Uganda's LRA rebels walk out of peace talks

Negotiators for Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels walked out of peace talks in southern Sudan after their demands for cash and cabinet jobs were rejected, the government said on Thursday.

"We flatly rejected LRA's demands for cabinet posts and cash rewards," Captain Chris Magezi, spokesman for the government delegation at the negotiations in Juba, told Reuters.

"When they saw they were not getting anything out of their tall orders, they walked out of the talks this evening."

LRA delegates could not be immediately reached. They have stormed out of talks before during the on-off peace process that began in mid-2006 to seek an end to two decades of conflict.

The demand for cabinet posts is a new twist, although requests for cash for negotiators is a long-running issue.

Thursday's twist in the tortuous negotiation process came after the government and rebels took a big step forward earlier this week with an agreement to set up special war crimes courts locally for serious crimes.

That was seen as answering the rebels' demand for any peace deal to be dependent on their not facing prosecution at the International Criminal Court.

LRA leader Joseph Kony and two of his top commanders have been charged with atrocities by The Hague-based ICC, which under international law requires they be turned over immediately upon capture or surrender.



ICC STANDS GROUND

The ICC said on Thursday it still wanted them despite the government-rebel deal to prosecute serious crimes in Uganda.

"The office is very confident that the case for which warrants have been granted remains admissible," chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in an e-mailed response to Reuters.

"A challenge to the admissibility of the case before the court remains hypothetical and, in any event, would be a matter for the judges of the Court to decide upon."

The rebels are notorious for brutal attacks on civilians including burning them to death or hacking off their limbs. In 2005, the ICC indicted the leaders for killing, sexually abusing, looting and abducting children. Most of the victims were from their own Acholi ethnic group in northern Uganda.

Tens of thousands have been killed in the 21-year war.

"Going to the ICC will mean that Uganda's judiciary is non-functional," chief LRA negotiator David Nyekorach-Matsanga said in a telephone interview from southern Sudan's capital, Juba. He was speaking before the latest walkout.

"We strongly appeal to the ICC to consider that the people have suffered very much in northern Uganda and withdraw those indictments so that peace can return."

But the ICC said it was also concerned over allegations of continued killings by the LRA in south Sudan.

The rebels deny that.

The ICC was set up in 2002 as a permanent court to bring prosecutions for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. It currently holds three Congolese militia leaders awaiting trial. It has also issued arrest warrants over accusations of war crimes in Darfur.