By Sisto Olur
It further charged that it is the same group that is behind the killings of the 41 civilians about two weeks ago on Juba-Nimule and Torit roads, respectively. While the GOSS reacted swiftly by arresting and parading those involved and even declared that they are Sudanese and the arrested people even confessed that they have links with Khartoum. However, what needs clarifications is the fresh allegation that a new LRA group has emerged in Sudan. Vice President, Dr. Riak Machar, currently engages the LRA under Joseph Kony in peace talk in Juba the capital of South Sudan facilitated.
No doubt we acknowledge the existence of other militia groups such as the South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF), Equatoria Defence Force (EDF) and the Mundari Militia that stayed outside at the time of signing the Sudan peace accord known as Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), but all of them later joined and are now part of the GOSS forming what is called "Joint Integrated Forces". It is also important to note that in a post-war situation like that of the South Sudan, providing security to civilian population could be a nightmare because during the 20 years of civil war people managed to acquire weapons and some are now using them to get what they want through violent to achieve their ill-conceived goals.
The fact that the situation in the South Sudan remains chaotic right from the time and before signing the historic CPA people are still looking at Khartoum as the trouble shooter and fomenters of violence and want to keep the South in a state of instability and make it ungovernable and are working hard to disrupt the forthcoming referendum scheduled for the year 2011 by supporting armed groups still under their control. The Khartoum regime that assisted the LRA with weapons and other military hardwires in the past did so in a revenge for the alleged Ugandan support they gave to the SPLA in their bush war against successive regimes in Khartoum that lasted 20 years and this is not a secret anymore, and even Ugandan President Museveni acknowledged and gave the reasons why he supported and continue to support the black people of South Sudan. The reasons for Khartoum for giving all what the LRA needed to fight their proxy war against Kampala government is not convincing, especially when they say that they want to rule Uganda by applying the Ten Commandments.
In addition to that Khartoum forced and dubbed the LRA to include religious ideology as a condition to get what they want for their existence by people like Dr. Hassan al Turabi the main brain behind the regime at the time before being sidelined, and eventually put under house arrest through internal and external pressure. Joseph Kony who inherited a rebel movement from his niece Alice Auma Lakwena now in exile in Kenya and later renamed it Lord Resistance Army (LRA) from the previous name "The Holy Spirit" failed to convince influential Acholi and other Ugandan opposition groups both inside and outside Uganda to play the political game in their attempts to remove Museveni from power. That is why the LRA remained largely a northern-based rebellion and Acholi dominated movement without national character. Talk to Ugandan intellectuals from other region they will confirm this with more details.
Now coming back to the issue of the new LRA Sudan as reported by the Monitor and quoting a source who said that they are "mainly from Acholi community in South Sudan, and that they had gone silent after the signing of the CPA.