EU official urges flexibility in effort to end conflict

The European Union's commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, Louis Michel, said on Thursday that flexibility and mutual understanding between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) were essential in the effort to end the long-standing conflict in northern Uganda. "I told President Yoweri Museveni that the main issue is being flexible and understanding [to] each other," Michel told a news conference in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, after holding separate meetings with Museveni and Betty Bigombe, a former cabinet minister trying to bring the government and the rebels to the negotiating table. "I had a meeting with Betty Bigombe," he added. "She told me that there was a possibility for peace in the region [northern Uganda], but she says that the process will be slow." The meeting between Michel and Bigombe took place in Gulu, the main town in northern Uganda. The 18-year conflict between the government and the LRA has displaced an estimated 1.6 million people. The rebels have been blamed for targeting civilians in their attacks - killing, maiming and abducting children for conscription into rebels ranks and forcing girls into sex slavery. "Museveni said that he would resolve the problem peacefully," said Michel. "He also promised to extend the ceasefire period." The government's unilateral ceasefire was declared on 14 November and expired on Wednesday. On Thursday, the government accused the LRA of taking advantage of the truce period to "rehabilitate themselves physically and materially". "We have evidence that they were just unearthing arms they had hidden underground," army spokesman Maj Shaban Bantariza said on Thursday in Kampala. Bantariza said that a deserter who gave himself up to the army recently led soldiers to a cache of 225 tins of ammunition which, he said, was enough to arm two battalions of 5,600 soldiers. Several clashes between government troops and LRA fighters were reported during the ceasefire period. The truce was intended to allow the LRA to make arrangements to start peace talks with the government. "If there is goodwill, peace in the north can be reached quickly," said Michel. "We will do all we can to help advance this." Bantariza had said that although the ceasefire expired on Wednesday, the army would wait for the LRA's second in command, Vincent Otti, to tell the president what the insurgency had decided. "We await the president's order on any option," said Bantariza. "But as far as I know, the ceasefire has ended." Bantariza claimed that the army had killed 18 LRA fighters in the northern district of Pader on Monday evening and Tuesday morning. He said the rebels, who included a senior officer, were killed in an area not covered by the ceasefire.