LRA கிறிஸ்துவ பயங்கரவாதிகளும் உகாண்டா அரசும் ஒப்பந்தம்

உகாண்டா அரசும், லார்ட் ரெஸிஸ்டென்ஸ் ஆர்மி என்ற கிறிஸ்துவ பயங்கரவாத குழுவும் சமாதான ஒப்பந்தம் எழுதினார்கள்.

இந்த கிறிஸ்துவ் பயங்கரவாத குழு பைபிளின் பத்து கட்டளைகளை நிறைவேற்றும்பொருட்டு உகாண்டாவிலும் சூடானிலும் பல கொடூரமான விஷயங்களை செய்து வந்திருக்கிறது. சிறுவர்களை கடத்திசென்று போராளிகளாகவும், சிறுமிக்ளை வேலைக்காரிகளாகவும், பாலுறவு அடிமைகளாகவும் பயன்படுத்தி வந்திருக்கிறது.

Uganda, LRA rebels sign third stage of peace deal
30 Jun 2007 10:40:10 GMT
Source: Reuters

Uganda violence
By Tim Cocks

KAMPALA, June 30 (Reuters) - Uganda's government and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have signed an agreement on how to deal with war crimes in the third phase of talks to end one of Africa's worst conflicts, the rebels said on Saturday.

The signing, at negotiations in southern Sudan, was a major development in an intended five-stage peace deal aiming to end two decades of violence in north Uganda.

"We signed the agreement on reconciliation and accountability late last night, which moves us one step closer to a final peace agreement," Martin Ojul, head of the LRA delegation in Sudan, told Reuters by telephone.

Talks between the two sides started last July, raising hopes of an end to a war that has caused tens of thousands of deaths and forced nearly two million refugees into camps that aid workers say are among most squalid in the world.

Progress had been slow since a truce signed in August, with the LRA frequently walking out of talks, but have since picked up pace. Last month, the two sides signed the second stage of the deal, breaking months of deadlock.

The third phase is supposed to set out principles for dealing with war criminals -- a thorny subject for a rebel group notorious for beating civilians to death, mutilating victims and kidnapping children.

LRA leader Joseph Kony and three other top commanders are wanted in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and have vowed never to quit their Congolese jungle hideouts unless the court drops the indictments.

Ugandan government officials were unavailable for comment, and the document was not immediately available. Ojul said it set out a framework for dealing with war crimes under Uganda's own law that they hoped would appease judges in the ICC.

"The agreement is about putting mechanisms in place under national law. We can take it to the ICC and say 'look: we are dealing with accountability'," he said.

Analysts say the trial of Liberian former president and warlord Charles Taylor in a special tribunal, also in The Hague, has shaken up the LRA leadership.

The LRA says the ICC indictments are too one-sided and fail to acknowledge crimes committed by government forces.

Leaders from Kony's Acholi tribe want him and his associates to undergo a traditional reconciliation ritual in which the murderer faces relatives of the victim and admits his crime before both drink a bitter brew made from a tree root.

Rights groups say such a method would condone impunity.

"There's nothing we signed that explicitly deals with punishment," Ojul said. "It is trying to find a way of dealing with war crimes locally. We don't see the ICC as appropriate."

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பின்புலம்

One of the world's most neglected crises

A brutal, two-decade insurgency by a cult-like rebel group in northern Uganda has created what the United Nations calls one of the world's most neglected humanitarian crises. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, notorious for massacring civilians and slicing off the lips of survivors, have abducted thousands of children for use as soldiers and sex slaves. Almost the entire population of the region is crowded into squalid settlements where they are vulnerable to disease and attacks.

More than 20,000 children kidnapped
Some 1.7 million people uprooted into camps
Violence and disease kills 1,000 people a week

The conflict has threatened to destabilise the volatile central African region as rebels seek shelter in neighbouring countries and violence spills across borders.

Hopes for lasting peace were raised after a landmark truce brokered in August 2007 by neighbouring south Sudan, often a haven for the rebels, brought relative stability to the war-weary north.

But the fact that international arrest warrants hang over top LRA officials is an enduring obstacle.

Violence also plagues Uganda's northeastern Karamoja region, where an influx of small arms has exacerbated banditry and cattle raiding. Karamoja often suffers from drought and food shortages, with more than half a million people receiving aid in 2007.


key facts

Number of internally displaced people in northern Uganda 1.7 million (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2006)
Conflict-related mortality rate in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts at height of conflict 1,000 people a week (Ugandan health ministry, 2005)
Life expectancy at birth (whole of Uganda) 47.3 years
(Source: UNDP Human Development Report , 2003)
Public health expenditure as percent of GDP 2.1 percent (UNDP, 2002)
Population undernourished 19 percent (UNDP, 2000-2002)
Official development assistance received (net disbursements) per capita $38 (UNDP, 2003)