| Opinion |
Peace must involve the international community
By Godfrey Ayoo
Can we for once have a break from our respective tracks on the swayed wagon of public opinion about peace in northern Uganda?Anyone calling on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to nominate persons to represent the group’s interests in peace talks with the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government, in my view has missed some very cardinal points.
By accepting to hold peace negotiations with the LRA, and accepting to facilitate the peace, Lt. Gen. Yoweri Museveni’s regime, Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative (ARLPI) and Ugandan voices that have called for the same, have deductively accepted that the war in northern Uganda is, for sure, a political problem of national and international proportion!
It is therefore not anymore a northern Uganda internal problem, government-rebels business, or Museveni Vs Kony affair, but an issue that should open up and include the collective participation and views of all political parties, organisations and religious bodies. The men, women and children caught up in the war on the side of UPDF or LRA, and the local population, local and international NGOs should make the situation in northern Uganda the concern of the entire world.
The dead and those still dying in this war are people drawn from throughout the country. Local and international funds are diverted to contain a man-made humanitarian catastrophe in northern Uganda. The men constituting both sides of the fighting forces and the local inhabitants are in one way or another members of some political party and religious beliefs.
If the nation is serious in its search for peace, Uganda must trace its roots and get back to where it was driven to immediately after the Sept. 11 when President Museveni dashed to Washington and pleaded on his knees to get the LRA blacklisted as a terrorist group. That was on paper one problem less but the president knew quite well, better than some of us do, that the rebels are a national political problem, not a terrorist one. In any case, if fighting against any government is a terrorist act, then what would you call President Museveni for fighting against the UPC government and by supporting rebellions in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan?
President Museveni should take a flight back to Washington or visit the US Embassy to first and foremost admit before them and Uganda that he now accepts that the war in northern Uganda is not a terrorist one that can be solved in the registry of good and evil, but at a dialogue table.
Otherwise any calls and preparations for peace talks may not bear fruit. You may agree with me that nobody who is called a terrorist and is wanted as an international criminal, has an international warrant of arrest on him, and can be shot and killed on sight, or arrested; would turn up in public and say well, fellows here I am, arrest me, shoot me!
As long as that terrorist-tag dangles from the LRA name, I would suggest that people stop talking about peace talks. The situation and complications involved do not accommodate this kind of Hollywood Wild West Films of wanted persons who come to drink beer in town to provocatively share a table with the Sheriff or Rangers, but walk away victorious.
In the just concluded DRC peace talks, President Joseph Kabila and his government couldn’t have succeeded if he had behaved like Museveni. Kabila and the DRC rebel groups couldn’t have reached where they are today, if he had conditioned them, say to gather in a territory where his troops had an upper hand (for example territory controlled by Zimbabwean, Namibian or Angolan forces). But Kabila was wise enough to have left it in the hands of the international community. Which brings me to the second and final issue, that the international community and Africa must get involved and actively participate in setting up modalities, appointing some facilitators/mediators, identifying a neutral venue for talks and inviting all aggrieved parties (political parties, religious bodies, NGOs). Until then shall we say that p eace is close to our elbows and within the sunrise horizon of our palms.
That being the case, the Uganda government cannot dictate the venue, terms and duration for peace talks, but may only make proposals through a third party appointed and supported by the international community. Any refusal or deviation from the proposals as the case is at the moment, cannot be termed as lack of interest in peace.
November 14, 2002 00:21:44
Gook
MSN 8 helps ELIMINATE E-MAIL VIRUSES. Get 2 months FREE*.
