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Ugandan Troops March Inside Southern Sudan
KAMPALA, June 24 (News Agencies ) - Ugandan troops have overrun a camp of northern Ugandan rebels inside Sudan, killing 22 rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Ugandan military commander Brigadier Henry Tumukunde said Sunday.
Four people abducted by the rebels were also killed in the raid, he told AFP.
Tumukunde said Ugandan troops crossed some 20 kilometers (12 miles) into Sudan on Wednesday and attacked a small LRA camp at the village of Lumarati on Friday.
A cache of arms was recovered in the attack, he said.
Tumukundwe said a group of about 60 rebels, under the command of LRA leader Joseph Kony, had been intending to enter Uganda to disrupt a peace initiative, which began on June 2.
The initiative involves senior LRA commander Onen Kamdul, who is based at the northern Ugandan town of Gulu, and a local peace team led by Gulu's local council chairman Lieutenant Colonel Walter Ochora.
The peace talks are aimed at trying to persuade the rebels to come out of the bush to accept amnesty.
"Kony was not interested in the peace talks and was coming into Uganda to try to give those commanders hell," Tumukunde said.
"I thought that waiting for him to enter the country would cause more problems. If Sudan can't control the movements of Kony, we have to try."
The brigadier said that despite the raid on the LRA camp, the Ugandan army was still committed to peace, dismissing allegations that the military was deliberately trying to disrupt the peace process.
Tumukunde added that on Friday, another rebel group based in Gulu, led by man known as Tableh, had killed a Ugandan army officer, prompting the military to hit back, killing two rebels and capturing three others.
"After that, we were in communication and agreed to a ceasefire again," he said. The army's decision to enter Sudan was defended by Ochora, the head of the peace team.
"I'm the happiest man. The army attacked the people who had come to kill me and Onen," Ochora said, referring to rumours that Kony intended to kill those involved in the peace talks.
The LRA launched its rebellion in 1988 to overthrow the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and to establish a state based upon biblical law.
The LRA abducts Ugandans, mainly children, to fight as soldiers against the Ugandan government. The southern Sudan serves as a hub for launching kidnapping raids into Uganda.
It has captured some 10,000 children in the past decade with the boys becoming soldiers and the girl prostitutes. Some 6,000 of them are still unaccounted for, as many are believed to have died either from disease or in combat.
This is not the first time Uganda has crossed into Sudan to attack rebel bases.
In 1997 Ugandan troops overran the main rebel camp near Aru, about 60 kilometers (38 miles) south of Juba, killing at least 200 people.
Sudan and Uganda broke off diplomatic relations in 1995, accusing each other of backing rebel groups hostile to their respective governments.
Sudan accuses Uganda of backing the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which has been battling Khartoum forces to end domination of the Christian and animist south by the government, while Uganda accuses Sudan of training and arming the LRA.
But in December 1999 Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his Sudanese counterpart Omar el-Beshir signed an accord in which they pledged to work towards normalizing relations.
Recently, the two countries also agreed to swap diplomats at a low level after mediation by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
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