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UN envoy says rebel leader Kony calls for end to war

“[Kony] said he no longer wants war with the government of Uganda. He no longer wants war with the government in Sudan. He no longer wants war with the government in Congo DRC.”

— Joachim Chissano, UN special envoy

The UN special envoy to the stalled Ugandan peace process said on Saturday that the elusive leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, Joseph Kony, is no longer interested in war.

“[Kony] said he no longer wants war with the government of Uganda. He no longer wants war with the government in Sudan. He no longer wants war with the government in Congo DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo],” Joachim Chissano said.

“Instead, he wants peace for Uganda,” the Mozambican former president told reporters in Juba, the capital of southern Sudan.

Chissano said Kony made the remarks by telephone.

Sudan-mediated talks between Uganda and the LRA halted in April when Kony refused to sign a peace accord on the grounds of outstanding arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes.

The Hague-based court has a long-standing arrest warrant against Kony, accusing him and three other LRA commanders of raping and mutilating civilians, enlisting child soldiers and massacring thousands during a rebellion in Uganda.

The indictments are seen by some as a stumbling block to the Ugandan peace process.

Chissano spoke a month after the LRA overran a Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) camp on the Congo-Sudan border, killing at least 27 people.

Kony justified the June 4 attack by saying that the SPLA — the mainstream military force in southern Sudan — linked up with the Ugandan army to attack the LRA.

The claim was denied by the regional government in southern Sudan.

Chissano expressed confidence following the telephone call.

“[Kony] wanted to meet the mediator,” he said. “This is something which I believe would bring the process to an end.”

In Juba, Chissano met LRA negotiators with chief Sudanese mediator Riek Machar and African Union (AU) ambassadors attached to the Ugandan talks.

Machar has declared the Ugandan peace talks over and recommended that the Ugandan government implement parts of the agreement, pending a signature from Kony.

“We were discussing how we would revive the peace process, particularly making an effort which would end in the signing of the final peace agreement,” Machar told reporters in Juba.

“Joseph Kony has requested a meeting with the chief mediator, myself, which would be attended by the AU ambassadors, his delegation and president Chissano,” he said.

No date for the meeting has been fixed, Machar said.

Machar said the peace negotiations are over and the meeting would be about how Kony would sign the agreement, but the path forward was not clear.

“We will know what he needs when he meets the chief mediator,” David Matsanga, the reinstated LRA chief negotiator, said last month.
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