Museveni rules out talks with LRA as more rebels surrender

Three commanders and 32 fighters of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) gave themselves up to the Ugandan army on Sunday in the northern district of Pader, the army said. Their surrender came hours after President Yoweri Museveni had ruled out dialogue as a way to end the 18-year old rebellion in the north. "Capt Awach and Lt James Onono, along with 13 fighters, 10 abductees and 10 guns reported to our forces at Lacek Ocot. Almost simultaneously at Corner Kilak, we received Lt Ochira with 19 other fighters," army spokesman, Maj Shaban Bantariza, told IRIN on Monday. Inside Sudan, where the LRA have bases, the Ugandan army fought a group of rebels commanded by LRA chief of staff Mathew Owor in a valley between Imotong and Acholi hills, Bantariza said. Five rebels were killed, two captured and 15 abductees rescued, he added. President Yoweri Museveni told The Monitor newspaper in the capital, Kampala, on Sunday that the LRA were surrendering “because of the military pressure we have put on them, and also because the good treatment we have extended to those who surrender". He added: "Kony is an ordinary criminal, not a political problem. He does not listen to anyone. Asking him to enter political dialogue is like asking any other common criminals." Museveni told the newspaper: "We have talked to all our political opponents who were at one time armed. However [it] is wrong to think that all adversaries can be talked to. There are forces like the interahamwe: what would you talk with them? They do not believe in dialogue." The interhamwe were Hutu militias who spearheaded the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda in 1994. However, the Catholic bishop of northern Uganda, Archbishop John Baptist Odama, attributed the rebel surrenders to a law offering amnesty law to rebels who want give themselves up. "The amnesty is working and this is what has encouraged others to come out after knowing that they could be welcome home. When we have solved part of the problem peacefully, there is no reason why we should propagate violence," he told IRIN. "Our position is clear. We don't propagate violence, as the main aim is to remain harmonious and live as one nation in unity. It is a value that everybody will have to embrace. Lives must be spared," Odama added. The LRA has fought Museveni's administration from bases in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, saying it wants to topple his government and replace it with one based on the Biblical Ten Commandments. Efforts by local religious groups to initiate dialogue between the government and the rebels have failed. The rebels are notorious for abducting thousands of children, whom they force into combat or sexual slavery. The rebellion has displaced about 1.6 million people across the north and northeast. Meanwhile in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the Deputy Speaker of the Sudan National Assembly, Anjelo Beda, held a meeting with members of the Ugandan Amnesty Commission, who had returned from southern Sudan. The Sudan News Agency reported on Monday that the Ugandan commissioners had talked about the amnesty law on Juba Radio.