Frank Nyakairu & Grace Matsiko
10 April 2008
Kampala — By the close of day, today, the elusive commander of the rebel LRA would have signed a final peace deal at the remote Sudan-Congo border, ending one of Africa's longest wars, the rebel negotiators said yesterday.
Security sources at Nabanga, six miles from Ri-Kwangba on the Sudan-Congo border said the LRA's Control Altar Brigade, which protects Kony had arrived at the clearing - signaling that Kony was in the vicinity.
"Kony is around and tomorrow (Thursday) he will sign the agreement and leave the rest for President Museveni on April 15," LRA's chief negotiator David Nyekorach-Matsanga told Daily Monitor at Juba Airport yesterday.
South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar, who is also the chief mediator was upbeat yesterday. He told journalists that he had gotten concrete assurances from Kony's negotiators that their leader was at the location and that the signing ceremony, which was postponed from last week, would go ahead as planned.
"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 Reuters in the south Sudanese capital Juba.
The elusive Kony and two of his top deputies are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes including rape, murder and the abduction of thousands of children during their two-decade insurgency.
Fearing arrest, they have never attended the long-running talks in Juba, instead staying hidden in the wilderness of Garamba Forest in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ahead of the signing, journalists and witnesses including several of Kony's relatives began arriving in Nabanga, a hamlet near Ri-Kwangba.
But the LRA chief's final intentions remain far from clear.
No outsiders have seen him in months, and even if he breaks cover to sign the final agreement, his fighters have refused to lay down their arms until the ICC warrants are scrapped.
Security sources in Juba told Daily Monitor yesterday that an LRA base has been located in the Central African Republic.
"His senior commanders have remained behind at Gbassiguri where a few hundred soldiers have also been based for the last one month," the source said. Gbassiguri is south of Obo, where LRA fighters are said to have attacked a village early in March. But Kony's presence at Ri-Kwangba is a good sign though many believe he will sneak away after signing the final agreement.
Journalists were due to arrive in Ri-Kwangba last evening, but officials said, the rebels had erected two 100-seater tents for over 300 expected guests. Thursday's agreement is a culmination of a five-stage peace negotiation which has seen several agreements signed; on the cessation of hostilities, comprehensive solutions, accountability and recompilation, ceasefire, and Disarmament, demobilisations and Reintegration.
Kony's relatives, his elder sister Gabrila Akot, his uncle Ben Kiwanuka (named after Uganda's first Prime Minister Benedict Kiwanuka) and his ex-wife Evelyn Among were already in Nabanga by yesterday.
Government representatives are also expected at the signing. "The government team led by its chairman [Dr Ruhakana Rugunda] will be in Rikwangba tomorrow [Thursday] for Kony to sign," the government peace delegation spokesman Chris Magezi said. The government team left Entebbe yesterday afternoon for Juba, enroute to Ri-Kwangba.President Yoweri Museveni is expected to travel to Juba later to sign his part of the agreement.
LRA sources told Daily Monitor yesterday that the rebel group, plans to stage the first public Guard of Honour to be inspected by Kony.
By all intents and purposes, LRA plans to dignify today's ceremony which will be witnessed by a cross section of Acholi exiles from Europe, Canada and USA.
Conspicuously absent, will be Vincent Otti, the slain LRA deputy commander, killed on Kony's orders in October 2007.
Otti was reportedly executed for "planning to kill" Kony -a murder that almost disrupted the peace process.
President Yoweri Museveni will sign his part of the agreement on April 15 in Juba in the presence of regional presidents including Omar El-Bashir of Sudan.
Khartoum backed the LRA in a proxy war with Uganda in the 1990s, in retaliation for Uganda's support for the south Sudanese rebels. But a peace deal in Sudan in 2005 removed Kony's safe haven in its south, forcing him to relocate to eastern Congo.
Additional reporting by Reuters.
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