Former LRA rebels call for amnesty, repatriation

Over 800 Ugandans resident in Kenya, formerly members of the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) based in southern Sudan, have appealed to the Uganda government to speed up plans to repatriate them in line with the terms of its amnesty offer to rebels. The Ugandans, who fled to Kenya in 1999 after the Ugandan army flushed them out of LRA bases in southern Sudan, said they were fed up of living away from home and wanted to return to Uganda to contribute to nation-building, Kenya Television Network (KTN) reported on Wednesday. “We were assured than once we completed [our involvement in] the war we would be given jobs,” one of the former rebels, Lewis Manana, told KTN. “If it is true that there is an amnesty, if it [the Ugandan government] means to forgive every Ugandan and have them return home, we are an appealing for an acceleration of the process,” Manana added. The former rebels were 2,000 in number when they arrived in Kenya in 1999 but now numbered about 800 adults and 320 children, some of whom were born in Kenya since their parents’ arrival there, KTM reported. [for background details, see separate IRIN story of 6 July 2000 headlined “IRIN Feature - Ugandan rebels tell their story” at: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/cea/countrystories/kenya/20000706a.phtml]