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{{Deputy President William Ruto on Wednesday revealed that South Sudan rebels had agreed to release a Kenyan pilot and plane they had been holding hostage for 10 days.}}

He said the government was now working on modalities to ensure the pilot and plane are returned safely to Kenya at the earliest opportunity.

“We managed to persuade the rebels to release a Kenyan plane and pilot who have been held for the last 10 days in rebel controlled territory and the modalities will now be concluded so that the plane and pilot can be recovered and sent back to Nairobi,” he reported on his return from the 26th Extra-Ordinary IGAD Head of State Summit in Addis Ababa.

The plane is reported to belong to a charter company that delivers humanitarian aid to South Sudan and was detained because the pilot was in possession of firearms.

A newspaper report had said the pilot was carrying two pistols.

The rebels, it is believed, detained him because they thought he had been sent by President Salva Kiir to assassinate rebel leaders in the area.

Such occurrences, Ruto said, should however be a thing a past following the 26th Extra-Ordinary IGAD Head of State Summit held in Addis Ababa and at which he represented President Uhuru Kenyatta.

He explained that Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar, meeting for the first time face-to-face in Addis Ababa, agreed to sign an implementation matrix for the cessation of hostilities agreement signed on May 9.

{{The 193 members of the United Nations sitting in New York on Wednesday afternoon unanimously elected by acclamation Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa as the next President of the UN General Assembly.}}

He will chair the world body’s 69th session due in September, this year.

The unanimous vote took place shortly after 3p.m. US eastern time (10p.m. Ugandan time).

In a statement, Uganda’s Foreign Affairs ministry Spokesman Fred Opolot said Kutesa has chosen “Delivering on and Implementing a Transformative Post-2015 Development Agenda” as the theme for his one-year tenure that begins on September 16.

The minister in his acceptance speech shortly after the vote thanked all member states, in particular Africa, for the “trust and confidence bestowed upon me and Uganda.”

He drew on the inspirational 1963 speech to the UN General Assembly by former US President, John F. Kennedy, to underscore his resolve to have the UN prioritise elimination of hunger, poverty and illiteracy — dovetailing at home with yet unfulfilled aspirations of Uganda’s immediate post-independence leaders.

“Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and massive human misery. We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world – or to make it the last,” Mr Kutesa said, quoting Kennedy.

NV

{{A woman kidnapped as a nine-year-old by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels has testified at a summit on ending sexual violence in war.}}

Esther Atim, now 20, described being captured by rebels in Uganda and being subjected to rape and forced labour.

Actress and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, who are co-hosting the London event, were among those present.

The summit is the result of an intense two-year campaign to raise awareness.

{{‘Extraordinary woman’}}

Ms Atim described how she was taken from the village of Ojone, in north-eastern Uganda, in 2003.

She was forced to watch a man hacked to death in front of her and was then kept for three years across the border in Sudan, where she endured repeated rapes.

Eventually she made her escape under cover of darkness.

“I managed to sneak out, I started running, seriously, but I had no energy. I was seriously raped. I couldn’t walk.”

She waved her arms to her sides in a grim illustration of her condition: “My legs were like this. I could not run. I fell down. But I ran and ran and ran.”

{agencies}

{{A spokesperson for the leader of the South Sudanese armed opposition faction, Riek Machar, said the SPLM/A in Opposition welcomed the recent direct face-to-face negotiations between Machar and the Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni on the sideline of the Tuesday IGAD regional leaders’ summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.}}

“We welcomed the direct negotiations with President Yoweri Museveni on the side of Salva Kiir during the face-to-face meeting with our leader, Dr. Riek Machar on Tuesday in Addis Ababa,” Machar’s spokesperson James Gatdet Dak told media when contacted on Wednesday.

The rebel leader’s spokesperson claimed that the Ugandan president was “imposing his will” on president Salva Kiir and that his direct engagement on certain issues such as withdrawal of his forces was crucial.

“We knew all along that president Museveni is the co-architect of the 15th December crisis in South Sudan and his continued influence on Salva Kiir’s decisions has negatively impacted on the peace process,” Dak claimed, adding that “it was worth it to also negotiate directly with Museveni on withdrawal of his forces from South Sudan.”.

Dak explained that during the Addis Ababa interactions between the two rival leaders in the presence of other regional leaders, Museveni was seated next to President Salva Kiir and was the main speaker negotiating on behalf of the South Sudanese president.

The rebel leader’s spokesperson added that president Museveni agreed to pull out his troops from South Sudan in implementation of the cessation of hostilities agreement which demanded the withdrawal of all foreign forces from South Sudan.

He however said it remained to be seen if the Ugandan president meant his words, underlining that in the past he resisted to withdraw his troops since 23 January when the first agreement on cessation of hostilities was inked.

The Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) were deployed in mid-December last year to help protect and secure the leadership of president Salva Kiir amidst violent conflict which erupted between the leading figures of the ruling party (SPLM).

{sudantribune}