WASHINGTON - US lawmakers called Thursday for greater international efforts to bring peace to northern Uganda and stop the exploitation of children by opposition rebels there.
Republican senator Sam Brownback said that with progress toward peace being made in southern Sudan "there can be peace in northern Uganda."
"The good news is: it can stop," Brownback told a press conference who visited Uganda last year.
The rebel Lord's Resistance Army, which has forcibly conscripted a lot of child fighters, is battling government forces in the north of the African nation.
"I remember my conversation with a young boy, 13 years old," said Brownback. "He was told: either kill or get killed. He was told to kill two women, both of whom were his aunts. And he looked down and in great shame said: I killed them."
According to a new report by the WorldVision humanitarian group, between 80 and 95 percent of the LRA fighters are children. It has been accused of kidnapping 20,000 children in 19 years with boys forced to fight and girls often turned into sex slaves.
Brownback was behind a bill passed last year which urged the US administration to take a deeper involvement in the conflict in northern Uganda which has left tens of thousands dead and about 1.6 million people displaced.
The LRA largely operates out of neighbouring Sudan and Democratic Congressman Jesse Jackson Junior said the 2004 bill was too weak. "We need to put public pressure on Sudan to stop aiding the LRA," he said.
04/07/2005 18:01 GMT