Dec 24, 2003
This Christmas season last year in Uganda, about 700,000 people in northern Uganda marked it in squalid âprotected campsâ because of the Joseph Kony-led Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebellion in the area.
But hopes were high that the end of Kony was near. In a major diplomatic breakthrough, Kampala had several months earlier succeeded in getting the Sudan government to publicly announce that it was not supporting the LRA.
To demonstrate its âgood faithâ, the Sudan government allowed the Uganda Peopleâs Defence Force (UPDF) to enter southern Sudan and do the job Kampala was claiming Khartoum could not â destroy the LRA.
Choosing a steely name for the exercise, Operation Iron Fist, the UPDF deployed inside Sudan. But three months became six months, and six months became twelve, and soon we shall no longer be counting.
As the LRA attacks intensified and spread in Uganda most of this year, the government started groping for explanations. Gradually it began blaming âelements in the Sudanese military who were backing Kony without the knowledge of the Sudanese government.â
Then lately, even President Yoweri Museveni added his support to the view that Khartoum was still backing Kony, that is why he was still rampant.
So why did Operation Iron Fist turn into the fiasco that has left nearly 2 million people displaced in the camps, a whopping 150% more than the same time last year?
Ugandaâs attempted occupation of eastern DR Congo should have taught us some valuable lessons: Imposing control over a territory the size of southern Sudan, many times bigger than Uganda, is a very expensive and labour intensive enterprise.
Even with the worldâs most sophisticated military, billions of dollars, and over 150,000 men, the Americans are barely managing to control half of Iraq.
Uganda had no chance of controlling southern Sudan enough to end LRA activities. In other words a poor country with a population of 30 million like Uganda, should not have launched Operation Iron Fist and sold it so highly as the answer to the northern rebellion.
Why we nevertheless went in is a long and complicated story, according to sources in the know. So to that another time. But we are able to glean some reasons why Khartoum allowed UPDF in from the results.
Sudan might have figured that if UPDF got sidetracked into alleged plunder, and failed to emerge glorious from the DRC, then it would not do much better in the south.
Secondly, if Khartoum had failed to assert itself in the south against the SPLA and other rebel groups, it was unlikely UPDF would.
Therefore, it could continue to support Kony if it so chose without being caught. But more importantly, it would significantly change the international politics around the Kony and southern Sudan question.
Ugandaâs principal error in striking a deal with Khartoum was that it did not seem to have fully taken into account its effect on ALL the southern rebel movements.
The Operation Iron Fist agreement lost Kampala a critical edge, because it became to be viewed by groups like the Equatoria Defence Forces and sections of the Sudanese Peopleâs Liberation Army (SPLA) the same way they see Kony â as fellows who were quick to do business with their enemy in Khartoum when it suited them.
There were disagreements early between the southern Sudan rebels and the UPDF.
The Sudan rebels thought that by clearing some parts of landmines in order to move their trucks through, the UPDF was effectively opening the way for the Sudanese forces to access areas they could not previously.
Indeed some Sudanese opponents of the Khartoum regime see this as a major tactical goal for the regimeâs deal with Kampala.
Khartoum was also able to achieve two other victories. The international community stopped blaming it for the humanitarian tragedy in northern Uganda; and as Operation Iron Fist demonstrated the Uganda governmentâs ineffectiveness, it undermined its credibility as the SPLA âgodfatherâ, and strengthened the hands of the moderate elements in the organisation who favoured a negotiated settlement, instead of a total war of southern secession.
All this has allowed the US to shift from its position as a backer of the SPLA, and take centre stage as the mediator. That seems to have been one reason for US Secretary of State Colin Powellâs recent visit to Naivasha to witness the Khartoum-SPLA peace talks.
There were those who wondered why Powell was showing up at the talks when Kenyan diplomats had clearly indicated that the warring parties would not be ready to sign a formal agreement.
Powell, however, said he was optimistic a deal would be reached by the end of the year, and offered the White House as the venue. By so doing, Powell laid American claim to the process, and warned all likely pretenders to stay off from the highly significant signing ceremony.
It would be an American thing, and perfect for President W. George Bush new bragging rights at next yearâs election. At the regional level, it was an endorsement of the ânegotiated optionâ that has been championed by Kenya for many years.
Significantly, when the US announced its resumption of military aid to Uganda recently, it was largely for ânon-lethalâ purposes, and it was a modest $ 200,000 or so. This is not enough to help UPDF end the Kony war.
This is no reason for the two million internally displaced persons to give up hope. On the contrary, the diplomatic grapevine has it that the Americans might be taking some quite important initiatives with Sudan and LRA-linked sources to end the war. Maybe, just maybe, this might be the last Christmas of despair for the north.
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 2003 The Monitor Publications
