Museveni offers to negotiate with LRA rebels

President Yoweri Museveni on Thursday repeated an offer to negotiate with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who are fighting his government in the north, but warned at the same time that military strikes against them would continue. Museveni, speaking on national television, said: "If they [the rebels] indicate through intermediaries that they are willing to talk and assemble in certain areas of southern Sudan, then I will order a ceasefire and give them safe passage. Once assembled, they will be supplied with food, clothing and medical supplies." The proposal follows a similar offer made in April 2002 when Museveni told the rebels they could surrender under amnesty. But this time he made it clear that until they cooperated, military strikes against them would continue. "The day and night operations aimed at wiping out the terrorists will be continued and will be intensified until every terrorist leader has been accounted for or until the remnants of the terrorists come out from their crime-laden way of existence," he said. Religious leaders pushing for dialogue to end the 18-year northern conflict have welcomed the move, warning that the LRA must now respond to the president's offer as a precursor to meaningful dialogue. "It's a good gesture the president has made for which I'd like to thank him. Something positive could come out of it. We hope the rebels find a way of responding to this," the secretary of the Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative, Bishop Jean-Baptiste Odama, told IRIN. But opposition parliamentarians representing the northern regions doubted Museveni's sincerity, pointing out that previous limited ceasefires had been repeatedly broken by government forces. "Museveni more than any other member of his cabinet is consistent: he believes in Moses' law, an eye for an eye. He has said openly he thinks peace talks encourage impunity," Norbert Mao, the MP for Gulu, told IRIN after the speech. "The president has staked his ego on defeating the LRA militarily. The way he talks about peace talks is not in good faith," he added. Museveni's remarks came after the UN Security Council issued a statement urging "the warring parties in northern and eastern Uganda to explore all peaceful avenues to resolve their conflict, and allow aid workers unrestricted access to civilians". The Council issued the statement on Wednesday after meeting the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland, who spoke of the horrors of northern Uganda's conflict. He referred to "10,000 kidnapped children in the course of only 18 months, who have been terrorised into becoming killing machines, terrorised into attacking their own villages and killing their own relatives". The Council said such crimes as abductions and sexual violence "should not remain unpunished". It regretted that the Ugandan government, regional organisations and the international community had done "far too little" for the people of northern Uganda. The cult-like LRA, led by a reclusive mystic, Joseph Kony, say it wants to topple the Ugandan government, which is dominated by southerners, and restore power to the Acholi people in the north. Yet observers note that most of the group’s atrocities are perpetrated against defenceless civilians, usually fellow Acholis. Kony, a self-proclaimed prophet, claims to have magic powers derived from the Holy Spirit and manipulates his followers’ belief in witchcraft to instill fear in them. Virtually all LRA recruits are abducted children, who are brainwashed by fear and forced to commit violent acts. Also on Wednesday, the International Crisis Group issued a report on the war, recommending a combined military and negotiated approach. "Most discussion of how to end the conflict centres on the false dichotomy of a military versus a negotiated solution," the report said. "Elements of both approaches will be required, along with recognition of the limitations of each. A purely military solution could conceivably deal with the immediate manifestation of Uganda's northern problem, the LRA, but would make solving the north-south divide and achieving national reconciliation even more unlikely," it noted.