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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 14 September 2006

UGANDA: We will sign peace deal but hide until indictments lifted - rebel leader

KAMPALA, 14 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the Ugandan rebel group, has promised to sign a final agreement to end fighting in the north once peace talks with the government are concluded, but said its leaders would remain in hiding until arrest warrants are lifted.

"Our delegation will sign an agreement, but we shall stay where we are until the warrants are withdrawn," said Vincent Otti, LRA deputy commander, in a phone-in radio programme on Wednesday by satellite telephone from southern Sudan.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has indicted Otti, LRA leader Joseph Kony and three other commanders on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities allegedly committed by the group against civilians in northern Uganda over the past 20 years.

Otti also said he was willing to personally lead the LRA delegation in the peace talks if the ICC dropped the charges against him and his co-accused. Alternatively, Otti would participate in the talks if the government delegation and mediators met him in one of the assembly sites in southern Sudan where LRA fighters are gathering under a cessation of hostilities pact reached last month. The leader of the southern Sudanese government, Riek Machar, is mediating the talks in the city of Juba.

"If the delegates of Uganda come to where I am, I will lead my delegates to the peace talks myself. I fear kidnapping, but if I'm with my people I will defend myself if someone came to kidnap me," Otti said on KFM radio.

He said that an amnesty offer from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni meant little as long as the ICC indictment remained in force. "I would be with the president in Kampala, but the pressure would not allow the president to protect me. Even if the African Union agreed with the Ugandan government, the external pressure would be too much for them," he said.

Government spokesman Robert Kabushenga, however, told IRIN that it was not realistic to expect the ICC to lift the indictments before a peace deal is reached and the LRA leadership comes out of the bush.

"We can't go to the ICC to start negotiations until these people sign an agreement and come home. The ICC will not entertain any discussion with us until we assure them that there will be accountability as far as the people who committed atrocities in the LRA are concerned," said Kabushenga.

The LRA stands accused of serious crimes against civilians, including abduction of children, mass murder and mutilations. The conflict has displaced an estimated two million people, who have been forced to live in squalid, disease-prone camps under military protection.

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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