Kampala The nearly two-year peace process to end the two decades' insurgency in northern Uganda has hit a fresh snag as the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) guerilla leader has not only refused to meet leaders from the war zone, but is also recruiting new fighters, a senior government peace observer said Wednesday. Dozens of elders, religious and tribal leaders and legislators from the war-ravaged Ugandan regions travelled to a remote village on the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border last week to meet the elusive LRA leader Joseph Kony.
However, he shunned them and they were flown back to southern Sudan Wednesday, government officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Talks to end the war that has left thousands dead or mutilated and displaced almost two million people began in mid-2006 under the mediation of southern Sudan's leaders.
But, despite the signing of a series of mini-treaties on the draft peace document by the LRA delegation, Kony declined to sign the final peace treaty early this year.
The rebel leader who is holed up in a game park in the remote north-east of the former Zaire from where he fled late 2004, is instead sending his fighters to attack villages in neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) where he is recruiting more fighters, Colonel Walter Ochola, one of the government peace officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The meeting was supposed to take place in the border village of Nabanga over the weekend but Kony shunned the delegation which has been flown back to southern Sudan's capital Juba, Ochola said.
"They were flown from Nabanga to Juba after waiting all these days. This means that Kony is not interested in peace and this is what we have been telling people all along. The LRA are now moving all the way to the CAR, recruiting fighters. It does not need a serious analyst to see that he is not interested in peace," Ochola told
