Frank Nyakairu
9 April 2008
Juba — The Chief mediator in the Kony peace talks, Dr Riek Machar said yesterday he had received assurances from the rebel negotiators that Joseph Kony will sign his part of the agreement on Thursday.
If the indicted rebel leader signs the peace deal at the assembly point in Ri-Kwangba on the Sudan-DR Congo border - it will be the first such step taken in ending the 21 year-old rebel insurgency in northern Uganda.
"The LRA delegation has assured me that Kony is in Ri-Kwangba and he is ready to sign the peace deal on Thursday," Dr Machar told Daily Monitor in Juba yesterday. "As mediators we have done everything that could be done to make sure the two sides agree to sign the final peace agreement. Let us wait and see what happens on Thursday."
Dr Machar, who is the South Sudan vice president and an SPLA General has been mediating between the Lords Resistance Army rebels and the Uganda government since July 2006 and secured a cessation of hostilities deal in August. That marked the end of the war between the Uganda Government and the LRA rebels since 1987.
Several Ugandan and foreign dignitaries started arriving in Juba yesterday and will leave for Ri-Kwangba today. Though everyone seemed optimistic and excited, the rebels were laid back. They accused the government's External Security Organisation (Eso) of fanning defections in the rebel movement.
The rebels say the Eso was using former LRA combatants and negotiators to woo their fighters from the bush. "Eso has recruited Martin Ojul (former LRA delegation boss), Denis Okirot and Rei Achama and they have been telephoning LRA soldiers telling them to come out of the bush," said LRA chief negotiator David Nyekorach-Matsanga. "This is a violation of the cessation of hostilities agreement and it must stop."
The Uganda government peace delegation was also expected in Juba yesterday to attend the Ri-Kwangba ceremony. President Yoweri Museveni will sign his part of the agreement on April 15 in Juba. Regional presidents including Omar el-Bashir of Sudan are expected to witness the ceremony.
Khartoum backed the LRA in a proxy war with Uganda in the 1990s in retaliation for Uganda's support for the SPLA. But a peace deal in Sudan in 2005 removed Kony's safe haven in its south, forcing him to relocate to eastern Congo.
Kony and two of his senior deputies are wanted by the Hague-based ICC for war crimes including rape, murder and the abduction of children. Fearing arrest, they have never appeared at the Juba talks.
A section of the peace deal on justice for war crimes outlines ways in which Uganda will try to deal with rebel atrocities internally, using a mixture of traditional tribal reconciliation rituals and Ugandan courts.
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