Former war crimes indictee ready to become peace mediator in Uganda
Former Kosovo prime minister and war crimes indictee Ramush Haradinaj is ready to accept a demand to play peacebroker between the government and Muslim rebels in Uganda, his party said.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) party said Haradinaj was "ready to achieve peace in this process," after Ugandan Muslim rebels said last week they wanted him to help in talks with the Kampala government.
Uganda's government said on Wednesday it "had no quarrel" with the choice of Haradinaj after the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) nominated him as mediator to end the African nation's long-running conflict.
The ADF rebellion began in the 1990s and the heaviest fighting occurred between 1996 and 2001, forcing tens of thousands of people in western Uganda's Rwenzori region to flee their homes.
Haradinaj became Kosovo premier in 2004, but was forced to resign a year later when indicted for war crimes by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
A former leader of the separatist ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, Haradinaj was acquitted of charges of crimes against humanity in April 2008 after a trial marked by reluctance of witnesses to testify.
Nine key witnesses against him were killed during preparations for the process and many more were intimidated.
