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The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, operates in the north from bases in southern Sudan. More concerned with destabilising northern Uganda from bases in Sudan, the LRA has linked up with Interahamwe and anti-RCD rebels around the Bunia area.

Some have accused Sudan of supporting the LRA because Uganda allegedly supports the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the rebel movement fighting against the Sudan government. Sudanese officials have denied supporting the LRA. However, relations between the two countries have improved in recent years. In 1999, Sudan and Uganda signed an agreement under which Sudan said it would stop aiding the LRA and Uganda would stop aiding the SPLA.

The LRA continued to kill, torture, maim, rape, and abduct large numbers of civilians, virtually enslaving numerous children. Although its levels of activity diminished somewhat compared with 1997, the area that the LRA targeted grew. Insurgent groups in Uganda, the largest of which -- the Lord's Resistance Army -- receives support from Sudan -- harass government forces and murder and kidnap civilians in the north and west. They do not, however, threaten the stability of the government. The LRA seeks to overthrow the Uganda Government and has inflicted brutal violence on the population in northern Uganda, including rape, kidnapping, torture, and murder. LRA forces also target local government officials and employees. The LRA also targets international humanitarian convoys and local nongovernmental organization workers. Due to Sudanese support of various guerrilla movements, Uganda severed diplomatic relations with Sudan on April 22, 1995, and contacts between the Government of Uganda and the National Islamic Front-dominated Government of Sudan remain limited.

The LRA has abducted large numbers of civilians for training as guerrillas; most victims were children and young adults. The LRA abducted young girls as sex and labor slaves. Other children, mainly girls, were reported to have been sold, traded, or given as gifts by the LRA to arms dealers in Sudan. While some later escaped or were rescued, the whereabouts of many children remain unknown.

In particular, the LRA abducted numerous children and, at clandestine bases, terrorized them into virtual slavery as guards, concubines, and soldiers. In addition to being beaten, raped, and forced to march until exhausted, abducted children were forced to participate in the killing of other children who had attempted to escape. Amnesty International reported that without child abductions, the LRA would have few combatants. More than 6,000 children were abducted during 1998, although many of those abducted later escaped or were released. Most human rights NGOâs place the number of abducted children still held captive by the LRA at around 3,000, although estimates vary substantially.

Civil strife in the north has led to the violation of the rights of many members of the Acholi tribe, which is largely resident in the northern districts of Gulu and Kitgum. Both government forces and the LRA rebels--who themselves largely are Acholi--committed violations. LRA fighters in particular were implicated in the killing, maiming, and kidnaping of Alcholi tribe members, although the number and severity of their attacks decreased somewhat compared with 1997.

The LRA rebels say they are fighting for the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments. They are notorious for kidnapping children and forcing them to become rebel fighters or concubines. More than one-half-million people in Uganda's Gulu and Kitgum districts have been displaced by the fighting and are living in temporary camps, protected by the army.

Forty-eight people were hacked to death near the town of Kitgum in the far north of Uganda on 25 July 2002. Local newspaper reports said elderly people were killed with machetes and spears, and babies were flung against trees. Ugandans were shocked by the brutality of the latest attack by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army.

The vicious rebel attack in northern Uganda raised questions about planned peace talks between the group, the Lord's Resistance Army, and Uganda's government. President Yoweri Museveni had recently agreed to peace talks brokered by Ugandan religious leaders. The Ugandan army has been trying to crush the LRA rebellion for 16 years without success. President Museveni gave his backing to peace talks to be brokered by religious leaders. But, Ugandan army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza said he believes this is a waste of time because the rebel leader, Joseph Kony, does not have any real agenda to discuss.

In February 2003 Sudan agreed to let troops from neighboring Uganda enter its territory to attack the LRA rebels who had been trying for years to overthrow the Ugandan government. The Ugandan army called on the rebels, known as the Lord's Resistance Army, to surrender or be defeated. Ugandan officials said the agreement gives them what they have long been waiting for, the chance to eliminate the Lord's Resistance Army once and for all. The agreement sets the stage for a decisive blow against rebels.

By early 2003 optimism was growing that 16 years of fighting in northern Uganda may soon come to an end. Rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army declared a cease-fire and say they want to hold talks with the government of Yoweri Museveni. The pledge by the Lord's Resistance Army to cease all ambushes, abductions and attacks has been welcomed by the Uganda government. The Lord's Resistance Army was in a tight corner after its bases in southern Sudan, just over the border from northern Uganda, had been destroyed by Ugandan troops following an agreement with the Sudanese government. The rebels' main sources of food and military supplies are now back home in northern Uganda, making them much more vulnerable to attacks by government troops. But in June 2003 the leader of the LRA, Joseph Kony, told his fighters to destroy Catholic missions, kill priests and missionaries, and beat up nuns.

In January 2004 Ugandan Defense Minister Amama Mbabazi said that the government army had killed 928 Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels between Jan. 1, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004. Speaking at a monthly press briefing in Bombo, suburb of Kampala, Minister Mbabazi said 791 rebels were either captured by the army or surrendered during the same period in the "Operation Iron Fist" against the LRA rebels. He said the army rescued 7,299 people abducted by the rebels. He also said 88 army soldiers died in the combat, 141 others were injured and four went missing during the period.

In May 2004 a report by the aid organisation, Christian Aid, condemned what it described as a shirking of the government's responsibilities to protect the people of the north "borne out of a lack of will". It accused the government of herding civilians into camps ostensibly to protect them from the LRA without offering those living in camps the protection they needed. The Ugandan government rejected the report, saying the report was "completely unfair".

Rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) attacked a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in war-ravaged northern Uganda on 16 May 2004, killing scores of people and abducting others. A group of rebels attacked Pagak displaced people's camp in three prongs: one attacked the camp, a second one attacked the soldiers guarding it and the third one concentrated on the patrol units. The group that attacked the camp set ablaze dozens of grass-thatched huts to create confusion, then looted food and abducted people whom they forced to carry their loot for a distance before they killed them along with their babies.