Ex-Mozambique President Attempts To Save Uganda Peace Talks

Ex-Mozambique president attempts to save Uganda peace talks
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News Article by AFP posted on March 12, 2007 at 16:51:13: EST (-5 GMT)
Ex-Mozambique president attempts to save Uganda peace talks KAMPALA, March 12, 2007 (AFP) - Former Mozambique president Joaquim Chissano ventured into the southern Sudanese jungle and spoke to a fugitive Ugandan rebel leader in a bid to save stalled peace talks, officials said Monday.
Chissano, UN special envoy for northern Uganda's conflict, and officials met Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony on Sunday to try to convince him to resume talks with Kampala, said LRA deputy chief Vincent Otti.
The rebels pulled out of the talks in south Sudan's capital Juba in December, requesting a new venue and mediation after they lost trust in the southern Sudanese mediators, a move Kampala dismissed as a time-wasting ploy.
They also vowed never to sign a peace deal if the International Criminal Court refuses to drop war crimes charges against Kony, Otti and three top commanders.
Chissano vowed to address the sticking points and return with a definitive answer late this month, Otti said.
"We agreed that we will meet on March 25 when we will decide when, where and under whose mediation we will resume talks," Otti told AFP by satellite phone from southern Sudan.
Otti described Chissano as "very good in peace-making" and that "his style is unique" compared to Riek Machar, the vice president of the semi-autonomous region of southern Sudan, who was rejected as mediator by the LRA.
Chissano also discussed fears of fresh unrest after the rebels refused to renew a truce that expired at the end of February, Otti added.
The ceasefire, signed in August and renewed last December, had raised hopes of an end to a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced around two million others.
It was the only significant achievement the talks achieved since opening in July.
"Small clashes still persist," Otti said, refusing to elaborate.
Ugandan officials said Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, the chief government negotiator in the peace talks, also met with Kony at the hideout in Ri-Kwangba near Sudan's border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Meanwhile in Kampala, Sudanese first vice president Salva Kiir told reporters that he stood ready to host the fledgling talks if the LRA agrees to resume dialogue.
"We are ready to host them as long as they want peace," said Kiir, also president of southern Sudan.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was on Monday unusually diplomatic regarding the LRA, a group he often dismisses as terrorists.
"The UN special envoy is having a meeting with them, he will be the one to guide us on how move (forward)," he said.
Museveni lauded Kiir for reinitiating the landmark peace talks, saying that he had come to believe that the process "might work."
Diplomats have urged both sides to resolve the row and resume the talks seen as the best chance to end the conflict that spurred what UN and aid groups have dubbed one of the world's most neglected humanitarian crises.
The conflict has raged since 1988, when the elusive Kony took leadership of a two-year-old regional rebellion among northern Uganda's ethnic Acholi minority.