Angelo Izama
6 November 2008
A diplomatic meeting to end the Northern Uganda crisis is under strain in Kampala after repeated attacks by the LRA in Congo which humanitarian agencies, worried about the flare-up of a conflict in North Kivu, fret will escalate insecurity in the region.
The meeting, arranged by Dr. Riek Machar, the chief mediator of the Juba peace talks between the government and the LRA, will consider mainly whether or not a person assigned by rebel leader Joseph Kony can sign the final peace agreement on his behalf, according to sources close to the event.
The meeting is taking place at Speke Resort Munyonyo.
However, because LRA attacks continued over last weekend in some of their most daring manoeuvres this year, the Kampala meeting is weighed down by how much a signed agreement is worth.
"We will consider all those issues and review the peace process," said Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, the chief government negotiator and Minister of Internal Affairs.
Mr Rugunda said the government had taken no position on whether or not someone could sign on Kony's behalf and referred the Daily Monitor to the Ministry of Defense for a comment of LRA actions in DRC.
Earlier in various interviews with this newspaper, the Defense and Army Spokesman, Maj. Paddy Ankunda, said he was not aware of any active plans by the Ugandan army to attack the LRA inside Congo.
This followed credible information that the UPDF which has drawn plans, together with the military authorities of DRC and South Sudan, was going ahead with an attack.
On September 1, according to various sources, the LRA launched a dawn attack on the town of Dungu which lasted until the afternoon.
"The fighting was right next to the Monuc compound which is based at the airstrip in Dungu. Congolese government soldiers responded and Monuc provided air cover to drive the rebels back," a diplomatic source said.
UN sources said 50,000 were displaced and 9 were dead by the end of the fighting. According to local sources, the civilian vigilante's have confronted the LRA but with hardly any weapons.
"Unlike the local defence forces [in Uganda which fought off the LRA in Teso and Lango] these groups have not been aided with weapons," said one expert with the United Nations who declined to be named because he was not authorised to comment.
The expert said the LRA was undeterred by the UN contingent or the Congolese army but revealed that arms would be supplied to civilian groups in the area but could not say by who.
UN Special Envoy to the peace talks, former Mozambique president Joachim Chissano who is due to brief the UN Security Council on the situation, is attending the Kampala meeting.
After over two years of negotiations which collapsed because of the intransigence of the LRA, whose leader has declined to meet Mr Chissano, a worsening situation in DRC, the latest diplomatic efforts are swimming against the tide.
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