Uganda government, LRA peace talks delayed

Peace talks between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), scheduled to start in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba on Wednesday, have been delayed, a Sudanese official said. An official in the office of the southern Sudanese Vice-President said Riek Machar, who is mediating the peace talks, had not returned to Juba yet. As a result the talks could probably start on Thursday instead, he added. In the Ugandan capital, Kampala, the official delegation had not left for Juba by Wednesday morning. A spokesperson said they were still waiting for an official invitation from the southern Sudanese government. The eight-man Ugandan team is to be led by internal affairs minister Ruhakana Rugunda. "Our going will depend on Riek Machar's invitation, which we have not yet got," Robert Kabushenga, head of the government media centre, told IRIN on Wednesday. Machar left Juba over the weekend to consult the rebel commanders near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although the Vice-President was expected to return with the LRA delegation to Juba on Wednesday morning, a source said his return had been delayed due to a newly scheduled meeting with LRA leader Joseph Kony that morning. The Ugandan government wants the LRA leader or his deputy Vincent Otti to attend the talks in person. However, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Kony and four of his commanders for crimes against humanity, and the rebel leaders are reluctant to come out of hiding in the absence of solid security guarantees. While the Hague-based court insisted that Uganda, Sudan and the DRC have a legal obligation to catch the wanted men, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni on 4 July declared an amnesty to the indicted rebel leaders and assured Kony of amnesty. On Monday, Uganda sent its security minister, Amama Mbabazi, to The Hague to ask the ICC to lift the indictments against the five LRA leaders to facilitate the talks. Apart from Kony, the other indicted leaders are Otti, Otim Odhiambo, Raska Lukwiya and Dominic Ongwen. "The minister went to The Hague to brief them about Uganda's new position and about the progress of the talks with the LRA," Kabushenga said. "It will be on this that the ICC will take a position." Tens of thousands of people have been killed and some two million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA started it's war in 1988 in a bid to oust Museveni, sparking what the United Nations and other humanitarian groups have described as the world's most brutal and forgotten conflict. ds/vm/mw/eo