wfn.org | UGANDA:CHURCHES APPEAL FOR PEACE TALKS

[a.whitefield@quest.org.uk]

TITLE:UGANDA:CHURCHES APPEAL FOR PEACE TALKS
May 13, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

ACNS  [97.5.2.5]

UGANDA:CHURCHES APPEAL FOR PEACE TALKS

(ENI) President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has again rejected pleas by
religious leaders and some politicians for his government to hold peace
talks with rebels fighting government troops in the north of the
country.

Opening a new session of the Ugandan Parliament in Kampala on 2 May,
President Museveni compared the leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, to Satan. He said that he was not ready to
"compromise with the devil".

"Religious leaders and some politicians are asking me to compromise with
Satan," he said.   "But I do not think the victims of the devilish acts
of Kony will forgive me if I agree to negotiate peace with these
bandits."

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) of Joseph Kony, a former Catholic
catechist, propagates a mixture of religion and witchcraft. The LRA
claims it wants  to overthrow the government and rule according to the
Ten Commandments. The LRA has been widely accused of kidnapping hundreds
of children from northern Uganda as well as committing widespread
atrocities, including the rape of children, mutilation, looting and
murder.

Leaders of Uganda's three main Christian traditions - Protestant, Roman
Catholic and Greek Orthodox - and Muslim leaders have called on the
government to hold peace talks with rebel leaders. However, the
government has said that attempts to find a peaceful settlement of the
conflict have failed and that it intends to fight the rebels until they
are eliminated.

Earlier this year, Anglican Bishop Macleord Baker Ochola III, from the
diocese of Kitgum, criticised President Museveni's government for
failing to end the armed rebellion. The bishop called for dialogue with
the rebels.

In his address to parliament last week, President Museveni described
Kony and other rebel leaders as "parasites of society", suggesting that
they were fighting for personal enrichment and for a style of living
that they could not afford through "legal toil".

The president said that it would not be wise to allow such rebel
activities to go unpunished. "What if it encourages others to similarly
loot as a form of  'fundraising' or 'capital accumulation'?" he asked.
"When will our society ever settle down to develop? In any case these
criminals have not only looted, but have also murdered thousands."