Civil society groups call for resumption of talks on northern conflict

A coalition of civil society groups have urged the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) to resume the talks that collapsed on Friday, saying the world should bring pressure on both to stop hostilities. The Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU), which is made up of 40 national and international NGOs, expressed fears that renewed clashes between the government forces and rebels would have dire humanitarian consequences and expose displaced people in the region to more endanger. "Civil society organisations in Uganda call on the international community to keep pressure on all parties to resume talks as soon as possible," the CSOPNU said in a statement. "After 18 years of fighting, we have to face the fact that the so-called military solution is a pipe dream," Amma Naylor of the NGO, Oxfam, told IRIN. "But even if it were possible, we must never forget that the overwhelming majority of LRA fighters are abducted children. A military solution means killing these children. There can be no glorious victory in such a situation - only a legacy of grief." The Ugandan spokesman, Maj Shaban Bantariza, told IRIN on Thursday that there had been small-scale skirmishes between the army and the rebels in northern Uganda in the past few days. A few rebels had been killed, while others had surrendered to the army. The army, he added, had intercepted a radio order from the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, to his commanders in the region to attack camps holding internally displaced persons (IDP) and kill people. "Kony has issued orders to his commanders to attack IDP camps to kill," Bantariza told IRIN. "With these orders, we would like the world to tell us whether UPDF [the Ugandan army] is conniving with Kony to perpetuate the conflict." He refuted recent criticism that elements within the Ugandan government and the army had failed the peace process by insisting on a military solution. The government and the LRA were meant to sign a ceasefire agreement last Friday, but last-minute hitches that negotiators and mediators refused to divulge, prevented the planned signing that would have ended a war that has displaced over 1.6 million people. Following the failure to sign the agreement, President Yoweri Museveni immediately ordered the army to resume military operations against the insurgents. Further talks, he added, would only take place outside Uganda, dashing hopes that guns were about to fall silent in the region. The head of CSOPNU, Stella Ayo-Odongo, pleaded that the ceasefire be given another chance. "The past six weeks has been a historic opportunity to find a peaceful solution to this crisis - enormous progress was made and hopes raised, only to be dashed at this stage," she said. Hopes for a resumption of talks rose on Wednesday after the Ugandan government announced it had revised the ceasefire agreement and sent a copy to the rebels to make their comments. "A new version has been developed by government and has been handed over to Betty Bigombe, our middle person in the peace efforts," the head of the government team negotiating with the LRA and interior minister, Ruhakana Rugunda, told IRIN. "We have maintained contact with the LRA through the mediator and I am optimistic that progress will be made," Rugunda added. Naylor called on the government to grant the rebels more time to respond to the draft agreement and urged the LRA to commit itself to the peace process. "We are concerned that not enough time was given to these discussions," Naylor said. The LRA is notorious for its brutality against the civilian population, in particular the practice of abducting boys to serve in its ranks and girls to be used as sexual slaves for rebel commanders. Relief agencies estimate that up to 20,000 children have been abducted so far, many of them still unaccounted for.