afrol News, 13 November - The UN's humanitarian chief Jan Egeland met yesterday with Uganda's brutal rebel leader Joseph Kony, who is indicted for unimaginable and countless war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC). While Mr Egeland called for the release of child soldiers and sex slaves, Mr Kony wanted the ICC to drop charges against him.

The meeting took place in Ri-Kwangba, a southern Sudanese village close to the border with Congo Kinshasa (DRC), where Mr Kony and many other leaders of the brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have taken refuge while negotiating a peace deal with the Ugandan government. Discussions lasted only for 30 minutes and involved the Vice-President of South Sudan, Riek Machar, as well as members of the Ugandan and LRA negotiating teams.

The LRA leader, who for 20 years has abducted, killed and mutilated children and villagers in northern Uganda, was more interested in his own personal security than in the many victims of the warfare he has ignited. His main cause for talking to Mr Egeland was to plead for a lifting of the ICC indictment.

Mr Kony, according to a UN release, had raised the issue of the ICC indictment against him and other senior LRA leaders. "If the warrants are lifted, then we can go to the peace talks," LRA deputy leader Vincent Otti had told the UN leader. In response, Mr Egeland said he would not speak on behalf of the ICC, which is an independent organisation. "Peace and justice have to go hand in hand," he said. "There can be no lasting peace without justice."

Also the Ugandan government, which is experiencing a slow progress in the fragile peace talks with the LRA, had hoped Mr Egeland would be willing to be more flexible on the ICC issue. The government of Uganda had been among those "encouraging" the meeting with Mr Kony. The LRA leader has made a final settling of the conflict dependent on a total amnesty for the many war crimes committed by the radical rebels.

During its long conflict with the Ugandan government, the LRA became notorious for abducting children and then using them as soldiers or porters, while subjecting some to torture and allocating many girls to senior officers in a form of institutional rape.

Mr Egeland, while refusing to grant an amnesty for LRA leaders, remained more interested in pressuring for an end to the humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda. Mr Egeland asked Mr Kony "to come up with concrete humanitarian measures concerning the women, children and non-combatants who are currently with Kony's army," according to the UN. In clear words, the UN chief urged Mr Kony to set free the many abducted children and women still held as slaves by the LRA.

Mr Egeland after the meeting noted that the LRA leadership had agreed to come back within one month with an answer to this request. The LRA had also "agreed to identify, by 22 November, those sick and wounded in need of care."

But at a later press conference in Juba, Mr Egeland confessed he was disappointed with these meagre results: "I regret to tell you that I did not get an agreement on release of children," he said. Statements by Mr Kony to the press cemented the impression of failure. "We don't have any children in our movement, there are only combatants," the rebel leader claimed.

While fearing criticism for having negotiated with one of the world's most wanted terrorists - Mr Kony and the LRA are internationally defined as terrorists - Mr Egeland after the meeting held it had been necessary to engage in discussion with Mr Kony. "This is the first time the international community was able to impress upon the senior command of the LRA and their supreme leader the importance of humanitarian issues," said Mr Egeland.

"If we succeed in this peace effort led by the government of Southern Sudan and supported by the UN, there is a good chance peace will break out in the region as a whole," concluded Mr Egeland. "Failing to do so may have catastrophic consequences - not only in northern Uganda, but also in southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic - for local communities," he added.

By staff writers

© afrol News

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