Kampala - The two-year peace process in Uganda aimed at ending a rebellion by the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) lies in tatters as the rebels re-arm and Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and southern Sudan gear up for battle. The LRA rebellion, which stretched over decades with varying degrees of intensity, saw tens of thousands killed or mutilated and several million displaced.
Now military officials say LRA leader Joseph Kony is preparing to re-ignite the civil war that wreaked havoc in northern Uganda.
"He is not only re-arming, but he already has the arms for the war," Ugandan military spokesman, Major Paddy Ankunda told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The LRA, which is well-known for recruiting child soldiers, is already attacking villages and killing and abducting people in southern Sudan, the DRC and parts of the Central African Republic (CAR), United Nations and military officials say.
Uganda has said it will this month attack the LRA in collaboration with the DRC, southern Sudan and the UN peace-keeping force in the DRC.
"The problem with Kony is that he is continuing to destabilize the region," Captain Chris Magezi, a spokesman for the Ugandan government team in the talks aimed at setting up a force to tackle Kony's guerrillas, told dpa.
"He is trying to provoke the region into attacking him and that will be his end," he added.
Kony, a former lay preacher in his late 40s, in April refused to sign the peace deal. He said he would only comply if the International Criminal Court (ICC) removed indictments it slapped on him and four other LRA members for war crimes.
According to the ICC, the LRA is guilty of abductions, killings, rape and conscription of Ugandan children into the war.
UN and human rights groups, which accuse the rebels of abducting nearly 30,000 children in northern Uganda, say that they are now committing exactly the same crimes in Sudan, Congo and the CAR.
A report released in May by the US-based Human Rights Watch says that since February the rebel outfit has "carried out at least 100 abductions and perhaps more in the CAR, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Southern Sudan."
Southern Sudan brokered the peace deal, but the LRA now seems hell-bent on antagonizing the peace-makers as well.
On June 5, the LRA attacked a military outpost of the southern Sudanese army near the DRC border, killing over 20 people, including 14 members of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA).
"The military option has always been there for as long as Kony failed to sign the agreement - we are just waiting for a word from the Sudanese mediators before we act," Ankunda said.
It appears that Uganda may not have to wait long. A Sudanese government newspaper, The New Vision, quoted Trade Minister Anthony Makana as saying during a recent visit to Kampala that they are ready to act.
"The LRA has abused the hospitality we accorded it. We are still consulting with other regional leaders so that we can flush him (Kony) out of his hide-out," the minister said.
The elusive guerrilla commander is based in the north-east of the DRC, where he fled in late 2004 after being forced out of his former southern Sudanese bases.
A senior Ugandan official, who spoke to
