East African military chiefs meet to review security progress

East African military chiefs began a three-day meeting in Nairobi on Monday to review security progress in the region ravaged by conflicts, insecurity and poverty, Xinhua reported April 24, 2006:

The East African Chiefs of Defense Staff Meeting which drew military chiefs from 12 states called on regional governments to support the Eastern Africa Standby Brigade to deal with conflicts in Sudan, northern Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia and other trouble spots.

In his opening remarks, Kenya's Defense Minister Njenga Karume said the African Union (AU) is assembling a strong rapid response force to deal with conflicts and disasters on the continent.

"The African Union has formed a standby force aimed at ensuring quick intervention in conflicts arising within the continent," Karume told military chiefs from Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Rwanda, Mauritius, Madagascar, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Seychelles, Somalia and Tanzania.

Karume said that under the Eastern Africa Standby Brigade, the force is meant to encourage Africans to deal with crises on their own continent, where the AU will have the authority to intervene in border wars and internal conflicts.

Kenya's Chief of General Staff, Gen. Jeremiah Kianga, decried insecurity and conflicts as major problems underpinning the continent's backwardness.

"Waging peace is the new battle cry for Africa and in that battle fields we are currently the front-line troops and we carry the hopes and aspirations of many in Africa and our region in particularly," said Gen. Kianga.

Kianga, having said Kenya had played a key role in conflict resolution in Somalia and Sudan, called for more help to make the idea a reality.

"With logistic support, troops from Africa can help immensely in resolving conflicts in the states affected by civil strife," said Kianga.

"Our sub-region has historically been one of the most conflict-prone in the continent and this has created a great yearning for peace amongst our peoples, which we must work very hard, to fulfill," he added.

About 2,000 Kenyan troops have been deployed in various parts of the world in peacekeeping missions.

Africa has standby brigades in each of the continent's five regions -- eastern, southern, western, northern and central Africa. Each brigade comprises four light infantry battalions, each with 750 personnel and 70 vehicles and a military observer unit with 120 officers.

"We have our troops in five African regions on standby to deal with civil strife and disaster occurrences in any country on the continent," said officials from the AU.

The officials said the AU would harmonize the five regional brigades to make it easy for troops get deployed to any country faced with conflict or disaster.

Kenya is part of the East Africa Stand-by Brigade, which has its headquarters in Nairobi and is operating through the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

But the officials said the Nairobi meeting plans to set up a new Secretariat to be based in Nairobi to de-link conflict resolution from IGAD.

IGAD's member states include Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Rwanda and Djibouti.

The military chiefs are expected to come up with recommendations which will be approved by the defense ministers who are due to meet in Kenya's capital of Nairobi on Wednesday. Enditem Editor: Lin Li

South Sudan offers to mediate between Uganda, LRA rebels

Southern Sudanese officials have offered to mediate between the Ugandan government and rebels who have been fighting for 19 years, a Sudanese official said Thursday.

"We are in the process of bringing the two together," Riek Machar, vice president of the autonomous southern Sudan government, said in a telephone interview from the southern capital, Juba.

"We have offered to act as facilitators and if they see that we could be mediators in their talks then we will do it," Machar said, adding both sides seemed open to the overture and that peace talks could start "any time."

Ugandan officials, however, said they doubted the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, a force with no clear political agenda, was ready for peace talks.

"I don't think any previous overtures to the LRA have yielded positive results ... I don't think they are interested in dialogue," Uganda's presidential spokesman Onapito Ekomoloit said in a telephone interview.

Full report Associated Press (ST) 20 Apr 2006.

Survey reveals grinding poverty in war-affected northern Uganda

Seventy percent of the population in war-affected northern Uganda live in absolute poverty, with each adult's consumption expenditure at about 20,000 Uganda shillings (US $11) per month, according to a survey released this week. Full report IRIN 7 Apr 2006.

US asked to arrest Ugandan-American rebel Jongomoi Okidi-Olal - The real brain behind LRA leadership?

Report at Xinhua today:

Desperate to end the northern insurgency, the Ugandan government is pressuring the United States to arrest a Ugandan-American accused of assisting the rebels.

Uganda wanted Washington and the United Nations to arrest a Ugandan-American citizen, Jongomoi Okidi-Olal, and hand him over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to the state-owned New Vision daily on Sunday.

The insurgency of Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have left tens of thousands people killed, 1.4 million others homeless in the last 20 years.

In September last year, deputy LRA leader Vincent Otti crossed into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with about 400 fighters and their families.

However, Otti was forced to return to southern Sudan following a meeting between his representatives, officials from the DRC government and the UN Observer Mission in the Congo (MONUC).

Diplomatic and security sources said Okidi-Olal's role in LRA was confirmed during a meeting between LRA leaders and a DRC Ninth Regional Commander, who was accompanied by MONUC officials.

When the commander talked to Kony by satellite phone, the rebel leader asserted that LRA's entry into the Congo was a result of negotiations between LRA's New York representative (Okidi-Olal) and Congolese officials.

Kony gave MONUC officials Okidi-Olal's telephone number.

Okidi-Olal was also attacked by The Philadelphia Inquirer last month as being a Kony supporter as the paper accused U.S. officials of dealing with a person "with iffy links and motives."

In response to the media report, Kemal Saiki, MONUC's director of public relations, said when the LRA entered the DRC, its commanders gave the UN mission a phone number answered by a man claiming to be Kony.

Kony referred "all discussions about the infiltration of LRA in the DRC to 'our leader' in Washington and gave his phone contact."

Okidi-Olal answered that phone number.

Security sources said when contacted by UN officials, Okidi-Olal admitted links to LRA but said that he was "only a messenger" and that he was committed to seeing an end to the LRA war.

A diplomatic source said Uganda has repeatedly asked the Bush administration and the UN to arrest Okidi-Olal because he is considered to be "the real brain behind LRA leadership." Enditem

Uganda rebel 'terror' appals UN

The activities of rebels in northern Uganda are "terrorism of the worst kind anywhere in the world", UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland has said.

Security must be improved in the region where Lord's Resistance Army rebels abduct children and carry out attacks, he said while visiting Pader district.

Mr Egeland urged the Ugandan government and international community to do more to end the humanitarian crisis.

Almost two million people have been displaced during 20 years of civil war. Full report (BBC) 1 Apr 2006.

Five LRA rebels captured in South Sudan

Five suspected LRA rebels were captured early yesterday when they attempted to attack Lobonok IDP camp near Jebel Kujur, west of Juba town, southern Sudan.

The suspected rebels were captured in joint ambush laid by Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers and a police patrol in the early hours of Wednesday 29 March morning.

A source at Central Equatoria police training unit in Buluk told Sudan Radio Service (SRS) that police are now interrogating the captives before handing them over to the United Nations police in Juba.

The source explained that one of the suspects was found wrestling with an unarmed civilian before he was arrested. (SRS/ST)

UN aid chief Jan Egeland arrives in Uganda

UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland, arrived Thursday in Uganda at the start of a nine day East African mission to assess the humanitarian situation in war ravaged northern Uganda and Sudan's region of Darfur.

During his trip, Egeland is to visit war-displaced people and hold talks with government officials in Uganda, Sudan, Chad and Kenya, the UN Humanitarian Coordination Office spokesman in Kampala, Christophe Illemassene, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. - via Bahrain News Agency

Khartoum says south Sudan safe for refugee return

Khartoum's state interior minister Brig. Aleu Avieny Aleu said the estimated 200,000 Sudanese refugees in Uganda should not fear the LRA rebels, who are Ugandan but have long used hideouts in southern Sudan.

"They are not affecting you when you go home, and they should not be the reason for you not to go home," he said in the Ugandan capital Kampala. "You will be protected."

Aleu was signing an agreement with Ugandan authorities and the UN refugee agency that sets up a legal framework for the first voluntary repatriations of Sudanese who fled to Uganda.

Full story (Reuters) 27 March 2006.

Sudan: Sudanese burn Ugandan LRA rebels

The rising public hostility in southern Sudan towards the LRA rebels was manifested yesterday in Yambio town when the public burnt three bodies of the ugandan rebels in a market, reports Emmy Allio, Kampala AllAfrica March 20, 2006:

The residents vented their anger in the morning on the bodies of the rebels, sending signals that LRA was not wanted in their society.

Using Congo's Garamba National Park as a sanctuary, the Kony rebels crossed to Yambio where they raided the main market and attacked the detachment of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) at around midnight on Saturday. But their lack ran out when the SPLA killed three of them.

SPLM/A liaison officer in Kampala Lual Chol said the LRA killed two civilians and injured two soldiers of the United Nations Mission in Sudan.

"The wounded were flown to Juba hospital. But the population is angry at the rebels who fled back to Congo," Lual said.

Netting Uganda's rebels

The ICC needs the backing of regional states and the full support of the UN if it is to secure the arrest of leaders of the Lords Resistance Army, writes Ayesha Kajee for Institute for War and Peace Reporting 22 Mar 2006 - via ReliefWeb:

The International Criminal Court, ICC, made legal history last October when it issued arrest warrants for key rebel leaders in northern Uganda. But reeling in the suspects is likely to prove extremely difficult, and will only be possible if neighbouring states are forced to cooperate with the detention order.

Five top figures in the Lord's Resistance Army, LRA, were listed in the warrants and if apprehended, they would stand trial at the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity. They include the group's leader Joseph Kony, a self-proclaimed prophet, his deputy Vincent Otti, LRA commander-in-chief Raska Lukwiya, and brigade commanders Okot Odhiambo and Dominique Ongwen.

Their capture would help bring an end to the nearly forgotten civil war that has ravaged northern Uganda for almost two decades. Over that time the LRA's peculiar messianic vision has played out to brutal effect, with some 20,000 children abducted and forced to serve the LRA as guerrillas, sex slaves and porters.

Those children who escape the brutalising effects of LRA "conscription" still bear the brunt of the impact which the conflict has had in this part of Uganda. An average of 131 people die in the north of the country every day as a result of either direct violence or the poor conditions in camps for displaced people.

More than 1.6 million people live in camps for the internally displaced, where extreme poverty is compounded by malaria and HIV/AIDS. Every evening, thousands of children must walk many miles to safe houses and churches in the nearest towns, for fear of abduction by the LRA.

The ICC must rely on the Ugandan army to execute the arrest warrants. But even though the military outnumbers the LRA 20 to one in the region, it has been unable to carry out any of the arrests since they were ordered.

This failure has reinforced a perception among northern Ugandans that President Yoweri Museveni's government cares little about their fate, prompting many to vote against him in the multi-party elections held in February.

Hot on the heels of Museveni's third-term victory, the ICC - whose 600 prosecutors, investigators, judges and other international staff are based in The Hague - announced it was ready to receive suspects if any were arrested.

"We have 12 cells for Ugandan suspects in Scheveningen...," said ICC Registrar Bruno Cathala. "We need the help of states to arrest these people."

Cathala's use of the plural "states" is revealing since it emphasises what is likely to be an essential ingredient of ICC success in the case - cooperation by Uganda's neighbours.

In recent months, Otti has been leading LRA forces operating out of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC. In January he launched an ambush that killed several United Nations peacekeepers inside DRC. The government in Kampala has also alleged that Rwanda has supported the LRA in western Uganda, a charge denied by the Kigali government.

For many years, the government in Khartoum was accused of aiding LRA combatants who made southern Sudan their base. Since March 2002, a joint agreement between the two governments allows Uganda's soldiers to enter southern Sudan in hot pursuit of the LRA.

But Kony and his lieutenants have continued to elude capture, leading to speculation that Khartoum is still secretly helping the LRA by leaking information and supplying arms. In a BBC interview last month, the Sudanese vice-president and president of the southern Sudan government, Salva Kiir Mayardit, expressed his suspicion that the country's armed forces are supplying Kony with ammunition and other forms of support.

In February this year, Ugandan troops claimed they had attacked Kony in southern Sudan and killed four of his bodyguards - but, as in previous instances, Kony got away and is reported to have joined Otti in the DRC.

Christian Palme, spokesperson for the ICC's chief prosecutor, has expressed hope that arrests will take place this year.

But it is clear that if the ICC is ever to bring these fugitives to trial, the international community must pressure the DRC, Sudanese and Rwandan governments to cooperate in the manhunt.

Each has its own reasons for dragging its heels. Rwanda and Uganda have been implicated in the conflict in DRC and in the removal of diamonds and gold from that country, causing friction between them and with the government of DRC.

In Sudan, meanwhile, the LRA has historically served Khartoum as a useful policy instrument as it battles secessionist groups in the oil-rich south.

In short, wherever mineral resources, arms trading and politics come together, there are forces which might find it expedient for the shadowy Kony to remain at large.

Meanwhile, the death toll in the northern Ugandan conflict grows steadily.

David Drew of Britain's All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention, which recently visited the region, told journalists that "pressure from the West and UN needs to be brought to bear on Kampala - the humanitarian and security situation in northern Uganda cannot go on a day longer".

The parliamentarians' report recommended that UN forces currently stationed in both DRC and Sudan should be mandated to act against the LRA, and that Uganda should itself be pressurised to step up actions against the rebels.

UN forces in the region currently have a limited peackeeping mandate which excludes military offensives against rebel forces.

The time for action in northern Uganda is long overdue. The 100 ICC member states now have an obligation to help ensure that the court's arrest warrants are executed.

Uganda, both as the location of the conflict and as the nation that initiated the ICC investigation in 2003, has a key role to play, but it has wavered along the way and needs bolstering. The likeliest route forward is probably a two-pronged approach, with multilateral pressure on Uganda and its neighbours being combined with a motion within the UN itself.

A decision by the Security Council to empower UN missions in the region to execute the warrants will be difficult to pass, given the United States' vehement opposition to the ICC. The US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the court and does not recognise the ICC's jurisdiction.

But as in the UN decision to refer Sudan's Darfur conflict to the court last year, sustained lobbying on the human rights front might sway the Americans not to use their power of veto power in the Security Council.

When a thousand lives are being lost each week in what Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, has called "the biggest forgotten, neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today", decisive action by the UN could help decapitate a guerrilla movement that has terrorised northern Uganda for the last 20 years.

Ayesha Kajee is a researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs whose expertise includes matters relating to the International Criminal Court.

Sudan: Uganda's LRA attacks in Yambio, terrorising Equatorians

Two days ago, on March 18, Yambio residents awoke to another heavy assault on the town from midnight. Locals say rebel Lord Resistance Army came and starting attacking many places to loot. There was heavy gunfire all over the town and this lasted for more than six hours, till dawn.

"Some UN peace keeping force and SPLA forces fought back but it seems our forces were pinned down in their places and LRA went on to loot many houses and places", said a local source to Sudan Tribune.

Full report March 20, 2006.

Sudan, Uganda to renew military protocol on LRA crackdown

Sudanese government has officially informed Uganda that it was ready to renew the military protocol signed between the two countries to enable the Ugandan army pursue the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels inside Sudanese territory, reports Sudan Tribune Mar 20, 2006. Excerpt:

Since the signing of the protocol in March 2002, Sudanese and Ugandan officials meet periodically to renew the military protocol extending the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) operations in southern Sudan.

A high-level military delegation is expected to arrive in Khartoum by the end of this week to finalize negotiations about some amendments which will elaborate parts of the protocol.

The delegation would meet SPLM officials to discuss the formation of a coordinating committee which would include the Sudanese armed forces, the SPLM and the Ugandan army, with the aim of coordinating operations against the LRA which has become a real threat to peace and stability in the south.

A joint coordination was going on between the Sudanese army and SPLM with regard to the LRA dossier. The two sides were committed to end Ugandan rebels' existence in the south at the quickest time possible.

Relations between Sudan and Uganda have improved generally, despite the regular Ugandan accusations that the Sudanese Army still supports for the LRA rebels.

The LRA has been conducting insurgencies against Museveni's government since 1988.