The signing of a Ugandan deal to end 20 years of war was postponed in chaos on Friday as government delegates quit, the rebel negotiator resigned and fugitive Joseph Kony failed to show.
The planned ceremony on the remote Sudan-Congo border looked delayed for at least days after the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) admitted that commander Kony, who is hiding from an international arrest warrant, was nowhere in sight.
“We came yesterday for the signing of a final peace agreement with Joseph Kony. He did not show up as expected,” Ugandan Internal Affairs Minister and chief government negotiator Ruhakana Rugunda told reporters at Ri-Kwangba.
“We are going back until we are advised by the [Sudanese] mediator on what to do,” Rugunda said.
The minister said a ceremony for the Ugandan president to ink the peace deal in the southern Sudan capital of Juba tomorrow had been delayed.
He cast doubt on whether the government would extend a ceasefire agreement with the LRA that expires on Wednesday, despite both government and rebel negotiators being at pains to stress that talks were “progressing.”
“Unless the conditions significantly change, the government of Uganda has no plans of signing this extension,” Rugunda said.
The chief mediator, southern Sudan Vice President Riek Machar, said Kony requested further consultations before signing on Friday.
But by afternoon, the Ugandan government delegation and the chief LRA negotiator, who were staying at a muddy UN-run tent compound with the Sudanese mediators and journalists, had left the jungle town of Ri-Kwangba.
The chief negotiator for the LRA, David Matsanga, announced his resignation.
“There is no sign of Joseph Kony. I learned that he is around this country but it may take him seven days to come,” Matsanga told reporters.
His acting replacement, James Obita, attributed the chaos to a breakdown in communication between the rebel commander and Matsanga.
“He [Kony] says he is committed to the peace process and committed to signing a peace agreement. The only problem was the breakdown in communication with the chief negotiator Matsanga,” Obita told reporters.
He listed a barrage of excuses: Kony intended to meet tribal elders on Thursday and sign the deal days later; Kony took fright because of journalists and diplomats; Kony was under pressure from his commanders over the future.
The LRA gave no new date but said leaders from northern Uganda, which bore the brunt of the war, and Sudanese mediators would stay on in Ri-Kwangba until they had sorted out Kony’s concerns on the implications of the peace deal.
The tent compound, where the mediators, the LRA and Ugandan government teams had stayed, turned to mud on Friday as heavy rain fell after dark.
The LRA is notorious for having raped and mutilated civilians, forcibly enlisted child soldiers and massacred thousands during what has been one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts.
Kony is in hiding to avoid arrest following a warrant from the International Criminal Court.
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