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R/£ Rebels blame 400 deaths on regional powers
December 31, 2008 Edition 1
Kampala - Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army has denied massacring 400 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and blamed the deaths on regional governments.
According to a report by the Caritas aid group, LRA rebels have killed more than 400 people in northern DRC over the past few days.
"The LRA has never done anything bad to anyone," LRA peace delegation deputy chairperson Justin Labeja said yesterday.
"If Caritas is saying the LRA killed people, where was the DRC government which is supposed to protect the people? This is Uganda's propaganda at work, which is compared to none on this planet."
Earlier this month, the government of South Sudan, the DRC and Uganda launched an unprecedented joint military offensive against the LRA, whose leader Joseph Kony has repeatedly backed out of a peace deal with Kampala.
The three powers, on whose borders Kony and his followers have been hiding, failed to kill or capture the LRA leader, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on a series of war crimes charges.
"How can the three powers, with big and sophisticated guns, allow the LRA to kill civilians? It is these powers that are killing the people and blaming it on the LRA," said Labeja, believed to be Kony's right-hand man.
Caritas said the areas where the massacres took place had been plundered, leaving local people in desperate need of aid. It added that the corpses posed a disease risk. - Sapa-AFP
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