Ugandan president to pardon rebel leader

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said he will pardon Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader JosephKony and his top commanders if they surrender immediately.

"If Otti and Kony come out today, nothing will happen to them. Our words are our words. If they do not come out now, they will have themselves to blame," Museveni was quoted Monday by state-owned newspaper The New Vision as saying.

"We have the capacity to follow them wherever and kill them. Former rebels like Banya are now free and some fit ones have been absorbed into our army. Those still in the bush should come out before we kill them," Museveni told a cheering crowd in Gulu afterhis arrival in the northern town on Sunday afternoon.

He expressed his sorrow for the suffering the people in the war-torn region have gone through.

"But we are ending this conflict soon and embarking on rehabilitation of northern Uganda in a big way. The Uganda People's Defense Forces has now better capacity for finishing this problem due to adequate spending," he said.

The Ugandan government extended an amnesty period another threemonths to the LRA rebels last week. However, the government is expected to amend the Amnesty Act to exclude Kony and his top commanders from it.

Since the Amnesty Act was declared in 2000, over 10,000 rebels have renounced rebellion and have been given amnesty certifications.

The LRA rebels have killed tens of thousands of civilians, abducted over 20,000 children as their porters, fighters and sex slaves and displaced over 1.6 million people in northern Uganda intheir 18-year rebellion.

Source: Xinhua