Lords Resistance Army Refuses to Release Children

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THE Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebels will not let the women and children that they are holding captive go free.

Releasing children for what? Have they been in prison? The children we have here (bush) are ours. They were born in the bush. LRA's second in command Vincent Otti

The Ugandan government has appealed to the LRA to release all the people that the LRA are holding captive. The government wants the children free and thus able to get on with their lives which includes going to school.

A recent report shows that over the twenty year conflict that as many as 38,000 children and 37,000 adults have been abducted and forced to join the insurgents. Abduction: the Lord's Resistance Army and Forced Conscription in Northern Uganda, has been compiled by researchers from the University of California Berkeley's Human Rights Centre and Tulane University's Centre for International Development

Last Friday there as a meeting, between Ugandan Human Rights Commissioner Veronica Bichetero Eragu and Otti, to discuss the release of the women and children who are being held captive.

"We don't have children here. Those whom we abducted are no longer children. Some of them are now adolescents and others are fathers," Otti said.

Otti added that the LRA would continue with the peace talks while they wait for The Hague based International Criminal Court to drop its indictments against four LRA high commanders; LRA leader, Joseph Kony, Otti, Okoth Odiambo, Domenic Ogwen and Raska Lukwiya are wanted by ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"The indictments in The Hague are the major obstacle to the peace process. We shall continue with the talks as we wait for ICC to drop the charges," Otti said.

This is a situation that is on the road to an unhappy ending, when children can be stolen and forced to be soldiers and women abducted to meet other needs, we may have gone past any hope for a reasonable resolution.