[Ugnet] Uganda: How Many More People Have to Die to Get Noticed?

Uganda: How Many More People Have to Die to Get Noticed?


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The Monitor (Kampala)

COLUMN
April 7, 2006
Posted to the web April 6, 2006

Adrian Bradbury & Peter Quaranto

Earlier this month, we spent two weeks in Gulu, Kitgum and the internally displaced persons camps of northern Uganda. Before we arrived we thought we understood the suffering of the over 1.7-million Acholi who have been herded into these IDP camps. We had no idea.

A study earlier this year by the Ugandan Ministry of Health and the United Nations estimates that over 1,000 people are dying every week from violence or disease in the camps. Yet, that's just the beginning. The IDP camps are over-crowded, lacking health services and amenities, and are protected only inconsistently. If we learned one thing from our trip, it is that the camps are a horrifically inadequate protection strategy.

Govt intransigency

Yet, even with such mortality rates, the Government of Uganda refuses to declare the region a disaster area. The United Nations Security Council in its own right remains silent. We want to know why.

"Most parts in the north are not as insecure as portrayed. The problem is shrinking," claims President Yoweri Museveni. "Gulu has largely been free from terrorist activities. To declare the region a disaster area, what are you trying to achieve?" he asks. The Donor countries and the Security Council seem to accept this with little reservation.

So, we have one question: how many people have to die before the war in the north is treated as a priority for both the government of Uganda and the international community?

Just tell us the number. Is it 250,000? 300,000? 500,000? Maybe it's a million?

Is there a number that will ring the alarm bells? If not, what exactly are we waiting for?

The question is ridiculous. More compelling though, is the answer.

At the World Summit in 2005, member countries of the United Nations unanimously endorsed the 'responsibility to protect'. In item 139 of the Summit outcome document, the member countries affirmed that the international community has a responsibility to intervene when a state manifestly fails to protect its own population. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, made that commitment very clear.

"For the first time at this Summit we agree that states do not have the right to do what they will within their own borders, but that we, in the name of humanity, have a common duty to protect people where their own government will not."

If the "responsibility to protect" means anything anywhere, it ought to mean something in northern Uganda.

Activity by the LRA in Uganda is indeed down and protection may be improving, but the mortality rates in the camps continue. Over 1,000 people a week are dying because of inhumane conditions in the camps. That is not successful protection.

We're not pointing fingers; we're all responsible, and that's why we have to act.

Fortunately, after years of inaction, the Core Donor countries - US, UK, Norway, Netherlands and Canada - seem poised to act. On 20 March in Geneva, representatives from these countries met with representatives of the Ugandan government to discuss a comprehensive plan for protection and peace. The Donors discussed support for strengthening protection, bolstering mediation and helping to arrest LRA leadership. This Thursday, UN Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland will chair a follow-up meeting in Kampala to discuss implementation.

Also in the last week, the UN Security Council issued Resolution 1663, which condemns LRA activity and asks the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to use its capabilities to stop the attacks. The United States and others have shown further willingness to explore Council attention and coordination to disarm and arrest the LRA, which now operates in three countries.

These are hopeful developments, but so much more can be done to help end LRA activity, resettle IDPs with security and engage in a broad political process of reconciliation. Without the political will, the discussions unfolding will simply be politicking as usual and little will change. Unless of course we demand better. And we shall.

Relevant Links

East Africa
Refugees and Displacement
Uganda
Human Rights
Conflict, Peace and Security

Take responsibility

Our declaration, together with the people we met in northern Uganda, is that the time has come for all of us to take responsibility - from the local to the international. On the local level, each of us from Kampala to California must stand in solidarity with the people of the north.

On the national level, the government should show stronger will to end this war and put forth a comprehensive peace plan. On the international level, the Donors and the Security Council must commit to more decisive action to end this war and the crisis in the camps.

[Ugnet] Uganda: How Many More People Have to Die to Get Noticed?

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