Kony Set to Append His Signature to the Final Peace Pact
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28 October 2008: Kony Set to Append His Signature to the Final Peace Pact
In an apparent gesture of reconciliation, the elusive Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel chief Joseph Kony last month called the Acholi paramount chief David Acana II and told him he is tired of fighting and wants peace.
According to Acana, speaking on Ugandan radio, Kony apologized for not meeting the Acholi cultural leaders, for switching off his phone and for his failure to sign the final peace deal agreed to earlier this year between LRA-negotiators and the government of Uganda. Kony is also a member of the Acholi, the main ethnic group in Northern Uganda. Kony said he feared for his security, alleging that he had been tipped off about ‘‘government snipers organizing to kill him.”
Kony’s change of heart and reported eagerness to sign the peace pact comes after the chief mediator Dr. Riek Machar, South Sudan Vice President, closed the chapter on the painstaking Juba peace talks.
Mr. David Matsanga the head of the LRA delegation to the talks, however said that Kony is set to append his signature to the final peace deal but stressed that the rebels would neither disarm nor disband until the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants of arrest were withdrawn. The LRA also wanted some other issues within the agreement resolved by the joint Liaison Group.
Mr. Matsanga is reported to have claimed that the LRA was concerned about the ending of the northern Uganda decades-long conflict and accused some needy elements in Western capitals and Kenya of attempting to dissuade Kony from endorsing the comprehensive peace pact.
He said the LRA-members were worried about their safety following a skirmish between them and the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) at the frontier between Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the beginning of last month.
The situation on the ground has indeed deteriorated these last few weeks, despite Kony’s recent overtures. The Uganda Peoples Defense Forces (UPDF) is on high alert, ready to strike in case of any incursion of the LRA rebels into the country following reports that the rebels have continued to abduct, train and establish contacts.
This comes amid reports of a new LRA offensive in Southern Sudan and Eastern DRC in which an SPLA military base was attacked and dozens of Congolese school children were abducted. The ICC said that this was the largest offensive and abduction campaign since the LRA relocated to the Central Africa Republic in February this year.
As one writer rightly put it, one thing that has eluded the chief mediator in the Juba Peace is getting Kony to sign the peace agreement. Kony has not changed in form and substance. We wait to see whether his reported eagerness and change of heart to sign the peace pact translates into any concrete action.
Samuel Sserwanga,
Senior Legal Analyst,
ICPAT, ISS Addis Ababa
