Peace talks with Ugandan rebels offer the best chance to end one of Africa's longest wars, but the process could collapse if fighters fail to gather at agreed assembly points, a think-tank said on Wednesday.
The questionable legitimacy of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) negotiators, international indictments against LRA leaders and Kampala's uncertain motives also posed huge challenges, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report.
The government signed a landmark truce with the LRA - one of Africa's most feared rebel groups - last month, raising hopes of an end to a 20-year insurgency that has caused tens of thousands of deaths and forced 1.7 million into refugee camps.
The pact prompted Uganda to extend a September 12 deadline for a peace deal amid reports that hundreds of LRA fighters, including their deputy leader Vincent Otti, were gathering at two assembly points as agreed.
The ICG said an immediate test of the peace process, which has gathered pace despite initial international scepticism, was whether the rest of the forces would arrive.
"Failure to comply would likely be seen as a violation by the government and could easily lead to a military strike and collapse of the process," the ICG report said.
The LRA is accused of slaughtering civilians, mutilating victims and abducting thousands of children to serve as soldiers, sex slaves and porters. For two decades, the movement led by Joseph Kony has been shrouded in mystery, apparently incapable of articulating a coherent political vision.
Experts question whether the LRA delegation to the talks in southern Sudan's capital, Juba, genuinely reflects the interests of the movement's leadership since most of the negotiators live outside Uganda and have never met Kony.
"When asked what he hoped to accomplish in the peace initiative, Otti said nothing about social justice, economic equality and political freedom, responding only 'we want to go home'", the ICG said. "This is in sharp contrast to the agenda put forward by the Juba delegation."
The ICG said the LRA's political agenda would remain confused until its delegates had a clear negotiating mandate from the top, or until Kony and Otti became directly involved. However Otti, indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with Kony and three others, has expressed reluctance to go to Juba for fear of arrest.
Although some Ugandans favour peace before justice, the ICG said the ICC and Western powers were unlikely to accept a deal that gave amnesty to the LRA commanders - an offer President Yoweri Museveni made on condition that talks succeed.
The government has said it will only push the ICC to drop its prosecution after the rebels leave the bush. The ICG urged Kampala to tackle northern Uganda's marginalisation, considered the cause of the war, "in order to ensure that a peace agreement does not simply pave the way for a more brutal successor to the LRA".
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