"If the ICC came out to say that they would give the peace process a chance before the legal process is done, then we would resolve the conflict in the region," South Sudan Vice President Riek Machar told Reuters on June 20. Machar is mediating the peace negotiations between Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) that were prepared last week in Juba. The same week on the other side of the border, the ICC was holding informational meetings in Lira in the north of Uganda, where the LRA attacked the local population in November 2003 and February 2004. The presence of the ICC could appear to be a challenge to some of the local traditional or religious leaders, who repeatedly say that given the choice between justice for the five LRA leaders indicted by the ICC and peace for 500,000 displaced persons, they would choose peace. The Ugandan president's offer last May to guarantee the safety of the LRA leaders despite the ICC's arrest warrant, seems to have hit a nerve at any rate. In response to this offer, the ICC prosecutor in The Hague reminded Uganda of the commitments it made in bringing the case before the ICC [IJT-9]. On the one hand, the local UN representative emphasized on June 13 that "Those who are indicted have been indicted because they are responsible for mass murder of the worst possible kind, and so those who are indicted should go and face justice in The Hague". On the other hand, South African president Thabo Mbeki told delegates at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town on July 2 that the ICC "poses a real genuine problem, [...] that blocks the possibility of a peaceful settlement." Yet so far no one is yet talking about the only action that could suspend the proceedings at the ICC: a "Chapter VII" request from the Security Council which allows it to take action in cases of "threats to peace."