UGANDA: Yesterday's meeting with feared Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony was welcome, but a deal has not been secured, writes Rob Crilly in Ri-Kwangba.
Uganda's faltering peace process received a boost yesterday when one of Africa's most fearsome rebel commanders sat down with United Nations officials in a clearing deep in the southern Sudanese jungle.
For 20 years Joseph Kony has built a shadowy reputation as the madman at the heart of the cult-like Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which butchered, murdered and raped its way across much of northern Uganda. Victims could expect to have their lips cut from their face by child soldiers forced to fight with the LRA.
Yesterday, he strolled out of the rainforest close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo to meet Jan Egeland, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator. A platoon of dreadlocked rebels took up defensive positions as he shook hands with the Norwegian official.
They spent about 20 minutes meeting in a simple tent set up rebels at Ri Kwangba, a muddy clearing where rebels are congregating as part of a ceasefire agreement.
Afterwards Mr Egeland said: "For me it was a successful meeting because I have now brought to the highest levels of the LRA the need to do more to protect the civilian population and to return the people they have abducted. They have not promised much more than coming back before the end of the month on possibilities for that to happen."
The LRA has waged one of Africa's most brutal and bizarre civil wars.
Tens of thousands of people have died and almost two million people forced to live in the squalor of aid camps since Kony took up arms in Uganda against a government accused of neglecting the interests of northerners. He claimed to have been instructed by the Holy Spirit and once said he wanted to govern northern Uganda according to the Ten Commandments. The LRA abducted thousands of children to fight in its ranks, and tortured opponents by cutting off their lips, arms or legs. Women were kept as sex slaves.
Kony and four senior commanders have been charged by the International Criminal Court with war crimes including killing civilians, rape and abducting children.
Peace talks in the southern Sudanese capital, Juba, have stalled repeatedly on this issue as rebel negotiators demand an amnesty to allow Kony to leave hiding.
Yesterday's meeting came after a frantic week of diplomacy following a public request that Kony be allowed to meet Egeland during a visit to Sudan.
Initially Egeland said such a meeting could only take place if the LRA agreed to a symbolic release of women and children. For two hours he waited for the rebel leader as Kony's senior commanders relayed requests, demands and concessions over satellite telephones.
It wasn't until a procession of soldiers - some carrying plastic chairs - emerged from the waist-high jungle grass that Kony was on his way.
After the meeting, Kony insisted his force had not abducted young people to fight. "We don't have any children in our movement - there's only combatants," he said as he faced questions from the small number of journalists who managed to reach the assembly point. His summary of the meeting was similarly concise. "We talked about peace talks that are taking place in Juba," said the man who has lived his life anonymously in the bush.
The child army of the LRA may have kept millions of northern Ugandans living in fear for two decades, but today its fighters resemble a ragtag, defeated force.
A few - dressed in green fatigues and wearing the hair in trademark dreadlocks - stood guard around mildewed sacks of grain and rice at the Ri-Kwangba assembly point. More sit slumped on tree stumps, staring into space. Some wore army boots but most preferred Wellingtons. The sweet, sickly smell of rotting food hung in the air, giving the simple collection of straw huts a sad, defeated air.
But Obonyo Olweny, a spokesman for the LRA, insisted the force retained a fighting strength of 10,000 troops.
"What makes you think we have been defeated?" he said. "It is just that we need peace now. There is no feeling of defeat or despondency."