Government official Henry Okello-Oryem said a telephone conversation arranged with Mr Kony had failed to materialise. The letter reportedly saw Mr Kony say his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group was committed to “end this war”.
It has waged an insurgency for more than 20 years. It is notorious for abducting children to serve as sex slaves and child soldiers. ‘Peace envoy’ Mr Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes.
Several thousand African troops, backed by 100 US special forces, have been hunting him and other fighters of the LRA across the region. The US has offered up to $5m (£3.3m) for leads resulting in his arrest. Talks between the government and LRA collapsed in 2008 after the ICC refused to yield to Mr Kony’s demand to drop the arrest warrant.
“I want to assure the people of Uganda that, we are committed to a sustainable peaceful political settlement of our long war with the government of [President Yoweri] Museveni,” Mr Kony is quoted as saying in the purported letter, published in Uganda’s privately owned Daily Monitor newspaper.
“We are willing and ready to forgive and seek forgiveness, and continue to seek peaceful means to end this war which has cut across a swathe of Africa for the people of the Great Lakes and the Nile-Congo Basin to find peace.”
