The Monitor (Kampala)
EDITORIAL
June 29, 2003
Posted to the web June 30, 2003
Kampala
Presidential advisor on Political and Military Affairs in northern Uganda, Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh has unveiled a blue-print for ending the LRA insurgency with a price tag of Shs 4bn (see "Saleh Wants Shs 4bn To Finish Kony", The Monitor, 28 June).
The plan, titled Security and Production Programme (SPP), envisages setting up economic projects to empower the people of the Acholi sub region. The programme will also have a security element through which people will be trained and adequately facilitated to provide their immediate security, leaving the army to pursue rebels at large without being reduced to guarding homesteads.
Given that hundreds of billions have already been spent on the war in the past 16 years and more will be spent in the next few years if the present trend of the war is anything to go buy, Gen. Saleh's option looks cheap and tempting.
The problem however, is that Saleh's proposal starts off on the mistaken premise that the northern insurgency is economically driven and ignores - or downplays - perhaps the most important question, the political question - democracy and political consensus at a wider national level.
Money can do many things; like build roads, level mountains, buy food and medicines, etc., but cannot buy permanent peace. So long as there is lack of political consensus and trust, attempts to build the economy in the north will come to naught because a few rebel raids will destroy all. And, with the level of corruption in Uganda - and in the military especially, you cannot discount the fear that many people along the bureaucracy will simply stand in the queue to line their pockets with this money to the disadvantage of the intended beneficiaries.
What is critical is for the government to offer a genuine olive branch to the rebels and agree, unconditionally, to peace talks in a neutral country under the aegis of neutral mediators - perhaps the United Nations. Only such a move truly stands a chance of bringing peace and prosperity to northern Uganda which guns and money have failed to do in the last 16 years.
