[allAfrica.com]


Museveni Was Never Interested in Juba Talks, Says Ex-UN Chief

The Monitor (Kampala)

NEWS
27 May 2008
Posted to the web 27 May 2008

By Rodney Muhumuza
Kampala
Jan Egeland, the former UN humanitarian chief who famously described the war in
northern Uganda as the world's biggest forgotten crisis, has claimed in a new
book that President Yoweri Museveni told him within months of the South Sudan
mediated Juba peace process that only a "military solution" could end the
conflict.
In "A Billion Lives: An Eye Witness Report From the Frontlines of Humanity", Mr
Egeland recalls a November 2006 meeting during which Mr Museveni rebuked him
for going into the jungle to visit rebel leader Joseph Kony.
According to excerpts from Mr Egeland's book that were published on May 12,
2008 in The Black Star News, a New York newspaper with special interest in
African-American affairs, Mr Museveni seemed to suggest that the peace talks
were a waste of time.
Mr Egeland's recollections of his confrontation with Mr Museveni seem to
suggest that the Ugandan leader was always cynical about the peace process.
"You were just wasting your time in the bush with them (LRA). I told you so,"
Mr Museveni reportedly said when the two met, Mr Egeland recalls in the book.
And when Mr Egeland responded that the President's assessment was wrong, Mr
Museveni reportedly said: "No, those talks were not to our benefit. Let me be
categorical-there will only be a military solution to this problem."
With the peace talks now in disarray, and especially since Kony has sent out a
new message in which he says he will die fighting, Mr Museveni's views now
appear prescient. Yet they could also be taken to reflect his own lack of
commitment to negotiating peace with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
During celebrations to mark International Labour Day at Kololo Independence
Grounds on May 1, 2008, Mr Museveni said that he never sent the team that had
been negotiating peace with the LRA. Mr Museveni also said that Internal
Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, who led the delegation, was simply doing his
job. "I have never and will never send a delegation of the [ruling] NRM party
to talk with Kony. I hear some people begging Kony to come out…I cannot [beg
Kony]," he said.
Information Minister Kirunda Kivejinja said yesterday that Mr Museveni's early
skepticism about the outcome of the peace talks was proof of his vision. "He
saw farther…What's the use of a leader who sees behind?" Mr Kivejinja told
Daily Monitor by telephone.
Mr Egeland's book, which was not yet available to Daily Monitor, is a memoir of
his work when he headed the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) for three and a half years. The book, which details Mr Egeland's
trips to some of the world's conflict zones, has a chapter that is titled
"Uganda's Twenty Thousand Kidnapped Children".
The exchange between Mr Egeland and Mr Museveni reportedly happened on November
12, 2006, hours after the UN official had returned from a bush meeting with
Kony. Mr Egeland's book also offers a few interesting observations on Mr
Museveni's personality. "Museveni seems pleased with the tough and direct
exchange," Mr Egeland writes. "He clearly enjoys the verbal jousting. Within
his own government nobody dares to argue with him. Not once in three hours do
any of his ministers interrupt."
Mr Museveni allegedly got angry "only once" during the meeting, according to
the book. Dr Rugunda and Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kuteesa, who attended the
meeting at Parliament Building, could not be reached for comment. But Lands
Minister Omara Atubo, who is sitting in for the travelling Kuteesa, said he has
known Mr Museveni to be "a patient listener". Asked if there have been
instances in cabinet meetings where the President has been challenged by his
junior, Mr Atubo said that he has "not known those cases".
Mr Egeland, who helped bring the northern conflict to the world's attention,
left the UN to head the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Kony, who
now says he cannot guarantee his safety when he is out of the bush, was in 2005
indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes and
crimes against humanity. Four of his top commanders were also indicted, three
of whom may be dead by now.
The issue of the ICC arrest warrants against the LRA leadership became a major
sticking point during the talks, and Kony is said to have refused to sign a
comprehensive peace deal because matters regarding his security were not well
addressed.

===============================================================================
  Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica
                        Global Media (allAfrica.com).
===============================================================================