By Frank Nyakairu
KAMPALA Nov 14 (Reuters) - Uganda's government declared a temporary truce on Sunday to allow rebels in the north of the country to meet to discuss plans for talks to end an 18-year civil war that has forced 1.6 million people from their homes.
President Yoweri Museveni, responding to an offer of peace talks from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), said in a statement he had ordered the truce in part of the north to allow a group of LRA rebels to meet government representatives.
"President Yoweri Museveni has ordered a seven-day suspension of UPDF operations in a limited area of Acholi to allow the leadership of (LRA leader Joseph) Kony's group to meet and confirm that they accept his offer to come out of the bush," a statement from State House said, referring to the Uganda People's Defence Force.
The LRA, based in lawless areas of southern Sudan, has terrorised remote northern districts of Uganda, massacring civilians, mutilating victims and kidnapping tens of thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves.
Last week an LRA spokesman telephoned a radio station and called for talks -- and for Museveni's government to show its commitment to peace -- in a rare statement by the rebels.
Aid workers say northern Uganda is the world's biggest neglected crisis, worsened by a military campaign targeting a force estimated to be 80 percent abducted children.
Previous attempts to end the war through talks have stalled over allegations of bad faith on both sides.
It was not possible to contact the LRA or its leader, self-proclaimed mystic Joseph Kony, who has not given a clear statement of his political objectives beyond wanting to rule the country by the Biblical Ten Commandments.
"In the last three weeks, Ms Betty Bigombe has had clear indications from Kony's group that they want to end the conflict," the statement said, referring to the government's chief mediator.
"But UPDF pressure makes impossible for the Kony leadership to get together to discuss this offer. Ms Betty Bigombe has therefore proposed a seven-day suspension to allow the leadership to meet," the statement adds.
The statement said a group of LRA rebels had been provided with a detailed map of the ceasefire area for the purposes of arranging the meeting.
"If after the meeting the Kony groups make a clear recorded statement that they accept the president's offer then a 10-day cessation of UPDF operations will be ordered," the statement said.
But the army said it would continue operations against remnants of Kony's group in all other areas of northern Uganda and southern Sudan "until the government get an irreversible commitment indicating their intention to end ... once and for all the terror campaign."
Although the statement described Sunday's initiative as a seven-day truce, it detailed a nine-day period, saying hostilities would be suspended between Sunday Nov. 14 at 1500 GMT and Tuesday Nov. 23 at 0400 GMT.
Bigombe, a former Minister for Pacification of the North, currently works with the World Bank in the United States, but continues to lead Ugandan peace efforts.
Bigombe held talks with Kony in 1993 but the negotiations collapsed after Museveni accused the rebels of using the ceasefire to plan more attacks.