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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 12 September 2006

UGANDA: Government to extend LRA talks deadline

KAMPALA, 12 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - The Ugandan government is to extend the 12 September deadline for the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) to agree a peace deal, otherwise its leaders would forfeit the blanket amnesty for war crimes, an official said on Tuesday.

A new deadline, the government said, would be set because of significant progress at peace talks in southern Sudan. "Consultations are taking place now to adjust the deadline to allow the talks to continue," Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Okello Oryem, told a news conference in Kampala.

"President Yoweri Museveni is satisfied with the progress and the movement of the LRA, including the presence of Vincent Otti [LRA deputy commander], at the assembly points. About 400 of them, including women and children, have so far converged at the assembly points."

Negotiations to end northern Uganda's brutal, nearly two-decades-long war are expected to resume next week in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba.

The minister noted, however, that the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, was still in the Garamba forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but hoped that the way Otti had been handled would build the LRA leadership’s confidence.

"The deadline will not affect the talks," Oryem said, adding that it would also be possible to agree on how to handle rebel fighters who had not assembled by 19 September as stipulated in the cessation of hostility agreement.

"If, by 19 September, there a few elements here and there not assembled, we will definitely be able to discuss another adjustment," he said.

In July, Museveni set 12 September as the deadline for the LRA to sign a comprehensive peace agreement or lose his offer of a blanket amnesty.

Kony, Otti and three other top rebel commanders - one of whom is now dead - face war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court and have refused to attend the peace talks until the indictments are dropped.

The Juba negotiations are seen by many as the best way to resolve the 19-year war, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced nearly two million people.

Oryem said the talks have been adjourned to allow the mediator, southern Sudan Vice-President, Riek Machar and the LRA delegation to meet Otti on Tuesday.

"They are supposed to encourage him and if possible come back with him to the negotiation venue," he said, adding that Uganda’s foreign minister Sam Kutesa was also due to travel to the United Nations to brief the Security Council about the progress of the talks.

vm/mw

[ENDS]

This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006