Kony calls uncles, vows never to return home
Mr Okidi, Kony’s uncle, claims his nephew called him on Wednesday. PHOTO BY SAM LAWINO
What you need to know:
Rebel leader says he is living in peace and currently engaged in farming.
Gulu
The elusive leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, has called his relatives and other friends this week, reassuring them that he was well and had no intentions of returning to Uganda, the Sunday Monitor can reveal.
Mr Martin Okidi, an uncle to the rebel leader, said his nephew called on Wednesday night, saying he was safe and now engaged in farming in between Central African Republic and the DR Congo. “He told us that he is farming and no one is seeing him. He is with his children and a few guards,” Mr Okidi told this paper on Friday, adding that Kony had also talked to two other paternal uncles.
Speaking to the Sunday Monitor from their home in Agwengtina Village in Odek Sub-county, Gulu District, the rebel’s relatives who had come to receive a message from Kony, said they were excited to receive his call after five years of no communication. His relatives said he last called in 2008.
The three claimed that Kony said he would not return to Uganda to fight for change in leadership.
“He assured us that the change would come from within Uganda and not through him,” Mr Okidi said.
He, however, did not say he would denounce rebellion, but only insisted he would not return to fight in Uganda.
The claim of the relatives could not be verified from any other source. Army and intelligence network in northern Uganda said they were not aware of the call.
But the UPDF Political Commissar, Col. Felix Kulayigye, dismissed claims that Kony is engaged in farming, adding, “our intelligence indicates he is in Darfur region of Sudan.” The rebel leader has been holed-up in CAR and DR Congo since 2009 when he was flashed out of Garamba Forest in eastern DR Congo in an offensive dubbed Operation Lightning Thunder.
A combined force of Ugandan and American soldiers has been hunting for the LRA rebels for the last two years. However, the hunt was halted last month when Seleka Junta rebels in CAR ordered all foreign troops, including US Special Forces and the Ugandan armies out of the country after toppling President François Bozizé Yangouvonda.
A group of abductees who escaped from the rebels and arrived home last week said the rebel leader and his commanders are in CAR.
