LRA leaders want talks with gov't outside Uganda

The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has proposed that talks to end 18 years of civil war in northern Uganda be held outside the country and has asked to be provided with passports for eventual travel to such talks, sources told IRIN. "Two weeks ago they communicated, saying they preferred having talks with [the] government outside the country," Ayela Odongo, a lawyer based in the capital, Kampala, who was part of a team that recently tried to reach the rebels, said on Tuesday. "They also asked [the] government to provide them with passports." Saying that his team of emissaries had carried messages from the LRA to the government, Odongo noted that some government officials had not been very positive. However, President Yoweri Museveni's office had given them encouragement. "We have contacted a number of western countries to play host to the talks, including Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands," Odongo added. The LRA has waged a brutal war in the region, displacing an estimated 1.6 million people and abducting about 20,000 children. The children are either forcibly conscripted into the fighting ranks or given to rebel commanders as "wives". The rebels, led by a former catechist, Joseph Kony, initially said it was fighting to topple Museveni's government and replace it with an administration based on the Biblical Ten Commandments. However, it has not been possible to get a clear understanding of what the group's aims are because it maintains little contact with the outside world. Previous efforts, led mainly by religious leaders in the north, to bring the rebels to roundtable talks with the government have yielded no results. The government, on its part, has insisted that it will defeat the rebels militarily. Nevertheless, on Wednesday, it said while it was willing to talk to the LRA, it was still doubtful of the LRA's commitment to dialogue. Relief workers say the situation continues to be dire. On Tuesday, a group of NGOs working in the region said there were no signs that the military option would end the war. "We keep on hearing claims that the war is over, but there is still a lot of fear and insecurity in many areas in Northern Uganda, especially in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader," Stella Ayo-Odongo, chairperson of the 40-member Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU), said in a statement. Emma Naylor of the British NGO, Oxfam, said: "The local people's judgment is the one that will determine that the situation is better because they are the ones enduring the suffering." "In Kitgum, the number of people leaving their homes at night to sleep in the town has not changed for a long time, therefore, these people are voting with their feet about the situation there," Naylor added. "We have had between 15,000 to 18,000 people sleeping in town and this has not changed for a long time." Naylor added: "It is difficult to think of talking peace with a group that has caused such pain and hardship. After 18 years of military action, people are still not safe to work their fields and rebuild their villages. We must all look for ways to use this opportunity, or any other, and commit ourselves to finding a peaceful solution. We should grab this opportunity." The NGOs said the humanitarian suffering in the region had continued, noting that at least 30,000 people - mostly children - still poured into urban centres every night "because they don't feel safe enough to sleep in their own beds and people living in camps still don't feel safe enough to go home".