Machar assures LRA delegates of security

Dec 03, 2007

DELEGATES to the LRA consultative conference at Ri-Kwangba should not fear for their security, the Government of South Sudan, has said.

By Henry Mukasa

DELEGATES to the LRA consultative conference at Ri-Kwangba should not fear for their security, the Government of South Sudan, has said.

The south Sudan vice-president, Dr Riek Machar, in a telephone interview yesterday, allayed any fear, saying: “We have done it before, we cannot fail to do it now.”

Machar, who is also the chief mediator, said the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) had provided security for 60 delegates who met Kony for a confidence-building meeting at the start of the peace talks last year.

“That time we provided security. We won’t fail to do that now. Assure them.”
Machar’s assurance comes after LRA peace team leader Martin Ojul said the security of the delegates would be guaranteed by the SPLA.

“LRA’s security is also being provided for by the SPLA,” Ojul explained in an exclusive interview at Hotel Africana in Kampala.

Anxiety has gripped the North after news trickled in that LRA leader Joseph Kony had executed his deputy, Vincent Otti.
While Ojul and his team said Otti was quiet because he was ill with cholera, Kony called Gulu chairman Norbert Mao and claimed that his deputy was under house arrest for working with his enemies.

Mao said he would be reluctant to travel to Ri-Kwangba for the conference while Otti’s fate was still shrouded in mystery.
Over the weekend, Dokolo Woman MP Cecilia Ogwal warned that the LRA peace team, on their arrival in Garamba, could be met by Kony’s unpredictability and brutality.

Machar said Kony had told him Otti was alive but under arrest. “That’s what everybody should take.”
Ojul also disregarded assertions by rebel defectors that Kony executed Otti on November 2.

Ojul described the peace talks as a marathon that had to be completed.
“When you are running a marathon, people come with different perspectives. Nobody has confirmed whether (Otti’s death) is true.

For that matter, I don’t think that when we go to Ri-Kwangba we shall be the next victims as people allege.”

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});