Joseph Kony, leader of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army at a past meeting
with Ugandan officials, lawmakers and representatives from NGOs in the
DR Congo. Photo/FILE
By Anthony Wesaka, Daily Monitor
The Lord’s Resistance Army rebel leader, Joseph
Kony, has written to Ugandans seeking forgiveness and a resumption of
peace talks to end the insurgency.
“I want to assure the people of Uganda that, we
[LRA] are committed to a sustainable peaceful political settlement of
our long war with the government of (President) Museveni,” Kony’s letter
dispatched by Mr Mission Okello reads in part.
“We are willing and ready to forgive and seek
forgiveness, and continue to seek peaceful means to end this war which
has cut across a swathe of Africa for the people of the Great Lakes and
the Nile-Congo Basin to find peace.”
The government-LRA peace talks hosted in Juba,
South Sudan collapsed after Kony refused to sign the final peace
agreement in 2008.
Kony is believed to be hiding in DR Congo and the
Central African Republic. His atrocious war has been marked by
abductions, looting and massacres.
However, in his letter Kony seeks to share the
blame for the deaths during decades of rebellion with the government
singling out renegade Gen David Sejusa as equally culpable.
He says he didn’t go to war because he was an aggressor but in self-defence.
However, government Media Centre boss Ofwono
Opondo, dismissed Kony’s plea for fresh talks, saying he wasted the
opportunity to hold peace talks. Instead, Mr Opondo advised Kony to
surrender to UPDF or apply for amnesty and denounce rebellion before
time runs out.
Kony also sought to whitewash himself saying some of the massacres in the north were committed by UPDF to “to spoil my name.”
He asked the International Criminal Court, which
wants him for crimes against humanity to turn the heat on President
Museveni and Gen Sejusa.
However, while responding to the above allegations
Mr Opondo said: “The allegations against the President are wrong as
people of Northern Uganda know who exactly cut off their lips and raped
them.”
On the current war in South Sudan, Kony advised
President Museveni to pull UPDF out of the country to give President
Salva Kiir and his former vice president Dr Riek Machar, a chance to
talk peace.
“I am pained to see the loss of life brought by
the fight between our two brothers, President Kiir and his former deputy
Dr Machar. President Museveni should take blame for splitting South
Sudan, which has made the two to fight each other,” Kony wrote in a
letter purportedly authored by the rebel leader.
This story was first published in the Daily Monitor
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