U.S. lawmakers want monitoring of possible aid by Sudan to LRA Article Comments (1) Email PrintSave --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 3, 2011 (WASHINGTON) – Two U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill on Thursday that would require Obama’s administration to ensure that the Sudanese government is not providing support to the notorious Lord Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda. FILE - A communications room, damaged after an attack by Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, is seen at the Nagero airstrip in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo January 6, 2009 (Reuters) This would be the prerequisite for removing the East African nation from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism. This legislation cosponsored by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), requires the White House to certify to Congress that Khartoum "no longer engaged in training, harboring, supplying, financing, or supporting in any way the Lord’s Resistance Army, its leader Joseph Kony, or his top commanders". "Last year, bipartisan legislation was signed into law requiring the Administration to devise a strategy to end the LRA’s atrocities. The strategy promises to ensure the LRA ‘receives no support or safe haven.’ I view this legislation as part of that effort," said Royce, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade. Led by Joseph Kony, the LRA took up arms in 1988 in northern Uganda, where they acquired a reputation for brutality. Since 2005, under pressure from the Ugandan army, the fighters pulled back from their bases in north Uganda to move into the far northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, across the border from the CAR. Last year, the Ugandan army and a number of groups including International Crisis Group (ICG) claimed that Kony has moved to the restive region of Darfur in Western Sudan. But Khartoum denied the presence of Kony in the country and dismissed accusations that it is maintaining contacts with LRA rebels. The U.S. said earlier this year it has no evidence to support this claim. Khartoum once backed Kony but severed the relationship in 2005, at the signing of a peace agreement between Sudan’s north and south. Southern Sudan is set to become the world’s new state next July after the referendum held earlier this year pointed in favor of independence. Washington is in the process of delisting Sudan from the terrorism designation which was promised if the North recognizes the outcome of the referendum in the South. Sudan has been branded by Washington as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1993 in connection to its sheltering of trans-national hard-line Islamists, including Al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden. However, the Sudanese government shifted shape and engaged in counterterrorism cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) following the 1999’s schism in its ranks between supporters of President Al-Bashir and those of veteran Islamist leader Hassan Al-Turabi. (ST) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD info" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jfdinfo?hl=en.
