Kampala — THE Vice President of Southern Sudan, Dr Riek Machar, has said he intends to visit the Lord's Resistance Army Base in North-eastern Congo amid claims that rebel leader, Joseph Kony, executed his deputy Vincent Otti.

"The LRA is in final preparations for their consultations and when they go for their meetings, I intend to visit Kony at the same time," Dr Machar said in an interview yesterday.

Rumours about Otti's whereabouts have persisted for over a month. Observers fear his death would set back an ongoing peace process aimed at ending more than two decades of insurgency which has displaced more than 2 million people from their homes.

"Kony told me that Otti is alive. We will see when we go there," Dr Machar said.

But reports say Kony's men have abandoned the assembly at Ri-Kwangba on the Sudan Congo border.

The LRA team was in Mbarara in western Uganda for their second last leg consultations yesterday.

Later this week they are expected to hold their last consultations with the Uganda Human Rights and the Amnesty commissions.

"We shall compile our findings from the meetings in Ugandan and prepare for the meeting in Ri-Kwangba in the next two weeks," said LRA spokesman Geoffrey Ayoo. "Those who will be going for consultations will also have the opportunity to prove that Otti is still alive," said Ayoo.

Since talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA started in Juba in July 2006, Otti emerged as a moderate among the rebel ranks.

He has been the link between the mediators, northern Ugandan leaders and the rebels.

Local leaders in northern Uganda and the rebels have called for the indictments to be dropped, but the ICC insists they must be upheld.

In October the LRA suffered a major defection in 20 years in which Kony lost his director of operations, Patrick Opiyo Makasi and scores of others currently negotiating a surrender deal with the UN peacekeeping forces in northeastern DR Congo.

According to UN estimates, at least 25,000 children have been abducted by the rebels since the war started.

Some of these children are still in rebel captivity, including scores produced by Kony and his commanders from their 'wives'.