On Tuesday, the UPDF arrested a Congolese army officer, 2nd Lt. Gay Katendi, who is alleged to have illegally crossed into Uganda and robbed traders at Malaba in the new Nyadri district. "He was arrested by our forces with the help of civilians after he and six others harassed and robbed traders," the UPDF spokesman for West Nile, Lt. Robert Kamara, said. Katendi’s colleagues, who were all armed, fled back into Congo. This is the latest in a string of events that have stirred tensions between Uganda and DR Congo at their shared border. Read more at The New Vision.

The LRA's second-in-command Vincent Otti has said the ICC is discriminatory and does not act in fairness. Otti claims the ICC was instituted to silence opposition to bad governments in power. Speaking over the weekend, Otti said the court had failed to act on sitting presidents accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Otti then challenged the ICC to try the UPDF commanders, among them a senior officer from Acholi, who he claims massacred over 300 people at Barlonyo IDP camp in Lira District. Read more at The Monitor.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has asked for "more time" to vigorously deal with rebels of the LRA who are hiding in its northeastern jungles in Garamba Park. Mbusa Nyamwisi, DRC's Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said at Entebbe airport: "They are killing Congolese and the same might be happening to Sudan in terms of insecurity...give us time to work on them (LRA) and we give you the result." Nyamwisi's comments come just days after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's criticism of Kinshasa and UN peacekeepers for allowing the LRA free stay in the Garamba jungles. Tensions between the two countries have escalated since the end of July when four Ugandan soldiers patrolling Lake Albert were captured by the Congolese government troops, who accused them of crossing into the DRC territory. Meanwhile, discussions of military action against the LRA are highly sensitive given the ongoing Juba peace process. Read more at Xinhua News Service.

Gulu district chairman Norbert Mao recently called on President Museveni to mobilize political support for the Juba peace process when world leaders converge on Uganda in November for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Mao was speaking at a meeting in Gulu designed to increase civil society input into CHOGM, a bi-annual meeting that brings together leaders of countries in the Commonwealth group of nations. Uganda has invested heavily in improving security, infrastructure and hotel accommodations around the capital city of Kampala in preparation for CHOGM, but Mao said that it was unclear to northerners how the summit would benefit them. Read more at The New Vision.

Following a meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, President François Bozize of the Central African Republic (CAR) said that LRA rebels are not present there. In 2006 news reports claimed LRA leader Joseph Kony sought asylum in CAR, which lies just north of the LRA base in the DR Congo. An April 2007 report released by the International Crisis Group said that a band of LRA rebels reportedly traveled to CAR to receive arms from Sudanese allies and establish links with rebels fighting Bozize’s government. Read more at The Monitor.

The Monitor reports that military chiefs from the Great Lakes region will convene in Kigali, Rwanda next week to evaluate progress made regarding joint military action to wipe out insurgents in the region. In the April, the military chiefs from Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and the DR Congo agreed to work against negative forces that have plagued the region. The meeting will be reflecting on each country's military intelligence and technical reports as presented from the Kisangani-based tripartite fusion cell (TFC). This forum has the potential to greatly impact northern Uganda because the joint military action could pressure the LRA if peace talks fail, as the rebels are now based across the border in DR Congo. Yet, in another scenario, recent tensions between Uganda and DR Congo have threatened to add instability to the region. Discovery of oil in Lake Albert on the border and an influx of Congolese refugees into Uganda has increased tensions. Military hostilities between the two could spiral the entire region into full-scale conflict and should be closely monitored by the international community.

Coming on the heels of the recent appointment of a senior diplomat to engage the Juba peace talks, the U.S. State Department released on Thursday a new statement on the crisis and negotiation process. This is the fourth statement from the State Department on this topic since negotiations began over a year ago and is by far the most thorough and informative. The statement reads in part, "We welcome progress between the parties to the Juba peace negotiations toward agreement on general principles of accountability and reconciliation, a critical part of the peace process. We encourage the parties to continue working with the long-suffering people of Uganda to build consensus around those principles as the basis for lasting peace..." Read the full statement here.