us with the aim of changing the regime," Museveni said. He said his government had to sympathise with the black Sudanese to fight the Arabs, until when they signed for peace.
"It's not really a war between Uganda and those terrorists you hear about. They (Sudan) used them to overthrow us or intimidate us, but of course we were not interested in being overthrown," Museveni said, adding, "Sudan miscalculated."
The ICC indicted five LRA leaders, including Kony and his deputy, Vincent Otti for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
To support his position that his government can deal with the issue even in the presence of the ICC warrants, Museveni said "we have
already killed some of them, so there is always a solution."
He said with the warrants in place, countries like Sudan that used to sponsor the rebels would keep away for fear of being implicated in aiding impunity.
Museveni said the current peace talks are just a way of giving the rebels a soft landing. "The peace talks you are talking about is really a tail end of the problem in the north. If they are clever enough, they should come out. In any case, we shall get them or kill them," he vowed.
The President said since it is Uganda that complained to the ICC, in case the rebels came out for peace, the government would tell the world court that "a new situation has arisen and the people have found an alternative method of conflict resolution."
He said the option of adopting the Acholi method of Mato-Put is still possible. "In order to help these people get a
soft landing, why not use a traditional system?" he said.
"If they refuse, we shall go and get them the usual way and there will be peace. The terrorists were defeated...we are really mopping up," he said.
Meanwhile in a new ultimatum, the Lord's Resistance Army rebels have been given a week to assemble at Owiny-Ki-bul, despite a Wednesday vow by the rebel outfit's second in command, Vincent Otti, that his forces will not move any inch closer to that assembly point.
State Minister for Defence Ruth Nankabirwa said yesterday that the government and the LRA, currently charting a peaceful end to the northern conflict, were on the brink of signing an extension to the August 26 truce. The extension details a host of concessions that the parties have zeroed down on.
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She told reporters at the Media Centre in Kampala that the two warring protagonists at the Juba talks had made considerable
concessions and agreed that there is need to extend the truce.
"That is an achievement," she said, but "The issue of assembling has been emphasised. The LRA have to assemble at the two designated assembly points. It is a must."
On Wednesday, the rebels demanded six more weeks, in which their scattered forces in South Sudan and northern Uganda could move to Ri-Kwangba, a shanty outpost at the DR-Congo-Sudan border, as their preferred assembly point.
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