"The challenge now is to address the post-war reconstruction and reconciliation," the Rev. Grace Kaiso, an Anglican priest and executive secretary of the Ugandan Joint Christian Council, told Ecumenical News International from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on February 26. "We urge our partners to give support to the processes."

Since 1988, the rebel group led by Joseph Kony has been fighting to overthrow the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who seized power in 1986. The rebels' goals remain unclear but the group has used brutal methods that include snatching children to be its fighters.

Kaiso, who heads the Uganda Joint Christian Council, which groups Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, said the hardest part would be to fulfill the demands of the agreement.

The peace talks began in July 2006, and on February 23 the government and the rebels signed a permanent cease-fire, whose terms prohibit any recruitment or rearmament by the LRA.

Still, Ugandan analyst Levi Ochieng warned that questions remained as to whether the peace deal could work in practice, the Reuters news agency reported.

"I find the fanfare, or celebrations...greatly misplaced," Ochieng was quoted as saying by Reuters. He questioned whether negotiators at the peace talks in Juba in southern Sudan truly speak for Kony, who is thought to be hiding in dense forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Rev. Fred Nyabera, who heads a church group covering eastern Africa, said the agreement should give confidence to internally displaced persons to go home, and help those still in camps that Museveni set up as part of a counter-insurgency policy, to move out.

"It is good news," said Nyabera, executive director of the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in the Great Lakes Region and Horn of Africa.

He said his group would work with churches in Uganda to ensure that communities are ready psychologically and socially to receive returning rebels. "It creates room for reintegration and reconstruction," Nyabera said of the agreement.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, and more than 2 million people displaced.