Juba talks to focus on cessation of hostilities

The Ugandan government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) will start discussing how to bring an end to hostilities late on Tuesday, a government spokesperson said. Paddy Ankunda, spokesperson for the government delegation to the talks, said by phone from Juba, where the talks are being held, that the parties would reconvene to hear proposals from both sides on how the guns will fall silent in the battle that has displaced almost two million people in Uganda. "The talks are progressing well and today we adopted the agenda for the talks. We are going to discuss the cessation of hostilities and each party is expected to present a paper outlining what this cessation of hostilities should be like," Ankunda added. Thousands of people have been killed and two million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion among the Acholi in 1988 in a bid to oust Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and replace his regime with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments. The new position to agree a cessation of hostilities came just a few hours after the LRA made a demand for the disbandment of the government army, the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF), claiming that it was partisan and only pledged loyalty to President Museveni. "The present army does not reflect a national character. It is ethnic, partisan and pledges its loyalty to President Museveni personally and not to the nation. We demand its total disbandment so that an internationally supervised recruitment is done taking into account regional balance and integration of those in the LRA and other armed oppositions who have the qualification or are trainable and wish to join the army," it added in its position paper presented to the mediators. The government delegation, however, rejected the demand, saying it was untenable. The UPDF was formulated under the constitution and the talks could not pronounce on its demise, it said. "We told them that this was not possible because there is a constitution that puts in place such institutions. You cannot merely go and meet a delegation in Juba and decide on that. You have to go to parliament and it changes some laws. We hope they will not push it any further," Ankunda said from Juba. In turn, the government demanded that the LRA cease all forms of what it called ‘terrorism’ and start demobilising, as set out under the government’s amnesty offer. "The Ugandan government demands the LRA cease all forms of hostilities, dissolve itself and hand over all arms and ammunitions in its possession together with their inventory and assemble in agreed locations where they will be demobilised, disarmed and documented," the government position paper states. ds/mw/eo