Prospects for peace finally coming to war-ravaged northern Uganda may have brightened dramatically after LRA leader Joseph Kony accepted an amnesty offer from the Ugandan government just days before the start of peace talks between the two sides.
The LRA leadership has formally communicated its acceptance of amnesty to the authorities in Kampala.
"We have had about the communication from Ambassador Busho [Ndinyenka] based at our consulate in Juba and we are very delighted about this," Mr Oryem Okello, the minister of state for Foreign Affairs, said yesterday.
"we have accepted the amnesty with both hands," Kony's most senior commander Vincent Otti told RFI's Billie O Kadameri in an interview on Friday. "I am speaking to you on behalf of Kony."
O Kadameri, a Ugandan journalist, was involved with the aborted peace talks with Kony in 1994. Commander Otti's categorical statement sharply contradicted earlier assertions by two members of the LRA negotiating team that the rebel fighters had turned down the amnesty.
On Tuesday, President Museveni offered Kony and Otti total amnesty if they commit themselves to peace talks and renounce violence.
Now by saying they accept the amnesty offer, Kony and Otti may be saying they are willing to give up fighting.
"This [announcement] is the first step towards resolving the troubles and the beginning of everlasting peace in northern Uganda and Southern Sudan," said an upbeat Oryem, one of eight government representatives going to talk peace with Kony's team in Juba, Southern Sudan. "It gives us confidence that Joseph Kony and Otti are serious partners and have genuine intentions for dialogue now more than ever, which we welcome."
Oryem himself comes from Acholi, the sub-region most affected by the long running war.
Although he said he had not received any formal communication about the amnesty acceptance, Leader of the Opposition Ogenga Latigo said: "I think for us in the opposition and particularly the Acholi, this is something we shall embrace. The amnesty will pave way for reconciliation. In our hearts we are prepared to forgive and start a new chapter."
Prof. Latigo is also the MP of Agago in Acholi. The talks are scheduled to kick off on Wednesday with the Uganda government side led by Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, the minister of Internal Affairs and a veteran of several attempted peace negotiations with Kony.
The LRA side has about 15 people, almost all of them non-fighters. It is not clear who the team leader is given that Kony and Otti are not attending in person; but lawyer Ayena Odongo is the legal advisor.
It was Odongo and Obonyo Olweny who said the LRA had rejected Museveni's amnesty offer because the rebel outfit was not a defeated force.
Their statements drew a strong rebuke from Otti in his RFI interview. "Those delegates should stop making comments without consulting the [LRA] high command," he said.
Although the public mood is optimistic about a possible negotiated end to the war that has killed thousands, the seemingly uncoordinated statements between the men in the bush and those of the delegates, most of them not bushmen, is raising ugly questions.
How real a mandate does the LRA negotiating team have? Does it actually speak for and on behalf of Kony and his band of fighters? Will any deals they strike with the Kampala government be binding on the men in the bush? Will some of the negotiators push their own individual agendas?
If the talks fail, Kony and four of his top commanders including Otti, may well end standing trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, something they are desperately trying to avoid.
Already, the government and the ICC are knocking heads over the amnesty matter. The ICC, which has indicted and issued arrest warrants for the LRA leadership, says Kony and his men should be arrested, not granted amnesty. The Ugandan government thinks otherwise, for the sake of peace.
Everything now really depends on the outcome of the Juba talks, which are mediated by the government of Southern Sudan, in whose territory Kony was given succour for many years by the Islamist regime in Khartoum while it governed that part of the country.
