(Xinhua) -- Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) said Monday they want an independent UN mediator and chief mediator to be appointed to help shore up the peace talks, saying the current mediators are an obstacle to realization of peace in northern Uganda.
Addressing a news conference in Nairobi, LRA leader of delegation of peace talks David Nyekorach Matsanga said elusive LRA leader Joseph Kony also wants a new venue preferably South Africa and Tanzania to host talks. "LRA wants a new mediator on the level of UN envoy to directly look at the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) that was mediated by Dr. Riek Machar and Government of South Sudan. The LRA are ready to re-engage the Ugandan government but not under the mediation of Machar because Gen. Kony said Dr. Machar has lost moral credibility to mediate in the conflict," Matsanga told journalists in Nairobi.
He said the LRA movement wants the peace process to continue on a neutral ground and not in southern Sudan capital of Juba, saying south Sudan took part in the recent military operation carried outby the Ugandan government. "The GOSS (government of southern Sudan) and SPLA (Sudan People' s Liberation Army) have now shown that they are not neutral in this conflict. They have taken part in destroying the same FPA that Dr. Riek Machar mediated. Kony instructed me to communicate to the world that Machar and south Sudan are enemies of LRA," Matsanga said. |