Uganda's fugitive rebel Joseph Kony has broken months of silence to call for the resumption of peace talks that collapsed in April and prompted three countries to threaten a joint attack on his forces. However, the Ugandan government said it would not engage in any more negotiations with the rebels.
Kony, wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, made the rare comments in a phone call broadcast late on Sunday by Radio France International. "I want the peace talks to be resumed in Juba. I want to go back to (the) table again ... I don't want to fight again because talk can end everything," he said. "There is going to be peace though negotiations and my message to the people of Uganda is that ... I am the one who started the peace talks, so I am not going to refuse anything. I am going to struggle to make sure that this war is solved."
Talks took place over two years in Juba, the capital of south Sudan, between the Ugandan government and representatives of Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The negotiations broke down in April after Kony failed to appear on the Congolese-Sudanese border to sign a peace deal. Earlier this month, the rebels attacked south Sudanese forces in the area, killing 30 people including 14 soldiers.
"The Uganda government welcomes Kony's statement calling for peaceful means to end the war but he should know that negotiations between the LRA and us ended and a final peace agreement fully endorsed by his negotiators is ready," said Captain Chris Magezi, the spokesman of the Uganda peace team.
"We are not going to engage in any more negotiations with Kony or his representatives, we only expect him to come to sign the agreement," he said. Uganda's two-decade civil war uprooted 2 million people and destabilised neighbouring parts of oil-producing southern Sudan and mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
South Sudan's Vice-President Riek Machar, who chaired the Juba talks, has said he is not giving up on the negotiations. He has also warned that preparations by Kampala, Khartoum and Kinshasa for a joint offensive against the LRA were premature.
Kony, who is believed to be camped in north-eastern Congo's lawless Garamba Forest, said he was ready to meet Machar again. "I am going to talk to him. He is our mediator," Kony said. "I am going to meet with him in Ri-Kwangba (on the Sudan-DRC border) to end everything."