April 22, 2004 - Monitor
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President Yoweri Museveni wrote last week that the UPDF is putting decisive pressure on Lord’s Resistance Army rebel leader, Joseph Kony and predicted “final victory soon”. Museveni has on many occasions personally promised and failed to finish off Kony militarily. But recent claims of victory, coming on the back significant UPDF successes in neighbouring Lango and Teso, and a period of uneasy calm in Acholi, look more credible. Most people interviewed for this report, however, want the war to be ended through dialogue and peace talks because 18 years of fighting have failed to end it. The people, who are traumatised and dehumanised by the war reject government claims that says Kony is a small problem, a small jigger in the toe. They point at the destruction of their social fabric that the conflict has wrought, turning a once strong, cultured, and proud people into beggars. Ochora also specifically calls for the “economic rehabilitation of Acholiland” to offer the population opportunities to earn a living. He recommends a mix of military pressure to protect the civilian population and negotiation to end the rebellion. Unlike government, observers say the war against Kony, under Operation Iron Fist, is failing. They point out that it led to the abduction of more children in a single year than ever before. They see government support to the SPLA is a key element in an axis of terror and they want Kampala to sever links with John Garang. The government says they will continue supporting SPLA in principle, even this has become less and less significant as with increasing chances of a comprehensive peace deal in Sudan. Many others want a neutral arbiter – like the United Nations – between brutal rebels that claim to be fighting for them and a government that they see as having failed, even reluctant, to protect them. Call to the UN The government’s reaction to calls for international intervention has at best been dismissive. Defence spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza argues that the role of the UN should be to provide food, water and sanitation, as the UPDF “mops up”. He argues that Acholi has been generally secure since June last year and dismisses calls for the UN to intervene as a political gimmick. “In Liberia you had the UN Security Council, which mandated intervention on behalf of the suffering civilian population because the state was under threat of falling into anarchy,” Maj. Shaban Bantariza told the UN Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) in September. “But the state is not under threat in Uganda.” However the LRA are not attacking the state: they are abducting and killing innocent unarmed civilians. Bantariza sees calls for UN intervention as misconceived, based on inadequate understanding of the situation “If they mean a peacekeeping force mandated by the UN Security Council, where would the force go?” “These are terrorists who have infiltrated much of the country but only target rural civilian settlements and abduct children before disappearing. What we need is not peacekeepers but peace enforcers – which is what the UPDF is for.” But both ordinary people in Acholi and an ambassador of one Kampala’s strategic allies point out that the UPDF could do a lot better. They point to the fact that people in the protected villages are still vulnerable to rebel attacks and that thousands of children spend the nights on the cold streets of Acholi towns. There are increasing calls for international mediation in the conflict. The HURIPEC - Liu report, released last October, cites an EU humanitarian official, Ms Costanza Adinolfi who said: “We have witnessed a forgotten crisis in northern Uganda that has aroused little interests in the donor community”. Adinolfi concluded that the conflict is internal and should be solved internally and that the international community has a duty to support dialogue. This view, however, glaringly ignores the regional aspects of the conflict. In an interview, American Ambassador to Uganda Jimmy Kolker suggested that the belligerents must take the lead because the war was about “Ugandans fighting Ugandans”. The HURIPEC report calls for an international movement to prevail on the government and the LRA to accept negotiation. In addition to American military support to Uganda, the other drawback for this strategy is the government argument that it has appointed a peace team and the rebels have refused to take advantage of it. Critics point out that neither government nor the rebels have made genuine attempts at dialogue. As demonstrated earlier mutual suspicion and accusations and counter accusations have hampered the search for peace. |
© 2004 The Monitor Publications
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