Uganda agrees to withdraw troops to facilitate rebel assembly

Uganda and southern Sudan authority have agreed to withdraw the Ugandan troops near southern Sudanese town of Juba to facilitate the assembling of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

"It was an agreement on an executive level to facilitate the peace talks," Daily Monitor reported on Friday, quoting an anonymous source in the government of southern Sudan, adding the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Sudan's first Vice-President and President of southern Sudan Salva Kiir agreed on the withdrawal of the Uganda People's Defense Force (UPDF).

The decision was made during a recent visit by Museveni to southern Sudan, during which he had personally talked to the LRA delegates in Juba.

During the talks mediated by southern Sudan, the rebels set a condition that the UPDF must withdraw from areas neighboring Owiny- Ki-Bul, one of the two designated assembly points, before they start gathering.

According to the Aug. 26 truce between the government and the rebels, the rebels are supposed to assemble in Owiny-Ki-Bul and Ri- Kwangba, both in southern Sudan. But the rebels declined to assemble in Owiny-Ki-Bul citing UPDF's siege.

Godfrey Ayo, the LRA delegation spokesman said the renewed truce signed on Wednesday requires the UPDF to vacate positions east of the Juba-Nimule Road and to ensure a 30-kilometre buffer zone at assembly areas.

He noted that the LRA fighters currently in Jabilen and Nisitu would only return to Owiny-Ki-Bul when the UPDF withdraws.

The UPDF deployed its forces at Palotaka and Tibika bases in eastern Equatoria, southern Sudan, under a protocol it signed with Sudan in 2002, allowing it to hunt down the LRA remnants who used to be based in southern Sudan.

The LRA and the government have been negotiating a peace deal since July 14, aimed at ending the rebel's 20 year insurgency in northern Uganda that has left tens of thousands of people dead and over 1.4 million people homeless.

Source: Xinhua