AFRICA/UGANDA - Religious, civil and military leaders of northern Uganda and southern Sudan meet to promote peace in both countries

Gulu (Fides Service)- To consolidate peace in southern Sudan and increase the chances of reaching an agreement to end the civil war in northern Uganda religious leaders, traditional chiefs and high ranking military officers from southern Sudan and northern Uganda gathered for a four day meeting 1-4 September in a southern Sudan village 120 km from the border with Uganda.
According to Ugandan news agency INEA, the Ugandan delegation was led by the Catholic archbishop of Gulu John Baptist Odama and the Anglican archbishop of Lango Charles Odurkami. Among the different matters discussed, the possiblity to allow northern Ugandan children kidnapped by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group which operates in Uganda and has bases in Sudan) presently living in communities in Sudan to return home.
The Ugandan delegation made proposals to restore peace in northern Uganda. “We will inform the Ugandan government of the matters discussed here” said Archbishop Mons. Odama, who added that the participants at the meeting were 120.
Chiefs from Acholi West Nile, Lango and Teso were among those present.
The Sudanese delegation included vicar general Mgr Camillo Logi of the Catholic diocese of Torit, brigadier general Johnson Juma Okot of the SPLA Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, and other civil and military leaders.
While the civil war in Sudan ended in January this year with an agreement signed by the government of Khartoum and the SPLA, in northern Uganda attempts to bring the LRA to the neotiating table have so far failed.
Fighting in northern Uganda has left at least 100,000 dead, 25,000 children abducted and forced 1.6 million people (practically the entire population) to abandon villages and farmland and seek refuge in camps often without even the bare necessities for survival and at the mercy of incursions by the LRA.
The newly found peace in southern Sudan seems not to have been disturbed by the death of SPLA leader John Garang who on the basis of the agreement had become vice president of Sudan and was killed on his way back to Sudan in a helicopter crash caused by bad weather. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 8/9/2005 righe 33 parole 404)