Faced with indictment, LRA second-in-command Vincent Otti appealed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently consider sending a team to Garamba National Park in Congo. "ICC should quickly come to Garamba but without the warrant of arrest. We are ready to host them for three days so they get our side of the story," a Radio France (RFI) presenter quoted Otti. "We are ready to go to The Hague but first listen to us. We are freedom fighters," Otti was quoted as saying. Read more at The New Vision.

Intelligence reports in Kampala say the LRA rebels have received $3000 from anonymous funders in the United Kingdom. "The money came in last week from their (LRA) contacts in UK. We have been monitoring the phones of the recipients. However, we cannot arrest them because we have no instructions to," an intelligence source told The New Times in Kampala. The source further revealed that the transfers were made through MoneyGram.

The International Criminal Court has summoned Joseph Kony to make a formal response to the war crimes charges hours after the leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army protested against accusations of killings and abductions perpetrated in his name. The ICC Chief Prosecutor, Mr Luis Moreno Ocampo, offered a safe passage to the most wanted rebel in Africa. "I invite Joseph Kony and the other commanders identified in the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court to come forward to the Court and respond to the charges," Ocampo's statement reads in part. Read more at The Monitor.

Last week, US Assistant Sec. of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer met with President Museveni and toured northern Uganda to see first-hand the effects of the war. Frazer visited the World Vision Rehabilitation Center for forty minutes and also met with the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative. In a press conference last Tuesday, Frazer declared US support for the peace mediation efforts of Vice President Riek Machar. She said, "We believe that the priority has to be peace. As for the pursuit of that peace, we are quite open on how we achieve it. But that is the priority: to stop the war. And if the government of Uganda can come to some agreement with the LRA, that has to be the priority." Read the full transcript of the press roundtable at The East African.

Regional stability including the insurgency in northern Uganda and trade will be top on the agenda during a two-day state visit to Uganda by the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao. Read more at The Daily Monitor.

The United Nations should raise the threat of force against LRA rebels, and put pressure on Sudan and Congo, to ensure the group is serious about peace talks, a Ugandan envoy said. Uganda's representative in Juba said his government would soon send a delegation to meet LRA representatives waiting in the town to start negotiations, although he did not specify a timeframe. "The military option must not be forgotten," Ambassador Busho Ndinyenka told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday. "They must know that if they are not serious about talks there is a military option." Ndinyenka said Uganda also wants to see more pressure put on Congo's government to deal with the LRA, one of many armed groups operating in the east of the vast country. Read more at Reuters AlertNet.

US aid to Uganda will go up by $40 million next year. This will bring the US total aid to $196 million in support of various activities including human capacity development, health, education and economic growth among others. Read more at The Monitor. Uganda-CAN urges USAID and its implementing partners to see that much of this aid is directed toward the resolution of the conflict in northern Uganda and secure return of IDPs to their homes.

Uganda should cooperate with her neighbours to have LRA leader Joseph Kony killed or captured, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer has said. Frazer said the LRA issue was no longer solely a Ugandan issue, but an international affair because Kony and his fighters had killed other nationals and was a threat to peace in the region. "The war in northern Uganda should be put to an end, by either killing Kony, capturing him and bringing him to justice or he surrenders due to the pressure," Frazer said. "We believe that the priority has to be peace for everybody," she added. She said she would make a report to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a course of action wouldbe decided. Read more at The New Vision.

President Yoweri Museveni is seeking U.S. backing for his troops to re-invade the Democratic Republic of Congo. In a meeting with the US top diplomat on African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, Museveni reportedly said, "Uganda should either be allowed to track down remnants of Joseph Kony's LRA inside the DRC on its own or operate together with the Congolese army and MONUC." Read more at The New Times.

The situation in the war-torn northern Uganda took center stage on Tuesday in the British Parliament, with members demanding that their government must put pressure on the Government of Uganda to table an immediate course of action to bring the suffering to an end. Members urged their Government to make aid to Uganda "more conditional" as a way of bringing the conflict to an end. The MPs called on the British government to "prioritise the issue much more heavily." They said there was need to "press" UN Security Council Resolution 1663 to put in place a UN special envoy. All the MPs who contributed to the debate said they had been in Uganda recently and visited the northern region. They said the UPDF was strong enough to sort the problem out, "but corruption, abusive behaviour, poor organisation and equipment shortages" rendered it unable to deal with the LRA. Read more at The Monitor.

US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, has said the U.S. government supports peace talks between the Uganda government and the rebels of the Lords Resistance Army. "We believe that the priority must be peace and if the government of Uganda can come to some agreement with the LRA that has to be the priority," said Frazer. She said, "The priority has to be to get him out of the bush no matter how they do it." Frazer traveled to Gulu yesterday in order to see first hand the effect of the conflict on the people of northern Uganda. Read more at The Monitor.

Just yesterday morning, Uganda-CAN asked you to write your U.S. congressional representatives, telling them to support the peace process. Our voices are being heard! However, more can and should be done. Click here to write and tell the U.S. Congress to put more than words behind this opportunity for peace!

In a meeting with U.S. Assistant Sec. of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer yesterday, President Museveni said Uganda should either be allowed to track down remnants of the LRA inside the DR Congo on its own or operate with the Congolese Army and MONUC. Read more at The New Vision.

In response to a lobbying initiative supported by Uganda-CAN in conjunction with several major humanitarian relief organizations operating in Uganda, the U.S. budget supplemental bill signed recently by President Bush appropriated an additional $35 million for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. This money will be used in northern Uganda and in the Democratic Republic of Congo for emergency health measures, and will have a significant impact on improving conditions in camps for displaced people.

Furthermore, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance has also responded to lobbying, agreeing to appoint a full-time staff person to northern Uganda. Uganda-CAN applauds these efforts to ease the burden of suffering caused by this 20-year war, and thanks all of its supporters who wrote letters and made calls on these successful initiatives!

United States Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer is currently in Kampala. Earlier today, Assistant Secretary Frazer held a two-hour talk with President Museveni, and the LRA crisis was a significant point of discussion. Ambassador Frazer plans to travel tomorrow to Gulu to see the situation firsthand.

Uganda-CAN is grateful to Assistant Secretary Frazer for her visit to the region, and hopes that she uses the opportunity to learn more about the conflict and how the U.S. can help end it. To see Uganda-CAN's ideas about how the U.S. Government can be most helpful, click here. For the official press release regarding Assistant Secretary Frazer's visit, click below.

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This month, the Rt. Rev. MacLeod Baker Ochola, retired Anglican bishop of Kitgum, addressed the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the United States on the situation in northern Uganda. In his speech, Bishop Ochola said, "I have come therefore to appeal to you, my brothers and sisters, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to make our invisible children of Northern Uganda become visible again. I call upon you to remember our forgotten people of Northern Uganda and to reach out and touch us in Northern Uganda who have been demonized and stigmatized for the last 20 years." Click below to read the full text of Bishop Ochola's speech.

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Members of the human rights committee of the German Parliament have promised to ask for more action from their government and the international community to end the 20-year Lord’s Resistance Army rebellion in Northern Uganda. The committee headed by Christoph Straesser (Social Democrats, SPD) said many people were suffering as a result of the war and violation of human rights. He visited internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps, night commuters’ camps and met district officials from Gulu and Kitgum districts on Wednesday. Read more at The New Vision.

Today's Wall Street Journal includes an article about the difficulties of peace and justice in war-torn northern Uganda. Visit WSJ.com or pick up a copy today to read the story. This is another sign of the growing attention by the international press to the "world's worst neglected humanitarian crisis."

David Batstone, columnist for Sojourners Mail, has just visited northern Uganda and writes today about "Uganda's cycle of slavery and revenge." Read his column at SojoMail.

William Bionx Akena, Uganda-CAN news correspondent in Gulu, reports -

The United Nations Special Envoy for Children in Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy is visiting northern Uganda only two months into her appointment. Speaking yesterday at the UNOHCR offices in Gulu, she said that her visit to Uganda would help her to push for UN Security Council action to help end the conflict and protect children. She said demobilization and disarmament of child soldiers is the biggest issue facing her role as the UN envoy.

In a meeting with her, James Otto, director of Human Rights Focus in Gulu, said the plight of children in northern Uganda has been largely ignored by the UN Security Council. Otto asked how the UN can ignore the continued rape, abduction and defilement of Acholi sons and daughters. Coomaraswamy said she would meet today with President Museveni to discuss effective UN action.

In January, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1653, condemning LRA attacks and asking the UN Secretary-General to make recommendations on how the Council might address the crisis. Five months later, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has yet to present any such recommendations, an unusual delay for such matters. Uganda-CAN urges the Secretary-General to take leadership for addressing this crisis that is not only a threat to regional peace and security, but a killer of 1,000 people each week.

According to a statement given by the Italian Ambassador in Uganda, His Excellency Umberto Plaja, the Italian government will give any support needed ti see that the conflict in northern Uganda ends. Plaja said he is pleased to see that the government has set up a Joint Monitoring Committee for Northern Uganda. He called on the newly elected Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi and the new government to continue the cordial relations between Uganda and Italy. Read more at the African News Dimension.

The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) yesterday issued Red Notices for the arrest of the five Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commanders named in ICC arrest warrants. These are the first wanted persons for whom notices have been issued by Interpol, on behalf of the International Criminal Court. The notices will be transmitted to National Central Bureaus in 184 countries. Read more at The New Vision.