Peter Okema Otika | June 29, 2008 | Monitor

A glimpse of hope and relative peace has prevailed in northern Uganda for the last two years since rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) declared a ceasefire.

The guns had roared for over 22 years since 1986 when Yoweri Museveni took over power from Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa (RIP), leader of the military government that unsuccessfully offered Mr Museveni an olive branch for peace in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985.

Northern Uganda has never been peaceful and has never been the same ever since. Today, the Uganda government is bracing for more war with the LRA rebels, a war they have all fought without winning.

Many people have been made to believe that the war in northern Uganda started with Joseph Kony’s LRA. The Uganda government and the international community have been very central in telling a twisted version of history of Uganda so much to the extent that people are made to think that the LRA have been the major cause of this conflict.

You need to understand the historical contexts as to why and how the conflict started. It must be understood that when Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA) which was composed of child soldiers commonly known in Uganda as kadogos, took over power, they employed a revenge policy toward the defeated Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) in Acholi, Teso and West Nile regions.

They started arresting the former officers, jailing them, killing them and in many cases, looting and attacking their families. These former soldiers and members of their families were taken to Luzira Prison in Kampala and others were taken to Kigumba and Kiburara to toil in farms. Hundreds of these inmates died in these detention centres and they were not given fair trial.

It was from these fears for revenge that the remaining former soldiers decided to reorganise, arm themselves and start defending against the atrocious attacks. The first group to form was the Uganda People’s Democratic Army (UPDA), a disciplined army that had peaceful co-existence with the local people and in many ways, defended the locals from being attacked by Ugandan troops as well as cattle rustlers from Karamoja.

Once the war started, another group also emerged in Teso known as the Uganda People’s Army (UPA), the ranks of which were also mostly former soldiers who were being persecuted by NRA.

Although these two rebel groups reached would-be peaceful settlements with the government, most of their leaders and commanders were later jailed, or mysteriously disappeared while others were killed. Many other rebels groups also emerged in West Nile, Central and even Western regions of Uganda.

Meanwhile, the new government continued to persecute anyone who was part of or is alleged to have been part of the previous government. By 1987, they had extended this persecution to the locals especially in Acholi where NRA commenced what they called Operation North, Operation Mobile and so many other names.

This was a scorched-earth policy by the NRA in which they were ordered to kill anything that walks. Adults, babies, goats, chicken, banana trees, burn down houses, cut down bridges and even defecate in and poison water wells. I was a young boy in Alero, one of the villages that saw the worst atrocities.

I remember one quiet and peaceful afternoon in 1987 that was interrupted with gunshots and immediately, the entire village was surrounded.

I ran and ran and ran escaping with my life, but bruised all over my body and foot. Unfortunately, my grandmother, a cousin, a brother, my mother and countless others were not so lucky. They were killed; some were burnt alive in the houses.

My mother (RIP) was one of the few survivors; she had been shot across the face, cut with machetes on the back and other parts of her body. For some unexplained reason, she survived the carnage.

When I ran back to see what had happened five hours later, I found her silently wriggling on the ground. Another villager who survived came and found me trying to save my mother. We tied her wounds, carried her into the woods and started to nurse.

The next day, we returned and buried the dead. My mother was paralysed after that and sadly died earlier this year in Gulu. Her tormentors and killers of the countless villagers have never been arrested, not even talked about by the Ugandan government, Amnesty International or even the so called International Criminal Court (ICC).

As the plunder, killing and everything else was going on, another rebel group emerged in the name of the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Lakwena, a woman who claimed she had mystic and spiritual power to fight and lead an army to topple Museveni. Lakwena’s was a formidable force that threatened to take over the government.

She was eventually defeated in Iganga. After her defeat, Kony appeared on the scene, a man who also claimed mystic and spiritual power.

Kony’s armies have expanded in number, changed identities and even names. They have been the longest headache to the government of Museveni since 1987. The group was formally known as the Holy Spirit and later changed its name to the LRA.

There have been many attempts to talk peace with the LRA going way back into the 1990s. Most of the attempts failed. The main reasons for these failures have been because the Ugandan government has always pressed to continue fighting instead of talking peace.

Also, individuals involved in coordinating peace talks, especially those with interests or connection with Uganda have had the desire to earn money, popularity or disorganise the process. The latter want the war to continue because it is a lucrative source of revenues to them and their commanders.

Every time peace efforts have failed with the LRA, the Uganda movement and its backers around the world look for someone to blame.

Traditionally, they would blame local Acholi people in the villages and their leaders.

Now that the LRA rebels have relocated into Sudan and DR. Congo, the blame has been switched to Acholi who live in the Diaspora, mostly in USA, Canada, UK, and other Western European countries.

The most recent case of accusation of the Acholi Diaspora has been orchestrated by Uganda government agents. The Resident District Commissioner for Gulu, retired Col. Walter Ochora, who himself was a rebel leader in the UPDA and later served with the Uganda army, went on local FM radio station and declared that Mr Obonyo Olweny, Mr Joshua Otukene, Mr Alex Oloya, Col. Wilson Owiny Omoya, Dr. Ocan Otim and a Mr Peter Oola as spoilers of the peace process.

Ironically, some of these mentioned individuals have been the ones promoting the peace process around the world. Now they are accusing them of destroying the very things they are fighting for?

Many people inside Uganda and even within the international community and donors had high hopes that finally this war would come to an end.

It almost did and it still might. The Final Peace Agreement (FPA) was supposed to be signed in April 2008 but Kony refused to sign it claiming he did not agree with some of the components.

The outstanding disagreement was on the question of International Criminal Court, which together with Uganda government, have sued the LRA leaders for crimes against humanity. Interestingly, the Uganda army has also been accused of committing the same crimes in and outside Uganda.

According to an online communiqué that was emailed to members of the Acholi Community by Obonyo Olweny, the Juba Peace Process failed due to a number of reasons. According to him, on April 3, Kony telephoned him with two important messages regarding the peace process.

A couple of days earlier he had done the same to Alex Oloya in London. The first message from the LRA leader was that he would not sign the FPA that he was expected to sign on April 10.

Olweny claimed Kony, however, did not ask their opinion or advice on whether he should sign the agreement or not. He simply stated what he (and members of the LRA High Command) had already decided: that he was not going to sign the agreement.

In the second message, Kony requested Obonyo Olweny and Alex Oloya to constitute a new delegation of LRA representatives for a fresh round of peace talks. Kony blamed the intention of certain participants in the peace talks who he said harboured anti-LRA and pro-Uganda government sentiments. Corruption among the LRA delegates, who had been bribed and compromised.

Kony cited the secret meeting in Mombasa in early 2007 between a clique of LRA delegates and Uganda government officials led by Museveni’s brother, Gen. Salim Saleh. Kony demanded that the IDP camps in Acholi must first be disbanded and the displaced people returned to their lands. Meaningful peace must begin with the displaced people being resettled. Any peace agreement should be signed in Uganda, not in a foreign land.

And that parts of the FPA calling for the prosecution of LRA leaders by a special division of the High Court of Uganda are unacceptable.

Kony said that since he was prepared to make peace with the Ugandan government and end the long war, why would the government he had fought and made peace with again prosecute him and his commanders.

What peace and reconciliation would that be?

He added that Kony blamed the insistence by the ICC to pursue the arrest and prosecution of LRA leaders. He also demanded that the Uganda government troops first withdraw from the Northern Uganda sector designated for LRA troops to assemble.

Among other things also, Kony said that President Yoweri Museveni has not sufficiently demonstrated that he accepts all people of Uganda, particularly the Nilotes of northern Uganda, as full citizens of the Republic of Uganda equal before the law and the Constitution and with rights to fully participate in the social, economic and political mainstream activities of the nation.

The LRA have suggested the way forward now that Juba has not yielded the fruits that many have been waiting for. Even Vice President of Southern Sudan, Dr Riek Machar has called upon the Ugandan government, LRA rebels and the international community not to give up on the peace process.

Dr Machar wants the peace talks to continue and has condemned intentions of the Uganda government to declare renewed war. The LRA on the other hand have suggested, a start on a Juba II peace process to continue with what Juba I has done so far.

Being an Acholi myself, I must stress that the Acholi people need unity but also, to appreciate our diversity of persons, thoughts,
identities and ideas. Acholi is an egalitarian society and in many ways, this is exemplified in the way they interact.

In many ways, people confuse variation of views and opinions as division among us. This is not true. But we also have to recognise our differences and appreciate it as our strengths. We are not any good or considered successful unless we embraced the society and diversity of where we come from.

We should stop making this war an Acholi war. This is a national problem that needs national solutions. The more we claim we want to solve it alone, the more we prove that it’s only an Acholi problem.

This war started as a national problem and Ugandan government must solve it as a national problem.

Anyone trying to address it as an Acholi problem that needs Acholi solutions is being unfair and dishonest. We should stop thinking that one person is representative of the entire Acholi society. This is the case both inside Uganda and in the Diaspora. Those who claim they represent Acholi Diaspora or entire Acholi in Uganda are lying.

The door to the peace talks should be left open. Uganda government and the international community have to be patient with the process. It took South Africa, Northern Ireland and is taking Israel decades to achieve peace. Why are we in such a hurry to call it quits?

Why are we so fast to point fingers at each other as being spoilers?

We will have to learn from these experiences and make future engagements more open, honest, with clear agendas, respectful and more accommodating.

Otherwise, we will not succeed in what we claim to be doing. Remember, this is not the first time we are talking peace. So, let’s not be dumb and feel exclusive in the roles each of us play.

We should be free to disagree to agree as long we all know what we want to achieve and work towards getting there. Unity doesn’t mean just engaging with only those that agree with you, in many ways, it means engaging those you don’t agree with.

The donor community and backers of both the LRA and the Uganda government have to learn to be patient, stop being greedy, and focus on the better future of Ugandans. Equally, we must ask the donor community, backers of the rebels and Uganda government to start employing honesty, and fairness.

Email the writer at: <!– var prefix = ‘ma’ + ‘il’ + ‘to’; var path = ‘hr’ + ‘ef’ + ‘=’; var addy95250 = ‘peterotik’ + ‘@’ + ‘hotmail’ + ‘.’ + ‘com’; document.write( ‘‘ ); document.write( addy95250 ); document.write( ” ); //–> peterotika@hotmail.com

At one point over 1,000 people were dying weekly as a result of the conditions in the camps. Today, a hepatitis epidemic has begun to spread through camps in Kitgum District, as a result of similar conditions.

Featured in the film are Olara Otunnu, former UN Undersecretary General for Children in Armed Conflict, Milton Allimadi, Black Star News Publisher and CEGUN members Lucy Larom, Gloria Oloya, Kathy Smith and Tim Hardy.

Travel to Uganda, to see what the Ugandan government has successfully hidden from the world. Witness the suffering of innocent civilians caught between a brutal rebel army and equally lethal government troops.

Why have these Ugandans been denied a right to protection? Why does the world’s superpowers continue to support a government which has failed its own citizens? Where is the world’s concern for this ongoing, slow-motion genocide? What does the future hold for northern Uganda’s children?

The displaced community most affected — Acholi — is documented in the photo gallery linked below. [Photo Credit: IRIN News]

Photo Gallery of Ugandan Government Death Camps (IRIN News)

Since the Juba Peace Talks began, it’s been a roller-coaster ride of highs and lows for some, while for others the process has been a nebulous and confused state of affairs. None of it has added up, and now, some say it has blown up, with the Ugandan government readying its troops to pursue the LRA, with the full support of the United States.

Two stories have appeared that add to the Peace Talks confusion. The first, from James Obita, a supposed former LRA spokesman affirms that the talks are still on.

“We feel that the talks have not collapsed,” said Obita, speaking on the phone from the southern Sudanese town of Juba where the negotiations have been held. He said all that remained was the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement, which rebel negotiators will work out with chief mediator Riek Machar, who is Southern Sudan’s vice president.

Had this statement only appeared in Ugandan newspapers, perhaps sidelining such talk may have been appropriate, however, larger papers have picked up the story; adding an element of wonderment in terms of the new story line, the new narrative which is being created.

The second statement, comes from the chief mediator Dr. Riek Machar, who says:

“Why give up when all that remains is a signature?” said Machar, who chaired nearly two years of talks between Uganda’s government and the Lord’s Resistance Army guerrillas.

“It is too early.”

Read more…

Lost in all the intrigue, propaganda and diplomatic ineffectiveness are the forced combatants, women and children with the LRA. A military option guarantees their demise. Musn’t the international community act to defend the defenseless?

Is a peaceful surrender out of reach?

–XUG Editor

NAIROBI, Kenya: Talks to end one of Africa’s longest rebellions have not failed, a Ugandan rebel official said Friday, a day after government officials said the peace process had collapsed.

Rebel negotiator James Obita told The Associated Press that he is confident Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony will sign a final peace deal, even though he questions some parts of the agreement. The deal has been ready for his signature since April.

“We feel that the talks have not collapsed,” said Obita, speaking on the phone from the southern Sudanese town of Juba where the negotiations have been held. He said all that remained was the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement, which rebel negotiators will work out with chief mediator Riek Machar, who is Southern Sudan’s vice president.

Read the rest here…

The Ugandan government and other international agencies have produced similar studies with similarly devastating statistics.

Yet, in 2008, the majority of people in Acholiland are in flux, some are closer to home, most are struggling to find basic services such as clean water, adequate food, health care and education for children. (Northern Uganda has a very young population, with an average of more than 40% of camp residents under 15 years old)

- XUG Editor

*Photo Credit: AVSI, a rural classroom, students studying on the floor; Universal Primary education (UPE) has failed in northern Uganda.

[UPDF and]
Kony’s War Victims’s Stress Levels Highest

The Monitor (Kampala)

NEWS – 6 June 2008 – Posted to the web 5 June 2008

By Grace Ntabaalo & Agencies

According to a new study, people living in the conflict areas of northern Uganda have the highest rate of post-traumatic stress and depression ever recorded among IDPs in some war-torn areas worldwide.

The study, conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Gulu University in 28 camps in districts of Amuru and Gulu in November 2006 said that the stress was as a result of ‘extremely high civilian exposure to violence and poor healthcare’.

The report says that 20 years of civil war have left many traumatised and in poor health due to lack of medical care and access to food and water.

According to the study, the rates of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression among the IDPs were higher than those recorded for displaced groups in other conflict areas, such as Afghanistan, Croatia and along the Thai-Burma border.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is an emotional illness that develops as a result of a terribly frightening, life-threatening, or otherwise highly unsafe experience.

Out of the 1,210 IDPs assessed during the study, more than half (54%) displayed symptoms of PTSD and more than two thirds (67%) showed signs of depression.

Some of the symptoms include; insomina, nightmares, isolation,aggression and guilt. The lead author of the report, Bayard Roberts said, “Many of the people interviewed experienced ill health without medical care, experienced rape or sexual abuse, lack of food and water as well as higher rates of trauma exposure.”

Early this year, while speaking at the World mental Health Day, Dr Fred Kigozi, director of Butabika mental Hospital, said that at least nine million Ugandans suffer from some form of mental disorder including PTSD, depression, anxiety, epilepsy and schizophrenia.

He said the majority suffering from PTSD hailed from the post-conflict areas of northern, eastern and western Uganda.

The study also notes that three quarters of those questioned said they had witnessed or experienced the murder of a family member or friend and more than half reported having been beaten or tortured.

More than 40 per cent said they had been kidnapped and 14 per cent had been raped or sexually abused.

“The levels or PTSD and depression recorded in this study are amongst the highest recorded globally,” reads the report.

More than 90 per cent said they had experienced lack of food or water and two thirds had been ill without medical care because of the fighting.

Mr Roberts also said many of the traumatic events experienced by the interviewees had occurred while they lived in the IDP camps.

Some 93 per cent told researchers they did not feel safe in the camps, due to fears of further attack, outbreaks of disease and worries about limited access to food and medical care.

“This suggests that although the camps have been specifically set up to protect civilians, that is not the case,” said Roberts.

He added that the huge impact of the fighting on civilians in a relatively small, densely populated area meant it was plausible for symptoms of mental trauma to be higher in Uganda than in countries such as Afghanistan.

In the past 10 years, President Yoweri Museveni’s government has rolled back a record number of the democratic and civil rights that it had introduced or that had grown of their own in his first dynamic decade between 1986 and 1996.

The government, for example, has pushed through the most extreme “anti-terrorism” law in the region. Though it didn’t play a lot in the local media, and was hardly picked up abroad, among other things, the Terrorism Act potentially opened the way for a journalist to be hanged for quoting a news source the government considers to be a “terrorist.”

In later years, it has dismantled the presidential term limit, passed laws restricting further the freedom of assembly, and rigged elections like it was going out of fashion.

Two glimmers of enlightenment are the 2005 end of one-party rule and reintroduction of multiparty politics, and the fact that the radical economic reforms that marked the first 12 years of the Museveni government have, remarkably, not been tampered with, although widespread corruption has eaten away a lot of their benefits.

The past five years, however, have been marked by the Kampala government’s disregard for the authority of the courts. Thus, when the court granted opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye bail, the government simply ignored the ruling.

Secondly, it has been unrelenting in its persecution of journalists. Over the past three years, editors and journalists from independent newspapers and magazines have been arrested and slapped with all sorts of charges.

In a fresh anti-media outburst, the government has put together a Cabinet committee to crack down further on an already emasculated press. One of the proposals the committee is mulling is to altogether scrap the “freedom of the press” provision in the constitution.

This action, reprehensible as it might be, is not unique to Uganda. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe has systematically frustrated the media. However, as he did that, his government also passed some mildly progressive laws on elections.

IRONICALLY, IT WAS THE CHANGE IN the electoral laws that made it impossible for Mugabe to steal the election outright in the first round from opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the recent polls.

There’s also an interesting pattern, that may be a pointer to how an African leader is likely to behave towards the media and the opposition.

Leaders like Museveni, Mugabe, Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Gabon’s Omar Bongo, came to power through the gun – either as guerrilla leaders or masterminds of coups de tat.

Though there are a few exceptions to the rule, “original” leaders of rebellions and coups are lousy democrats and usually hate the free press. It’s possible that this is because, even when they become elected leaders later, they always consider that their legitimacy is derived from the struggle or the risk they took in staging a coup against the day’s ruler, and not from the electorate.

Because of that, they feel unaccountable to anybody, and don’t like to be challenged.

It takes the death or overthrow of the original rebel or coup leader for this to change. In Mozambique, for example, after the tragic death of Samora Machel, his successor Joachim Chissano was able to talk with the Renamo rebels to end the war that had bled the country dry, and to carry out economic and political reforms.

In Uganda, then, one can expect the wave of illiberal actions by the Museveni regime to continue until he is out of office. Given that he is already campaigning for a sixth term, which will end in 2016, when he will probably stand for a seventh, it could be a long wait.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s managing editor for convergence and new products.

http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200806021304.html

A visit from an ICC official to Uganda brings fresh news of the court’s intentions regarding the Uganda case:

“A warrant is an order of the chamber of the ICC. And this order has to be enforced, that is all,” said Ms Arbia of what the ICC told the LRA delegation.

Will Ugandan troops bring Kony in alive?

Will Kony be eliminated in a firefight with LRA forces?

Is President Yoweri Museveni counting on a dead Kony, another war under his belt, en route to a 5th presidential term?

Will the international community pressure for the release of women and children in LRA captivity?

How can Kony peacefully surrender to the ICC? What mechanisms are in place for the arrest of Kony?

Will President Museveni also face the ICC’s heat, as the Congo investigation gains momentum?

A UN Security Council document names several NRM officials, including Museveni’s brother Major General Salim Saleh, Brigadier General James Kazini and other army officials, including Colonels Tikamanyire, Otafire and Mugenyi.

As this story unfolds the answers will reveal themselves. Until then one musn’t forget the innocent captives and victims who will never experience any justice; as well as those who are in limbo, waiting to rebuild.

LRA Leader Joseph Kony Will Be Arrested, Says ICC

By Simon Kasyate The Monitor (Kampala)

The newly-appointed International Criminal Court registrar Ms Silvana Arbia has said the reclusive leader of the rebel LRA Joseph Kony will be arrested at all costs.

Ms Silvana Arbia, speaking on her first visit to Uganda last week said; “…the execution of this (Kony) warrant of arrest is expected.”

This is the latest high profile pronouncement on the status of the indictments against Kony and some of his commanders by the ICC.

Speaking to Daily Monitor at the ICC field office in Kololo, a Kampala suburb last week, Ms Silvana Arbia said the ‘warrants of arrest were served to the concerned states for their enforcement’ an obligation they must fulfill. She described her firm stance as “the very simple and unique position taken by the ICC.”

The ICC made the same position to an LRA delegation that visited its headquarters in The Hague in May 2008.

“A warrant is an order of the chamber of the ICC. And this order has to be enforced, that is all,” said Ms Arbia of what the ICC told the LRA delegation.

Asked if the ICC would reconsider its position if the government of Uganda gave it assurance of an alternative judicial system that would not allow for impunity of the LRA leaders, the registrar replied in the negative.

Ms Arbia also refused to take any blame from the argument that LRA’s reluctance to sign the final pact of a comprehensive peace agreement last April was because of the pending ICC warrants of arrest.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200805300004.html

Uganda has allegedly armed and financed the Congo militias, much in the same manner in which Liberia, under Charles Taylor, once sponsored insurgents that committed war crimes in Sierra Leone. Taylor was later indicted and after he had been removed from office, arrested and taken to a special war crimes court set up in the Hague where he is currently being tried.

Uganda Abets Genocide of 6 Million Congolese
As many as 6 million Congolese are reported to have died as a result of the conflict sparked by the invasion, including by Uganda.

Allegedly, Uganda sponsored several militias including Bemba‘s Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC), when it then occupied eastern Congo.

Human Rights Watch in a 2003 report, “Ituri: Covered In Blood,” identified at least 10 militias it said were Uganda-backed. These insurgent organizations were accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

International Court of Justice Fines Uganda $10 Billion
In 2005, Uganda was found liable by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for plundering Congo’s resources and its army and allied forces of committing crimes against civilians, including massacres, mutilations, mass rapes and burning people alive.

The court agreed that Uganda should pay compensation, and the DRC government asked for $10 billion.

Kabila Refers Uganda to ICC
Meanwhile, on March 3, 2004, the Congo government under President Joseph Kabila, had referred crimes against humanity allegations against Uganda and its allied militias to the ICC; the court confirmed this to The Black Star News on July 27, 2007. The ICC then initiated an investigation of the alleged crimes, according to a front page news report in The Wall Street Journal on June 6, 2006.

Uganda Asks Annan to Block ICC Investigation
The seriousness with which the Uganda government took the ICC matter is clear from The Wall Street Journal. According to the Journal report: “President Museveni of Uganda asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to block the Congo investigation, according to one person
familiar with the matter. Mr. Annan replied that he had no power to interfere with the court, this person said. A Ugandan government spokesman, Robert Kabushenga, declines to comment on the matter.”

Read the Full Article at Black Star News.com

By Milton Allimadi
May 10, 2008

Months after the Uganda government and the Lord’s Resistance Army launched peace talks in Juba to end the country’s 22-years civil war, President Yoweri Museveni told a top United Nations official that there could only be a “military solution” to the conflict, according to a new book.

The book also accuses the United Nations of failing the people of Acholi in Uganda’s war-torn regions. Some UN officials who had been in Uganda for years had done nothing, and others had not even bothered to visit Acholi region even as the humanitarian catastrophe unfolded.

In “A Billion Lives: An Eye Witness Report From The Frontlines Of Humanity,” (Simon & Schuster, 2008), Jan Egeland, the former United Nations Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, describes a November 2006 meeting during which Museveni berated him for going into the bush to meet with Joseph Kony and other LRA leaders.

The book covers Egeland’s trips to many of the world’s trouble spots, including Iraq, the Darfur region, DRC, Lebanon, Gaza, Colombia, Northern Israel, and Uganda, when he headed the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for three and a half years. The book’s chapter dealing with Uganda is titled “Uganda’s Twenty Thousand Kidnapped Children.”

“You were just wasting your time in the bush with them. I told you so,” Museveni says, when the two met, according to Egeland’s book.

“No, I think it was useful to meet them,” Egeland writes of his own response. “It was good for peace and therefore to your benefit,” Egeland adds, referring to his meeting earlier that day with Kony, his deputy Vincent Otti, and other LRA commanders, in their hideouts near the border with the Sudan and Central African Republic. (pg. 211)

“No, those talks were not to our benefit,” Museveni responds, according to Egeland’s book. “Let me be categorical–there will only be a military solution to this problem.”

The exchange occurred November 12, 2006, fully four months after the Juba Peace Talks had been launched, with Riek Machar, vice president of Southern Sudan, as the mediator. What’s more, Ruhakana Rugunda, Uganda’s minister of internal affairs and the government’s chief negotiator at the peace talks, was sitting in on that meeting, Egeland writes, as were other top officials, including Sam Kutesa, the foreign affairs minister. Egeland says these top government officials were basically docile observers during his heated discussion with Museveni.

“Museveni seems pleased with the tough and direct exchange,” Egeland writes. “He clearly enjoys the verbal jousting. Within his own government nobody dares to argue with him. Not once in three hours do any of his ministers interrupt.” (pg. 213) The meeting occurred in an office in Uganda’s Parliament buildings. “But,” Egeland continues, referring to his exchange with Museveni, “we have, for the first time, an absence of fighting and terror due to the peace process.”

“No, that is only due to the efforts of our army!” Museveni responds, according to Egeland’s book. Egeland writes that he was able to wrest concessions from Museveni, although the credibility of Egeland‘s conclusion, considering the source making the “concession,” is anybody’s guess.

“The president even agrees to withdraw the Ugandan army from two bases close to the eastern assembly point; the army is currently blocking access for LRA fighters who should gather there according to the cease-fire agreement,” Egeland writes, which in itself is a remarkable revelation, and confirms the assertions that the LRA had made at the time that it was the Uganda government that was actually blocking access to the designated confinement camps for the rebels.

Egeland adds, of their discussion: “During the last two hours of our meeting he is only angry once, when I bring up our growing concern with widespread violence in the eastern Karamoja area, where civilians are being killed in battles between cattle rustlers, [ethnic] militias, and army units. ‘Do not lecture me on how to disarm illegal armed groups and cattle rustlers. On that I am an expert,’ he says forcefully.” (pg. 213)

Egeland also provides his overall assessment of Museveni. He recalls having a three-hour talk under a tree in Museveni’s cattle farm and how Museveni told him to take his helicopter “to see the skulls of the tens of thousands among his own people who died in the 1970s to ‘get perspective’ on my criticism of the government’s policies in northern Uganda.” (pg. 212).

“He is an impressive leader,” Egeland notes, “but he had become increasingly authoritarian and has so far failed in northern Uganda, where the Acholi people feel alienated and where neither civilian nor military authorities have managed to avoid some twenty years of horrors. The LRA has not been the only bloody rebellion in the north.” “We agree that the talks must produce tangible agreements that can lead to disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of the LRA and that a true process of reconciliation must follow the peace process,” Egeland adds, in his book.

“Museveni, who had asked the ICC to indict the LRA leaders, was of the opinion that he could stop the international judicial process if a good agreement to end the war was reached. I try to tell him, as the chief ICC prosecutor had asked me to stress, that the decision was no longer in the hands of the Ugandans.”

This is also an interesting point. The Uganda government has long been aware that it’s not in a position to have the International Criminal Court’s indictments removed against the LRA’s top leaders, Kony, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Raska Lukwiya, and Dominic Ongwen; yet the Museveni government continues to dangle this illusory “carrot” over which it has no control, as inducement to the LRA to sign a peace pact. (Incidentally, Otti, Odhiambo, Ongwen, and Lukwiya are all, rather too conveniently, reported to have been killed. In 2006 the ICC said a DNA test confirmed a body identified as Ongwen’s wasn’t. Separately, in 2006, The Wall Street Journal also reported that Uganda’s army was being investigated by the ICC on alleged war crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo).

Egeland reveals that his focus on northern Uganda’s tragedy increased after his first visit there in 2003. “What I saw around the towns of Kitgum and Gulu was an outrage,” he writes. “Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children lived in appalling conditions in overcrowded, filthy camps. With the exception of the UN World Food Progamme and a handful of courageous Ugandan and international nongovernmental organizations, humanitarian workers were absent in the midst of the misery. The contrast with the empty refugee camps and well-stocked warehouses that I had just visited in Iraq and on its borders was stark.” (pg. 201).

“Why had no one in the international community woken up to the carnage of northern Uganda?” Egeland adds, and delivers a searing indictment on the conspiracy of silence that has enabled to unfold, what Olara Otunnu, the former UN Undersecretary General in charge of children in war zones once called the “silent genocide” in Acholi. “Where had I been while in charge of the Norwegian Red Cross and during many years of humanitarian, human rights, and peace work? It was incomprehensible. The capital, Kampala, was bursting with UN and other aid officials since Uganda was one of the darlings of Western governments and development agencies. Few, it appeared, had looked far beyond the horizon at the outrage being visited on the children of the north.” (pg. 202)

“The next morning I asked my UN colleagues to meet me on the veranda of our guest house,” Egeland continues. “I was angry and still reeling from the desperately sad scenes of the day before. Some of those I was addressing had worked in Uganda for months, even years, but had never bothered to make the daylong journey north. ’I hope you all agree we cannot continue like this,’ I told a group of nodding heads. ’We have failed utterly here. You and your organizations have to step up the action dramatically and I will do all I can to wake up donors and headquarters.’ They were rightly embarrassed.” (pg. 203)

Egeland describes his disappointment in not being to get the LRA to release children and women in captivity when he met with the rebel commanders; he also writes that he warned Kony and the LRA leadership that the whole world would be watching their conduct with respect to the peace talks.

Egeland, who lives in Oslo, Norway, is now Director General of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. He clearly has excellent understanding of the untrustworthiness of the principal characters behind the Acholi tragedy, Kony and Museveni.

Egeland demonstrates intimate knowledge of the Uganda conflict in his book; he could play a superb role as co-mediator with Dr. Machar, in lending international credibility and getting the Juba Peace Talks back on track.

http://blackstarnews.com/?c=122&a=4529