Government in peace deal with former rebels

The Ugandan government this week signed a peace deal with over 2,000 former soldiers of the exiled former president, Idi Amin, following five years of negotiations.

The agreement signed between Uganda's interior minister, Eriya Kategaya, and Ali Bamuze, the leader of the Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF II), in the northwestern town of Yumbe, was witnessed by President Yoweri Museveni.

It was signed under the presidential amnesty according to which the Ugandan government promised reintegration and economic support for rebels who surrendered.

Under the terms of the agreement, about 700 of the ex-soldiers, who returned from their bases in Sudan this year, would be integrated into the Ugandan army, according to media reports. Others, who were not being integrated into the army, would exchange their weapons for agricultural tools in the tobacco-growing West Nile region, the reports said.

Ugandan officials have described the signing of the agreement as a win-win situation, in which both the government and the UNRF II made significant gains. Brig Kale Kaihura, a senior army commander, told IRIN that the army had already begun the process of absorbing the former rebels who had qualified to be in the military, while others would be resettled and given protection under the terms of the amnesty.

"Yes, the ceremony took place, and it was very colourful. Everyone is extremely happy in Yumbe," Kaihura told IRIN. "Those who qualify to join the army will join. Those who don't qualify, we shall look after them."

UNRF II was a splinter group of the Nest Nile Bank Front, which comprised thousands of soldiers who fled to Sudan when Amin, the former dictator, was overthrown in 1979. The group is a part of the over 1,000 UNRF rebels who made peace after Museveni came to power in 1986.

According to Kaihura, the agreement was a result of a protracted process, which began in 1998, when the government made overtures to the group while it was still in Sudan. "We persuaded them that the government had no problem. There has been a lot of work," he said.

He said the UNRF II differed from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group active in the Acholi subregion of northern Uganda, in that the latter were "mass murderers, going around killing people". "The LRA is different. Their strategy is to kill innocent people. The government has put up a high-powered team to negotiate with them, but they are just snubbing our initiative," Kaihura added.

The UNRF II has pledged to respect the accord with the government, and promised not to mount any further attacks in West Nile. "I am calling upon us in the West Nile not to wage any other war against the government from here," The New Vision government-owned newspaper quoted Bamuze as saying.