Mick Hartley

It’s not clear what this really means in practice. In effect the fighting’s already over in Uganda itself, though thousands remain displaced in refugee camps. Then there’s the issue of those International Criminal Court warrants…

Uganda’s top rebel leader Joseph Kony was expected to sign an historic peace deal on Thursday to end one of Africa’s longest and most brutal civil conflicts.

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) chief was due in the southern Sudan jungle town of Ri-Kwangba to initial an agreement which is to be signed separately by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni four days later.

“They (the LRA) told me he would be there,” Southern Sudan vice president and chief mediator Riek Machar told AFP Wednesday, amid lingering speculation over the elusive rebel’s presence.

Kony — whose group is notorious for raping and mutilating civilians, enlisting child soldiers and massacring thousands — has been in hiding to avoid a warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Top LRA commanders have hunkered down on the other side of the Ri-Kwangba area’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo but Kony was reportedly spotted recently in the neighbouring Central African Republic.

Kony’s people were suspected of gang-raping women there, taking dozens hostage and attacking villages, according to a draft UN report….

A ceasefire was struck in August 2006, paving the way for peace talks in South Sudan capital Juba that have dragged on for more than a year and a half.

The talks were delayed by the LRA’s insistence that ICC warrants and three of his top lieutenants be lifted before an agreement is signed. However, even with an agreement, Kony is not expected to return to the capital Kampala.

While Kampala has not requested such a move from the Hague-based tribunal, it has been vocal in advocating home-grown solutions to bring former rebels to justice.

Observers argue the government has a vested interest in scuppering too much disclosure at an international tribunal, as it may end up facing war crimes for forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands and killing civilians.