afrol News, 30 September - Ugandan government has appealed humanitarian agencies to starve Lord's Resistance Army rebels as a way to force them out of Congo bush.

Uganda’s Minister for Disaster Preparedness, Prof Tarsis Kabwegyere, said rebels had become stubborn on signing a final peace agreement to end 20 year civil war because they receive food aid from humanitarian agencies.

"The LRA would not be surviving if nobody was sending them food. Somebody somewhere is sending food to those rebels," Mr Kabwegyere said.

LRA refused to sign an agreement in April because of international arrest warrants against its leaders.

Mr Kabwegyere declined to clearly identify LRA's alleged support but said leaders of some non-governmental aid organisations had been sending rebels food in their forest hide-outs in neighbouring countries.

He also said government of Uganda, semi-autonomous government of South Sudan and United Nations should stop offering LRA’s leader Joseph Kony material incentives for participating in negotiations.

"Kony should know that ending war is the best thing to do," he said.

In president Yoweri Museveni’s speech read by Mr Kabwegyere, he said LRA continued receiving funds from external forces which want to ‘destabilise Uganda.’

“The LRA continues to be a threat and we are not sure that they have not continued to be supported by external people who want to disrupt our development agenda,” he said.

Peace talks sponsored by Sudan and United Nations halted in April when Kony refused to sign a peace accord, because of outstanding arrest warrants from International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes.

Since then Mr Kony has on multiple occasions failed to show up for continued negotiations, despite initially agreeing to appear.

Mr Kony’s fighters have relocated to camps on Sudan-DR Congo border over the past two years of peace negotiations. Last week, Catholic aid agency, Caritas said some 75,000 people had fled recent LRA attack in DR Congo.

LRA has led a rebellion for more than 20 years which has displaced some over a million people in northern Uganda.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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