LRA should fool nobody again
Feb 11, 2009
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has assured the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) second-in-command, Okot Odhiambo and other rebel commanders of amnesty if they surrender.
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has assured the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) second-in-command, Okot Odhiambo and other rebel commanders of amnesty if they surrender.
While the President has always extended an olive branch to the LRA, it should be borne in mind that the gesture by Odhiambo could be a ploy by the rag-tag rebel group to ease pressure on themselves since Operation Lightning Thunder started two months ago.
In July 2006, LRA leader Joseph Kony invited the Government for peace talks mainly following his indictment by the International Criminal Court and the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Sudanese Government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) which denied his terrorist group support from the government in Khartoum.
Kony was also under pressure from the SPLA to either negotiate peace or relocate to another country. These, combined with heavy losses incurred by the LRA misadventure in Teso and relentless attacks under Operation Iron Fist, scattered the LRA fighters and put Kony to flight to the Garamba Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
With some of his commanders trapped in the north, the LRA requested for peace talks and negotiated for supplies and a safe corridor to enable his fighters assemble in Ri-Kwangba.
Once the requests were met and his fighters had regrouped, Kony came up with fresh conditions and eventually frustrated the peace process.
Odhiambo’s surrender should therefore, not be looked at in isolation of the current pressure. His request for a safe corridor could be a trick to enable his scattered fighters regroup and continue with mayhem.
If his surrender was genuine, why hasn’t he come out since he communicated his defection three weeks ago? His offer to surrender should, therefore, never be taken seriously until he turns himself in.
A specified period for him to surrender must also be set lest we wait forever like we did with the signing of the peace agreement. Nobody should be fooled again.
While the President has always extended an olive branch to the LRA, it should be borne in mind that the gesture by Odhiambo could be a ploy by the rag-tag rebel group to ease pressure on themselves since Operation Lightning Thunder started two months ago.
In July 2006, LRA leader Joseph Kony invited the Government for peace talks mainly following his indictment by the International Criminal Court and the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Sudanese Government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) which denied his terrorist group support from the government in Khartoum.
Kony was also under pressure from the SPLA to either negotiate peace or relocate to another country. These, combined with heavy losses incurred by the LRA misadventure in Teso and relentless attacks under Operation Iron Fist, scattered the LRA fighters and put Kony to flight to the Garamba Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
With some of his commanders trapped in the north, the LRA requested for peace talks and negotiated for supplies and a safe corridor to enable his fighters assemble in Ri-Kwangba.
Once the requests were met and his fighters had regrouped, Kony came up with fresh conditions and eventually frustrated the peace process.
Odhiambo’s surrender should therefore, not be looked at in isolation of the current pressure. His request for a safe corridor could be a trick to enable his scattered fighters regroup and continue with mayhem.
If his surrender was genuine, why hasn’t he come out since he communicated his defection three weeks ago? His offer to surrender should, therefore, never be taken seriously until he turns himself in.
A specified period for him to surrender must also be set lest we wait forever like we did with the signing of the peace agreement. Nobody should be fooled again.