Monitoring team finds no rebels at assembly area

A fact-finding team consisting of parties to talks between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) left one of the assembly points, Owiny Ki-Bul, southern Sudan, without establishing the presence of the LRA rebels in the area.

The team, which came from the southern Sudan capital of Juba, where the talks are taking place, came to verify complaints by both the LRA and the Ugandan government over alleged violations of a Cessation of Hostilities Agreement signed on 26 August in Juba.

"Security has been of concern. There has been an absence of security and the LRA force here has taken this into consideration," Col Michael Anywar, head of the LRA monitoring team, said on Tuesday when asked why the rebels had not turned up at the assembly point despite the monitoring team's arrival on Monday.

The Ugandan government had said the LRA violated the agreement by not assembling troops at Owiny-Ki-Bul as required. For their part, the LRA accused the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) of surrounding its troops at Ngomoromo and Puger, south of Owiny Ki-Bul, at Parajok and Palutaka, east of Owiny Ki-Bul, as well as other areas near the assembly point.

The monitoring team left on Tuesday for Palutaka, where they were to verify the LRA's claim that the UPDF had deployed in the area in violation of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. They were also due to visit Parajok, 15 km from Owiny Ki-Bul.

On Monday, the monitoring team found a small camp that had been abandoned by the LRA rebels some four kilometres before Owiny Ki-Bul. Strewn around the camp, where about 45 fighters had been staying, were several bags of maize, beans, sugar and flour. "They left in a hurry on Wednesday," Julius Onyala Samuel, the local chief said.

The fact-finding team comprises three representatives each from the LRA and the UPDF, as well as officials of the mediation team from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

The team, led by SPLM/A Gen Wilson Deng, who is also second-in-command of the mediation team, arrived in the area on Monday to verify whether the LRA had assembled at the camp and whether or not the UDPF had "surrounded" the area as the LRA claimed.

"The rebels wrote a note saying they were fleeing because they had heard that the Ugandan army was approaching the area," Onyala told the team. "They asked whoever found the note to cover the food they were leaving behind."

However, Onyala and SPLA officers on the ground told the monitoring team that the UPDF soldiers the rebels were referring to were escorting a team of journalists to Owiny Ki-Bul from the Ugandan capital, Kampala. The press trip was organised by the Ugandan government to enable journalists to meet LRA fighters.

At Parajok, the journalists were told by the UPDF that an SPLM/A escort, expected at the border, was not available to take them to Owiny Ki-Bul.

At Owiny Ki-Bul on Monday, SPLM/A officers told IRIN they turned back the UPDF because its presence in the area would have constituted a breach of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement signed on 26 August.

The monitoring team will present its findings to the delegates attending the Juba peace talks later this week.

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