KAMPALA, 15 May 2008 (IRIN) - The failure of Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony to meet a team of elders has created a stalemate that raises fresh questions over the viability of talks between his group and the Ugandan government, a regional analyst said.

"Kony managed to buy time and ease off pressure from the Ugandan government or the international community through the Juba process," Levi Ochieng, a Kampala-based analyst said.

Juba, capital of Southern Sudan, has been the venue for peace talks between the Ugandan government and Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

"He is not under any pressure, and so does not see any urgency to meet these people. He exploited the process to create a comfortable zone for himself."

Kony had invited elders from the regions affected by more than two decades of conflict between his group and the army.

Ugandan army spokesman Captain Chris Magezi told IRIN that the team, which included the paramount chief of Kony's Acholi community, Rwot David Onen Achana II, arrived in Nabanga near the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo border ready for the meeting on 9 May.

"Among them were the chief mediator in the talks and Southern Sudan Vice-President Riek Machar and members of the [rebel] peace team led by James Obita," Magezi said. After waiting for the elusive Kony for days, the team returned to Juba on 14 May.

A member of the LRA team, who requested anonymity, said they had run low on food and water and generally felt let down by Kony.

"It is discouraging and gives a negative implication now that Kony has again failed to show up for the consultation with the leaders he invited from the war-ravaged region and also to meet his [LRA] peace delegation," he said. "We have yet to meet and see what to do."

Uganda's interior minister and chief government negotiator Ruhakana Rugunda, however, remained optimistic that the talks would proceed.

"We are waiting for a report from the chief mediator and after seeing this report, government will take a position and announce the way forward," Rugunda told IRIN on 15 May. "In a process like this, we expect to experience ups and downs, but we cannot start handling the process with sentiment."

"Menace to the region"

However, Gulu's district commissioner, Walter Ochora, who has been working for a peaceful settlement, called on the international community to intervene.

"The international community should develop a strategy to rescue those still in captivity, especially children," Ochora said. "They should realise that Kony is abducting more and training more [and] it will be unfortunate for everybody to just look on.

"In northern Uganda, we are beginning to resign ourselves to the fact that maybe Kony will never come back home, and it perturbs us that one of us is causing immeasurable suffering to other people."

He called on the Southern Sudan government to give a comprehensive report on the process. "Kony is no longer a menace for Uganda alone, but the region," Ochora added. "I think regional leaders should take up the issue so that it is addressed at that level."

Peace talks between the rebels and the Ugandan government started in Juba under Machar's mediation in 2006. In August that year, a cessation of hostilities agreement was signed.

This was later followed by another agreement setting out general principles on how to deal with accountability and reconciliation in northern Uganda. But a planned signing of the final peace accord between the rebel leader and the government collapsed on 10 April after Kony failed to turn up.

Sources said Kony wanted reassurances that he would not be arrested and handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which in October 2005 announced charges of war crimes against top LRA leaders. Throughout the talks, the rebels have called for the withdrawal of the warrants before a final agreement can be signed.

"Kony has discovered that even pressure from ICC is meaningless because they cannot pursue him," Ochieng said. "It all confirms that the peace process lacked a key element – the involvement of Kony's key backers, particularly in Khartoum. Without them, the process is basically dead."

Reports of abductions

The years of war, destruction and displacement have turned northern Uganda into a humanitarian disaster. Aid workers say at least 25,000 children have been abducted to either serve as fighters or forced to become wives, while more than two million people have been displaced.

Since the protracted talks started, however, relative peace has returned to northern Uganda, prompting hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to leave the camps and return to their original homes.

"There is sufficient evidence that he [Kony] is moving between eastern DRC and Central African Republic because there is a political vacuum in those areas," Ochieng said. "And there are still reports of abductions - which is pretty much characteristic of the LRA because they don't recruit, they abduct.

"Kony seems to be building a protection force around himself; besides, abductions and killings intimidate the people around him."

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