Ugandan military starts truce with rebels

By Daniel Wallis

KAMPALA (Reuters) – A truce that could spell the end of one
of Africa’s longest and most brutal wars came into effect on
Tuesday, Uganda’s military said.

Under the pact signed on Saturday at peace talks in
southern Sudan, the fugitive rebels from the Lord’s Resistance
Army (LRA) have three weeks to assemble at two south Sudanese
camps while negotiations continue to thrash out a final deal to
stop their two-decade insurrection.

Both sides have committed to cease hostilities, and a
Ugandan military intelligence chief was due to speak on radio
in the evening and announce safe passage routes for the rebels.

“The commander-in-chief, President Yoweri Museveni, has
directed us to stop search and destroy operations … We are
not to shoot at the LRA except in the protection of civilians,”
army spokesman Major Felix Kulayigye told Reuters.

“We are in the process of pulling back to physical
protection of displaced civilians. Where there are no camps we
are returning to barracks. It seems to be the end of the war.”

Nearly 2 million people have been uprooted in northern
Uganda by fighting between troops and LRA rebels infamous for
massacring civilians, mutilating survivors and forcing
thousands of abducted children to serve the cult-like group.

The LRA’s top leaders, including Joseph Kony and his deputy
Vincent Otti, are wanted for war crimes by the International
Criminal Court in The Hague, and have so far stayed hidden in
Congo. But LRA officials have insisted both men will move to
the Sudan camps within the three-week deadline.

“Time is not on their side,” Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni told reporters late on Monday. “If they don’t show up,
it will be worse for them. They have nowhere to hide.”

ICC prosecutors said on Monday they still hoped for the
arrest of Kony and his henchmen, despite an offer of amnesty by
Uganda under the terms of the truce.

But with no police force to hunt down its targets, the ICC
must rely on Ugandan, Sudanese and former southern Sudanese
rebels to bring Kony and his deputies to justice.

“GIVE CIVILIANS A BREAK”

The truce was given an extra boost on Sunday when Otti
called a local radio station in northern Uganda and told
fighters in the area to gather at undisclosed locations and
await further instructions.

They must not harm anyone or loot food on the way, he said.

“We want to give civilians a break … This time if we work
together, peace will come … We are happy the process is going
well,” Otti said by satellite telephone from the LRA’s jungle
headquarters in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Uganda’s head of military intelligence in the north,
Colonel Charles Otema-Awany, was due to speak on the same
station later on Tuesday to announce safe corridors to the
Sudanese camps.

“On Mega FM, monitored by the LRA, he will declare routes
which we will respect religiously,” said army spokesman
Kulayigye.

LRA fighters in northern Uganda are expected to cross the
border to Owiny-ki-Bul, while those in Congo are to assemble at
a second camp in the area of south Sudan’s Nabanga village.

(Additional reporting by Justin Dralaze in Kampala)