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FULL OF LIFE: Gulu, which has been at the
heart of the 20-year rebellion, is booming. Supermarkets and shops
are full of goods |
When reading the reports coming out of northern Uganda, one would
expect to find war-ravaged towns, where business is at a stand-still,
schools and hospitals are not functioning and roads are broken and
deserted.
Instead, Gulu, which has been at the heart of the
20-year rebellion, is booming. Shops are full of goods. New supermarkets
have opened up. New hotels, banks and offices have been constructed. Roads
have been repaired and are jammed with four-wheel drives of humanitarian
agencies. Lacor Hospital provides some of the best medical services in the
country and a new, private hospital has been built. And there are schools
everywhere.
It is often claimed that poverty is the root cause of
the war. The North is portrayed as the most neglected and underdeveloped
part of Uganda. Some even claim that the government deliberately keeps
Northerners poor and backward because they vote opposition. As a
businessman from Kitgum was quoted in a report by Refugee Law Project of
February 2004, titled Behind the Conflict: This war is a ploy by the
current government to impoverish the Acholi. When you are poor, you become
a beggar and accept anything that is offered to you. If you are thinking
of what you will eat or where you will sleep, you have no time to think
about politics or your rights. You are not a challenge.
The myth
was called into question by Robert Gersony of USAID in his 1997 field
assessment study: The Anguish of Northern Uganda: In 1986, Gulu and
Kitgum comprised a vast sparsely-populated area with considerable
potential for agriculture and livestock development, as it does today.
While not as prosperous or developed as other parts of the country,
neither does the area appear to have been acutely impoverished, says the
report.
Most Acholi interviewed blame their areas lack of
development in great part on colonial policies, the report continues.
However, through the almost 25 years since independence, Ugandas
presidents had been northerners. The Acholi had been prominent
participants in the Obote I and II administrations. The fruits of
development during those administrations had not reached Acholi to the
degree that they had reached other areas. Nonetheless, it is not clear how
poverty or lack of development could be legitimately attributed to a
government which had been in power for only a few months, as was the case
of the NRM in 1986.
Instead, Gersony points at other factors
which caused the Acholi to take up arms, one of them being military
humiliation. Many Acholi shared a collective identity of proud and able
professional soldiers in the colonial and post-independence uniformed
services, according to the report. This included the long-held view that
Acholi do not surrender, especially in their home areas, and to some
degree that only Acholi should rule in Acholi. Yet, the NRA which they
perceived as an unprofessional, inexperienced alien military force had
defeated them and occupied their home area. A profound sense of military
humiliation pervaded among the Acholi.
The economic implications
of the military defeat were huge. A great number of Acholi families
depended on jobs in the armed services for a livelihood. It was the
largest single source of cash employment. It is estimated that 20% to 30%
of Acholi families had at least one male member in the armed forces. Some
estimate that Acholi lost well over 10,000 jobs as a result of the NRA
take-over, and the alternative of on-farm employment was perceived as an
unattractive one.
Loss of government power was another
contributing factor to the insurgency. After decades of subordination to
Lango elements in the armed forces, the Acholi had achieved government
power just six months earlier and had finally begun to enjoy some of the
power and privileges of more senior political and civil service
appointments, Gersony claims. They were deprived of all this by the NRA
victory. Although they themselves had come to power through a military
coup, they felt cheated by Museveni when he betrayed the Nairobi
agreement. We paved the way for the NRA by overthrowing Obote, several
Acholi explained, and Museveni paid us back by betraying us.
While poverty and lack of development could hardly have been
blamed on Museveni in 1986, the government did make substantial efforts to
develop the North. According to all accounts, the North received more
funds than any other part of Uganda. Apart from the normal allocations per
sector, the Northern districts receive equalisation grants for
disadvantaged regions.
Besides, the North received an extra
injection of over US$100 million under the Northern Uganda Reconstruction
Programme (NURP) between 1992 and 1997. Another US$113 million has been
allocated for the insurgency areas under the Northern Uganda Social Action
Fund (NUSAF). NUSAF caters for vulnerable groups support, reconciliation
and conflict management projects, as well as community development
initiatives, such as the building of class rooms and community roads, the
drilling of boreholes or the provision of ox ploughs. There was also the
Acholi programme, worth 10 million euro, followed by the extended Acholi
programme, another 20 million euro.
In the health sector, too,
considerable efforts were made for the North. According to a World Health
Organisation survey of July 2005, 60% of all internally displaced people
(IDPs) can access anti-malaria treatment within 24 hours, while the
national average is only 40%. The report also notes that 30% of IDP
households received mosquito nets, well above the country-wide average of
10%. Immunisation against measles among the children in the IDP camps
reached almost 100%, compared to a national average of 84%.
Then,
there are the millions of dollars spent by the numerous NGOs and UN
agencies working in Northern Uganda. The European Union, ECHO, alone spent
20 million euro on humanitarian relief in 2005, through humanitarian
agencies. Another 15 million euro is budgeted for this year. Other donors,
like European governments or USAID, are providing funding for the NGOs and
the UN agencies.
As many aid agencies are reluctant to disclose
their budgets, it was impossible to obtain a reliable total figure. In
Gulu district alone, according to a list of NGOs which did reveal their
budgets, more than Ushs. 10 billion was spent in 2005. This figure does
not include the budgets of international NGOs like MSF, Hunger Alert,
World Vision, Save the Children or Oxfam. It also does not include UN
agencies like Unicef, the World Health Organisation or World Food
Programme, undoubtedly the biggest spender.
It is clear that not
everybody has benefited equally from all that aid. Hotel and restaurant
owners, landlords, as well as transport companies and suppliers of food
and other items, are doing big business, while many in the IDP camps
remain desperately poor. As one observer put it: There have been problems
of implementation and bureaucratic delays with NURP and NUSAF. Most of the
money went to the middle men and did not trickle down to the most needy.
The biggest challenge is in procurement. A pig, for example, has ended up
costing Ushs. 200,000, instead of Ushs. 80,000.
But the LC5
chairman of Kitgum believes that, thanks to the African extended family as
a social security system, something always trickles down to the bottom.
Enormous amounts are spent in Northern Uganda by the soldiers and by the
humanitarian agencies, in the form of rental of offices, houses and
pick-up vehicles for carrying escorts. Many enterprising young men and
women, who have never gone to school, have taken advantage of this. It has
created a new middle-class, even in the rural areas. When you see the
number of pick-ups in the IDP camps, or the number of milling machines
replacing the traditional grinding stones, you realise that something has
indeed reached.
Ends |
