Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
29 February 2008
Juba — Mediators and negotiators at peace talks between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) are hopeful that both parties would soon reach a final settlement after signing a permanent ceasefire agreement.
The ceasefire, which would come into effect once a comprehensive peace accord is reached, was signed on Sunday in Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, where the talks have been continuing intermittently since 2006. The discussions are aimed at ending two decades of a bloody LRA insurrection in northern Uganda.
"We can see there is willingness from both sides to finish the talks this month," Joachim Chissano, the UN's special envoy for northern Uganda, said, according to the UN news agency IRIN. "The feeling I have is that with this signing of the agreements, we are signalling to the combatants to start cleaning their weapons in order to store them. This is the end of the war."
The peace agreements sought to ensure equal distribution of wealth in Uganda. "We may be overwhelmed by joy, [but] let us not be incapacitated by this joy; we must take this peace to each household in Uganda," Chissano added.
The Vice-President of Southern Sudan, Riek Machar, the chief mediator in the talks, said: "Pressure is being increased by donors who are saying that they can only afford to support this process up to the 29th of this month [February]. They can only afford to support the implementation. We must move fast."
The head of the LRA delegation, David Matsanga, expressed optimism that both sides would honour their commitments. "I now can comfortably sit on this chair knowing very well that nobody will remove me from here until I sign the final agreement. You can now prove that on the LRA's side there are people who cannot renege on their positions. We shall sign and shall not make even a single step backward."
Similar sentiments were expressed by the Ugandan government's chief negotiator Ruhakana Rugunda. "We have reached a point of no return. We will stand by our words and our focus will shift towards implementation of the agreements."
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