Uganda: Will Northern Uganda Opt to Join Southern Sudan to Form Nile State?
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The Monitor (Kampala)
June 28, 2006
Posted to the web June 27, 2006
Posted to the web June 27, 2006
Angelo Izama
Norbert Mao, the Gulu LC V Chairman declared at a debate organised by the Monitor
Publications last Tuesday that " a Nilotic state was rising in Southern Sudan" to which the north could soon look.
Last weekend a dramatic but special meeting of Acholi leaders ended at the palace of Paramount Chief Rwot David Onen Acana II in Gulu town.
It was attended by Acholi's cultural and political leaders and resolved to pragmatically deal with some of the sub-regions most pressing problems. Top on the agenda was the resettlement of thousands of Internally Displaced persons, taking control of land use and attracting young talent back to the districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader.
This meeting therefore was closer to a parallel parliament and government, a comparison not to be taken lightly since Acholi leaders like Gulu District Chairman Norbert Mao, are openly mooting the idea of a political separation of these lands from the rest of Uganda.
While
decentralisation has devolved power to local governments, not all regions have the history and misfortunes of Acholi. Just three hours away from Kampala's shopping malls, this region has borne the brunt of the Lords Resistance Army war against the government of President Yoweri Museveni.
After 20 years, the war has decimated the population, with an entire generation raised in the squalor of IDP's akin to concentration camps while rebels constantly attacked, looted, abducted, raped and killed. According to government and donor agency reports, mortality as a result of disease and poor conditions is 1000 per week. Many Northern leaders blame both the rebels but their anguish is directed against the government.
While secession may appear far-fetched in the minds of most Ugandans, through decentralization government handed over to marginalised regions like Acholi both the infrastructure and the finances to self-govern.
In Acholi, most leaders are already psychologically divorced from the center.
"It is true that there has been a slow, but sure genocide, going on in Northern Uganda for the last 20 years, while the whole world continues to turn a blind eye to it" wrote retired Bishop of Kitgum McLeod Baker Ochola. He was responding to a request that he sign a petition applying more pressure on the LRA and the Uganda government. Ochola rejected the petition on the grounds that it did not directly declare the Northern Uganda conflict, a genocide, a term famously applied to conditions here by another Acholi leader, Mr Olara Otunnu, the former UN Undersecretary-General (and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict).
" It is like the LRA abducts and the Government of Uganda kills them as rebels, as terrorists, and as enemies. In this case, the LRA represents the wolf that eats the goats from the pen one by one, everyday,
every week, every month, and every year. While the Government of Uganda represents the owner of the goats who does nothing to stop the wolf from finishing his goats from the pen at will" Bishop Ochola wrote.
Unsurprisingly in the last election, this region voted out, en masse, nearly all candidates of the ruling National Resistance Movement and overwhelmingly for Museveni's main challenger, Dr Kizza Besigye.
Many of the political leaders who met at the Rwot's residence apart from some like Walter Ochora, the Gulu Resident District Commissioner, represent this sentiment, that the North/South divide is an ethnic and economic apartheid.
Sources at the meeting said Ochora, who lost his position as District Chairman to Mao, found himself swimming against the tide when he declared that the constitution would be amended to give him more power over the District.
" We
had to tell him off," Mao said on the phone when contacted by Inside Politics, about the meeting and whether or not it was not setting a stage for a parallel administration of Acholi.
He said Ochora's appointment as RDC was " intended to provoke" the District but that the rest of the attendees were willing to accommodate him.
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"We have both political and administrative cohesion because the District Chairmen (who lead local government) and the Members of Parliament are united" Mao said. The " Acholi government" that met made some radical decisions under the stewardship of the Rwot. According to Mao, the meeting was tasked to pass by-laws and ordinances to declare a clear land policy and form a Communal Land Trust, and create an Acholi Development Agency to wean talent especially from the Diaspora to run the District (they were represented at the meeting).
The Rwot has also directed that the leaders inquire into the human rights abuses in the District " an
Acholi Truth and Reconciliation Commission" to further heal the wounds within the district.
Mao, Odok Peter, and Kenneth John Ogwok, the Chairmen of Pader and Kitgum signed a statement at the meeting warning against illegal acquisitions of land in Acholi until the three districts "come out with a unified land policy". It would appear the project for an independent Acholiland is well underway
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