LRA leader moves towards assembly point

Joseph Kony, the commander of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), has left his hideout in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and moved towards one of the sites in southern Sudan where the rebels are assembling in accordance with the 26 August cessation of hostilities agreement, a Ugandan official said.

"I talked to Otti," said Walter Ochora, the resident district commissioner of Gulu, who has been coordinating the movement of rebels from northern Uganda to the southern Sudanese areas of Owiny Ki-Bul. "Kony is metres away from Ri-Kwangba."

Kony's deputy, Vincent Otti, said on Wednesday from Ri-Kwangba that the rebels were serious about peace talks but demanded that the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments against him and other LRA leaders be lifted as a pre-condition to a full peace agreement.

"We are here now ... to talk peace," Otti, who was surrounded by armed bodyguards, told reporters. "I want to go home."

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has offered the LRA a blanket amnesty if the rebels agreed a peace deal but the government has said it would not consider asking the ICC to drop the charges until a comprehensive accord is signed.

At least 800 fighters had arrived at Owiny Ki-Bul and a similar number at Ri-Kwangba. Under the agreement, the rebels are required to complete their journey to the assembly areas by Friday.

Fighters from northern Uganda are supposed to go to Owiny Ki-Bul in Eastern Equatoria State, and those from the DRC should assemble at Ri-Kwangba, Western Equatoria State, on the western side of the Nile.

In the DRC capital, Kinshasa, the commander of the national army in Ituri District, Orientale Province, Brig Gen Mbuayama Nsiona, said a group of 50 LRA rebels who had been living in Aru National Park had started moving towards Sudan.

"The LRA combatants have quit Aru for Watsa in the district of Haut-Uele," Nsiona told IRIN on Wednesday. "They are walking along the river Kibali towards south Sudan. The combatants left Aru after several clashes with the 1st brigade of the integrated army of DRC, deployed in this region."

"They lost six men in the last fire-fight we had last week," Nsiona added. "Some time before that, they lost two other fighters."

The rebels, he added, had lived in the park for about a year and had been attacking local people. "They have not yet crossed the border. These Ugandan elements are still in DRC territory, but [moving] towards Watsa. They are about to leave DRC to enter into southern Sudan."

In Kampala, sources said arrangements were being made for a live radio discussion on a local station between the rebel leaders and Ugandan officials as a confidence-building measure, ahead of a resumption of talks later this week. The talks, if successful, would end a two-decade-long conflict that has displaced two million people and killed thousands.

vm/kt/mw/eo