UN humanitarian chief willing to meet Uganda's LRA

KAMPALA, Nov 10 (Reuters) UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland is willing to meet commanders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army rebels to try to boost efforts aimed at ending one of Africa's longest wars, the United Nations said.

But such a meeting would depend on the LRA releasing sick or wounded civilians still in LRA captivity.

The offer follows reports from the head of the delegation representing the LRA at peace talks that reclusive LRA leader Joseph Kony would like to meet Egeland when he visits the talks in the south Sudanese capital, Juba, this weekend.

''Mr Egeland has indicated his willingness to meet with the LRA senior leadership in the event of a ... transfer of wounded or sick civilians into the care of humanitarian agencies,'' the UN said late yesterday.

The Ugandan government and rebels this month signed an extension of an August truce that many hope will draw a line under a 20-year insurgency that has killed tens of thousands and uprooted nearly two million.

But Kony and other senior commanders have refused to quit their forest hideouts on the Sudan/Congo border to join talks themselves, fearing arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Hague-based ICC wants to try the LRA leadership for war crimes including killing civilians, rape and abducting children to swell their ranks.

The LRA said it wanted Egeland to pressure the ICC to drop the indictments, which it has repeatedly said it must do before the rebels will sign a final peace deal.

The United Nations statement said: ''Mr Egeland does not intend to raise the issue of the warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for members of the LRA senior leadership.'' He will instead focus on urging the LRA to sign a peace deal and dealing with outstanding humanitarian issues such as the release of captives and the return of those displaced by the war to their homes, the UN said.

Egeland will then make a trip to Khartoum and then to Sudan's war-torn western Darfur region to meet leaders from the warring parties, both those that did and did not signed a peace deal with the government at talks in Abuja, Nigeria.

REUTERS BDP PM1416