UGANDA: Army to hunt LRA rebels inside Sudan

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KAMPALA, 11 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - Sudan has given the Ugandan army the green light to hunt for the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels wherever they hide in Sudan, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

Sudan also assured Kampala that it would join the hunt along with the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the deputy Ugandan army spokesman, Maj Felix Kuraije, said.

An agreement to that effect was signed in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Friday, he added. Ugandan and Sudanese military officials along with former SPLA rebel fighters, would meet in Juba on Wednesday to discuss joint anti-LRA operations.

"The agreement means that the LRA will have nowhere to hide and that they will now face three forces," Kuraije said. "The agreement brings the SPLA on board for the first time. We are allowed to use our aircrafts but they have to coordinate with the ground forces and intelligence."

The agreement was valid for one month and it was not yet clear whether it was renewable, he added.

The move comes shortly after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for LRA leader Joseph Kony and four other commanders wanted for masterminding atrocities committed by the rebel group in northern Uganda.

The LRA leaders are accused of massacring and mutilating civilians and abducting more than 20,000 children during the 19-year-old insurgency in the north of the country.

Tens of thousands of people have died in the conflict and up to 1.4 million have been driven from their homes to live in internally displaced persons' camps in the region.

The agreement on Ugandan military activity in Sudan, according to Kuraije, would ensure that captured LRA bases were not re-occupied.

"SAF (Sudan Armed Forces) and SPLA shall ensure that captured LRA camps are not reoccupied," the agreement reads in part.

Since 2002, Ugandan troops have been allowed to pursue LRA fighters up to a limited area extending to a "red line", about 100 km north of the Uganda-Sudan border. Uganda has long maintained that Kony and his fighters were camped beyond this area and were hiding in areas controlled by the Sudanese army.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said recently that if Sudan allowed his army to pursue Kony beyond the "red line" it would take it a shorter period to defeat the insurgents.

[ENDS]