By Prof. Dani W. Nabudere
Dec 12, 2003
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There have been confusing signals coming from the government on the issue of the need to negotiate an end to the war with the Lord�s Resistance Army rebels in northern and eastern parts of Uganda.
For a start, its chairman, Mr Eriya Kategaya, is no longer the minister of Internal Affairs as he used to be and his current role as an opponent of the �life presidency project� or so-called third term, puts his role in question. For another, the role being played by Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh is also not clear. We heard about his �cash for peace� strategy in the hope that this would buy the rebels out of the bush. This confuses and complicates the work of the Amnesty Commission, which has recently claimed some successes in resettling some 4,000 former LRA rebels out of the total of 10,000 from the other rebel groups. Hence, the statement made recently to Parliament by the minister of Defence, Amama Mbabazi that the government of Sudan, with pressure from the US Government, has begun to �respond positively� to peace efforts is welcome. But this also is a problem, if in fact it is happening, because at the same time, we have been hearing very hard-line positions coming from the President to the effect that LRA leader Joseph Kony has to surrender by December this year or be �killed.� This is not the first time such strong statements have been uttered to no effect. But the point being made here is that these contradictory statements indicate there is in fact no real willingness on the part of the government to pursue peace. It indicates that there is no policy position on the issue of a negotiated settlement. This would suggest that there is no �political will� and �good will� from the government on the issue, which would be as good as saying that there is a political determination to pursue the war in default of a coherent government policy. One would also subscribe to the view that this confusion is in fact a policy in itself, which believes in permanent war as the real basis for governance in the country. The research that was carried out in Gulu District by the Human Rights and Peace Centre, Makerere University and the Liu Institute of Global Studies of Canada entitled: The Hidden War: The Forgotten People, which was published on October 30, revealed that the people in the camps believe strongly that the war in their region was initiated so that the present regime may rule unchecked for as long as it wanted. This belief arose out of the fact that the war in the Luwero Triangle was ethnically directed by the Acholi soldiers and this was linked to the idea that Acholi soldiers were behind Uganda being �ruled by northerners� since independence, which was in fact was false. This ethnic logic has created an atmosphere of political intimidation in the south and west of the country. Whoever talks about peace in the north is referred to as inviting the �northerners� to re-assume their domination of the country�s politics. It is with this background that this government must come out clearly on the issue of ending the war in the country if these beliefs in Acholi are to be proved wrong. Mbabazi indicated that the American government was involved as a mediator in these links with Sudan. The peace talks in Sudan should in fact be seen as a good opportunity to encourage similar peace initiatives in Uganda. But to be effective, the US must stop playing a duplicitous role of talking peace in the morning while fuelling war in the evening. This approach is evident in the tough talk that we hear from President Yoweri Museveni. This tough talk is inflamed by the military assistance being extended by the George W. Bush administration to wage war in northern Uganda as part of their �fight against terrorism.� On the occasion of the celebration of the 227th US independence anniversary on July 4 in Kampala, the US Ambassador to Uganda, Jimmy Kolker, declared in the presence of diplomats, ministers, parliamentarians, senior army officers, religious leaders and other dignitaries that the US government was going to �reciprocate� Uganda�s support to the US during the war against Iraq by �re-starting a modest military training programme and assistance to improve the UPDF�s capacity to protect and defend the civilian population�. He revealed that this programme, which had been suspended earlier, would amount to about $ 200 million for military education and training of the UPDF. This was later confirmed by the US State Department. According to a report in the Washington Times of October 24, an agreement was reached when Gen. Charles Wald, deputy chief of the US European Command visited Uganda in August. According to the Times, �instead of using American soldiers,� the US was going to use the �American dollar and American technology� to achieve the objective of fighting Kony. Under the agreement, US assistance was to take the form of equipment, satellite photography and other electronic surveillance equipment. Although some quarters have denied that the US assistance involves the supply of weapons, the agreement in fact provides for �direct military assistance� programme, which includes equipment. The plan is aimed at increasing the government�s capacity �to fight the LRA,� considered by the US government to be �the only option� to deal with the rebels as well as to �win hearts and minds of the Acholi people�. The military component has two sub-components: provision of equipment and provision of training in the use of this equipment as well as training in counter insurgency strategy and tactics. According to the Times: two officials from the State Department and Usaid had already undertaken a �fact finding mission to prepare the ground work.� By mid-September, it was announced that the training had already started. The civilian component, which is aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the Acholi people, is intended to improve public opinion about the government and the UPDF as well as improving civilian-military relations through prosecution of soldiers implicated in atrocities and to improve on the human rights record of the UPDF. The US government must have realised this would be a difficult job, so they decided to push the human rights issue too hard because they first wanted to �soften Museveni first.� However, this civilian component seems to suggest that the US can bribe the people in the Internally Displaced People�s camps to accept the war, which is non sustainable and laughable. Therefore, the story that the US is prepared to mediate in the northern conflict to bring about dialogue is unbelievable. If anything, the US policy tends to reinforce the government�s policy of talking peace while pursuing war as part of its political strategy of monopolising political power in the country. I have argued on several occasions any crusade against the third term will not work unless it is linked to the demand for ending the war in the north. Equally any dialogue with the Movement Secretariat must place this item as number one on the agenda of a national conference. Unless this is done there can be no transparent transition to multipartyism. The life presidency project will succeed precisely because the war is being allowed to continue as part of the strategy by Museveni to monopolise power by constitutional manipulation. Prof. Nabudere can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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