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By SRS
Posted to the web on December 18, 2008 |
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December 18, 2008 – (Khartoum) – The Government of Southern Sudan has closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo because the Ugandan army has launched fresh attacks on the Lord’s Resistance Army in DRC.
Addressing the press in Khartoum, the chief mediator of the apparently failed Ugandan peace talks, GOSS Vice President Dr. Riek Machar said the Ugandan government told the Government of Southern Sudan that strikes against the LRA would be launched. Machar said that GOSS elected to close the borders in an effort to put pressure on LRA leader Joseph Kony to sign a peace deal that the parties hope would end the conflict in northern Uganda.
He also denied that the SPLA is playing an active part in the military strikes.
[Riek Machar]: “We believe that renewal of hostilities is pressure to Joseph Kony so that he will gather his forces at Rikwamba and sign the peace deal. As such, we as mediators, we have decided to close the border, but we have opened for him a place so that he can gather his soldiers in that area and sign the agreement. Actually we are not part of the conflict. The conflict is a Ugandan conflict and the Ugandan government has decided to put more pressure on the LRA leader after he has failed four times to sign the peace deal.”
The Government of Southern Sudan has been mediating the talks between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army since 2006.
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