Ugandan rebels hidden in Congo will not surrender unless the International Criminal Court (ICC) drops arrest warrants for them, the deputy commander of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) said late today.
Vincent Otti - one of five LRA leaders named last year by the world court in its first indictments - said his fighters would stay in the bush as long as the warrants were active.
"No rebel will come out unless the ICC revokes the indictments," he told Kampala's KFM radio by satellite phone. The LRA are notorious for massacring and mutilating civilians and abducting thousands of children during a two-decade insurgency that has uprooted nearly 2 million people in northern Uganda.
But under a truce last week that has raised hopes of an end to one of Africa's longest civil wars, the rebels have two weeks to gather at two assembly points in southern Sudan while negotiations continue in the southern capital Juba.
Uganda's government has offered all the LRA amnesty if the Juba talks reach a final peace deal - putting Kampala squarely at odds with prosecutors in The Hague. Cristian Palme, an ICC spokesman, said the world court had no response to Otti's remarks.
"We have made statements in the past, they still stand," Palme said. "This peace process remains at an early stage. Justice and peace have worked together so far and will continue to work together," he added.
The ICC has said leaders of the cult-like rebels should face war crime charges and has urged the execution of its warrants. Last week, deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she still hoped the LRA leaders would be arrested