LRA rebels back in Garamba Park

Mar 27, 2007

LRA rebels have returned to the Garamba National Park just two months after they withdrew from it on the orders of the Congolese authorities.

By Emmy Allio

LRA rebels have returned to the Garamba National Park just two months after they withdrew from it on the orders of the Congolese authorities.

Congolese security reportedly allowed the LRA back to Garamba to prevent the park from being used by defeated presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba to start a rebellion against President Joseph Kabila’s government.

Fierce clashes between government troops and Bemba’s forces in the capital Kinshasa last week killed up to 600 people and “seriously wounded” the democratic process, according to EU ambassadors yesterday.

The army regained control of the capital late on Friday but Bemba, against whom the government issued a warrant of arrest, is still sheltering in the South African embassy.

According to sources within the Ugandan security, the Congolese authorities decided to re-renew their cooperation with the LRA fearing that Uganda might re-enter the Democratic Republic of Congo in support of Bemba.

Uganda backed Bemba during Congo’s civil war but stopped its support after the Sun City agreement in 2002, which resulted in the formation of the transitional government.

The majority of the LRA rebels, who had crossed to the Central African Republic, returned to Garamba last weekend, aid agencies said.

The rebels were cited in the vicinity of Kurukwata, Misa and Nagero in the southern parts of Garamba.
LRA leaders Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti allegedly returned to Rusu, in the northeastern environs of the park.
The rebels first entered Congo in September 2005.

Uganda believes they were staying there with the knowledge and consent of the Kinshasa authorities. As a result of pressure from the Congolese Government and the United Nations Observer Mission to Congo (MONUC), most of the rebels left the park in January and early February. “A small group led by Okot Odhiambo remained in Garamba to safeguard the routes,” security sources said.

After leaving Garamba, the bulk of the LRA had been living around Obo in the southeastern parts of the Central African Republic, a region under the control of rebels fighting the Bangui government.
In Sudan, the rebels maintained their presence around Ezo, Yambio and Tambura.

The new developments come less than a fortnight after the Tripartite-Plus meeting in Kigali, where Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Burundi agreed to cooperate in tracking and arresting rebels operating in their respective countries. Congo had pledged to arrest the LRA leaders.

In Sudan, the LRA rebels have grown increasingly unpopular with the local population.

In a recent conference in Torit, the governors of the states of Eastern, Central and Western Equatoria resolved that the Government of South Sudan should intervene militarily to evict the remnants of the LRA.

Last week in Eastern Equatoria, LRA rebels raided villages in Torit county, killing a man and displacing about 1,800.

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