Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army rebel leader Joseph Kony has said he will not return to Uganda, regardless of the outcome of the ongoing peace talks in Juba, southern Sudan, reported the state-owned Sunday Vision.

The newspaper said Kony revealed his plan to its reporter last month when the reporter traveled with Kony's relatives and spent a night at the LRA hideout in Garamba National Park, northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kony and his commanders relocated themselves to Garamba late last year after being dislodged from southern Sudan by the Uganda People's Defense Force.

"I feel more comfortable and safe staying in other countries like America, Central Africa Republic, Nairobi in Kenya, Europe, Sudan, or any other Arab country, but not in my home village of Odek in Gulu." Kony said.

Kony claimed that he has many friends and sympathizers who he trusted across the world, stressing that he and his top LRA commanders could live safely elsewhere in the world.

He also revealed that he has been shopping in various parts of the world, pointing at plain army-green uniforms exclusively for his High Command, which he claimed to have bought from France recently.

The rebel leader said LRA leadership was unsure of the reception they would receive from Ugandans other than northerners.

"Our biggest fear is not that our people in the north would take revenge for the alleged atrocities committed by the LRA but how Ugandans would react. Our biggest fear now is the way Ugandans from other parts of the country would handle us when we go back to Uganda," he said.

The cult-like LRA under the leadership of Kony is responsible for the killing, raping and abduction of civilians in the nearly two-decade insurgency in northern Uganda, which has left tens of thousands of people dead and over 1.4 million displaced.

The LRA leadership was indicted by the UN's International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague last year and put on Red Notices by the Interpol in June for crimes against humanity.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has promised to grant total amnesty to Kony and his top commanders if they finally can reach an agreement and sign a peace deal before September 12 this year.

The current peace talks in Juba, brokered by southern Sudan authority, are seen another historic chance to end the LRA insurgency, one of Africa's longest conflicts after a dozen of such attempts failed in the last few years.

Source: Xinhua