Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Juba (Agenzia Fides)- “There is an atmosphere of confidence and optimism with regard to the outcome of peace talks" Giancarlo Penza, a member of the S. Egidio Community “facilitator” delegation at talks for peace in northern Uganda which resumed yesterday 26 April in Juba, southern Sudan.
“Both the principal negotiator, southern Sudanese vice president Riek Machar and the UN special envoy former president of Mozambico, Joaquim Chissano, in their addresses underlined the necessity to retrieve time lost in recent months and at the same time said they were confident that the outcome of the negotiations would be positive” Penza said.
Peace talks between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group LRA opened last year. This year in January the LRA delegation walked out of the talks which were being held in Juba in southern Sudan, asking for the venue to be moved (see Fides 16 January 7 February and 15 March 2007) expressing fear after the Sudanese president Omar Bashir, said he intended to “eliminate the LRA from Sudan”.
Thanks to efforts on the part of the international community talks have now resumed still in southern Sudan. “One element which helped the resuming of the talks was the African Union decision to appoint a delegation of observers with representatives of Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa” Penza told Fides. “Besides the mediator Machar, UN special envoy Chissano, and the group of “facilitators”, including a delegation of the Rome based S. Egidio Community, the presence of AU observers is an ulterior guarantee for the parties concerned”.
In refugee camps in northern Uganda where about 2 million people are sheltering hope grows for a rapid solution to the conflict: “the people of the region want to return to normal as life as soon as possible, as the Kampala government representative said in his address” Penza told Fides.
The conflict which has devastated northern Uganda and southern Sudan for twenty years left at least 2 million persons displaced and tens of thousands of civilians dead. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 27/4/2007 righe 33 parole 402)
