Grace Matsiko & Frank Nyakairu
21 October 2007
Kampala/Juba — THREE senior commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army surrendered yesterday to the Sudan People's Liberation Army, lending credence to reports that there has been a major split within the ranks of the rebel group.
Commanders Caesar Acellam, Kwoyelo, and Smart Okello entered the SPLA camp at Maridi having trekked for days from Garamba Forest, the northeastern DR Congo base of LRA chief Joseph Kony. Maridi is a six-hour drive from Garamba on very bad roads.
The three rebel commanders are believed to have been caught up in a reported gun battle on October 10 in Garamba in which Mr Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti found themselves on opposing sides.
Commanders Acellam and Kwoyelo are said to have sided with Mr Otti when the reported disagreements in the top rebel ranks broke out. The two rebel leaders reportedly disagreed over the direction of the ongoing peace talks with the Ugandan government in Juba. The Government of South Sudan is mediating the talks.
Sources inside the SPLA told Sunday Monitor last evening that Mr Kwoyelo, who has the rank of colonel within the LRA, had a bullet lodged in one of his buttocks.
"There have been problems in the LRA and these people have come to us for refuge," said a senior SPLA source who declined to be named considering the delicate nature of the situation. "We have received them, we have them in Maridi and we are waiting for further instructions from higher authorities."
UPDF spokesman Felix Kulayige said: "The three LRA commanders have reported to Maridi SPLA base and they are being held there. We are welcoming [them] back home. The fighters have been impatient [with] the indecisiveness of the LRA top leadership and the war was taking a toll on them that is why there are these desertions."
Mr Acellam, who holds the rank of major general, had been commanding the largest LRA force outside of Garamba. Together with Mr Kwoyelo, Mr Acellam was trapped in the Owiny-ki-Bul area of eastern Equatoria in South Sudan with a force of about 700 fighters for many months.
Several attempts by this group to cross the River Nile and join with the main group in the Garamba had previously been thwarted by UPDF forces. They eventually crossed.
Commander Acellam was for a long time the LRA field intelligence chief until he was injured in 2004 in a fire exchange with the UPDF in Pader District. Alongside Mr Otti, Acellam is said to be one of the most educated LRA commanders and was as such one of the brains behind the rebel force.
Reports that Sunday Monitor could not confirm by press time said that Commander Otti, who was reportedly disarmed by the pro-Kony faction during the Garamba clash, was ordered to call the media rebutting talk of a split. His fate hangs in balance and his whereabouts are not clear.
Meanwhile, the head of military operations in the LRA, Commander Opio Makasi, was by press time still being held by authorities in the Congolese capital Kinshasa. He was first reported to be in Congolese government hands on Friday.
It is not yet clear whether Mr Makasi, one of the most senior LRA fighters, was captured or voluntarily surrendered to the UN or the Congolese forces in northerneastern DR Congo.
But a Ugandan intelligence official said the Kony-Otti clash on October 10 left Otti's loyalists, Mr Makasi being one of them, scattered. The UPDF blamed most of the attacks in Pader and Gulu districts in 2004 on Mr Makasi. A security source in Juba said that Commander Makasi was leading a 15-man group when he was taken captive and transported to Kinshasa.
Mr Kony has since summoned members of his peace team to Ri-Kwangba at the Sudan-DR Congo border where some of the LRA fighters were supposed to have assembled as per agreement at the peace talks. Confirming this, the lead negotiator, Mr Martin Ojul, said: "I am on my way to Ri-Kwangba, I cannot talk to you now."
For the last 16 months, the LRA has been engaged in peace talks with the Uganda government. The two delegations are now consulting on how to implement agenda item number three on accountability and reconciliation. It is unclear when the talks will resume given the reported split within the LRA top leadership.
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Oh man this is great! I am so excited and I will be so happy when the war is over but we still need to help the children and the displaced families, so if you're reading this and you want to help you can go to www.invisiblechildren.com and they have ways that you can help them. Keep praying!