The guerrillas -- notorious for cutting off the tongues and lips of civilians, enslaving children and driving nearly 2 million people from their homes -- have agreed to end a brutal but little known conflict.
They signed a truce with the government Saturday that gives their gunmen three weeks to gather at two villages in largely uninhabited areas across the border in southern Sudan, where they will be protected and monitored. The truce is to take effect this morning.
Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, declared himself a prophet fighting to rule the country by the Ten Commandments.
U.N. officials estimate that Kony's guerrillas stole 20,000 children, turning the boys into soldiers and the girls into sex slaves. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Kony and four other rebel leaders, but the Ugandan government has promised not to turn them over in return for an end to the insurgency.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Another article on posted on BBC
Dear friends, for the sake of at least 20,000 young lives ruined or destroyed, pray this is true.
