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IRIN Web Special on the crisis in Northern Uganda
Peace efforts
Ugandan army spokesman Shaban Bantariza says the LRA is difficult to track down.
Credit: IRIN
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The frustrations of dialogue
Fr. Carlos Rodriguez, a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Gulu, spends less and less time attending to spiritual matters.
He is instead preoccupied with persuading the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group, to end its brutal war against civilians in his parishes. "There is nothing like standing in front of 50 people with weapons, while you are only armed with a cross and Bible," he says.
Rodriguez is one of a group of religious leaders in northern Uganda who have been searching for a peaceful end to the 17-year conflict. Despite his best efforts, attempts to find a non-military solution to the war have been frustrated by a combination of mistrust between the government and the rebels, dishonoured ceasefires, and an uncertain political will to end the war through dialogue.
Although high levels of insecurity have existed throughout northern Uganda since the rebellion first started, the current phase of the conflict has seen civilians suffer as never before.
An escalation in the conflict followed a March 2002 agreement between the governments of Uganda and Sudan allowing the UPDF to seek and destroy LRA rear bases in southern Sudan. Until that time, the LRA had been able to carry out raids just inside northern Uganda, before retreating back across the border into southern Sudan and out of reach of the Ugandan military.
However, the unwitting result of the anti-rebel offensive, code-named 'Operation Iron Fist', was to force LRA 'cells' from Sudan into Uganda, where they have since wreaked havoc, attacking civilian populations in villages and camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs).
Mediation efforts
Towards the end of 2002, mediation efforts appeared to be bearing fruit. The LRA was showing signs that it was willing to start talks, and President Yoweri Museveni appointed a government peace team charged with conducting negotiations, and led by then first Deputy Prime Minister Eria Kategaya.
These positive developments reached their zenith in March 2003, with both sides declaring a limited ceasefire designed to pave the way for face-to-face talks.
The ceasefire lasted just a few days. In April 2003, Museveni retracted the limited ceasefire proposal he had extended to the rebels and ordered the resumption of full military operations, citing the LRA's "obstinate refusal to positively respond" to the UPDF limited cessation of operations in Lapul sub-county, Pader District.
Without a clear route to peace, religious leaders, local politicians and civil society groups are now asking the international community to step in to build confidence in the peace process.
Rodriguez told IRIN in July 2003 that the rebels now wanted a mechanism, overseen by the international community, which would guarantee their safety before they would come out of the bush to negotiate. "We are asking for a serious involvement of the international community. Without such involvement it will be difficult. It doesn't necessarily have to be military," Rodriguez said. "There is non-military intervention in the Middle East or even in Sudan. So why is the international community not intervening in northern Uganda?"
Baker Ochola, the retired Bishop of Kitgum, also called for international intervention. "This war has taken almost 18 years now. Both sides have gone on the offensive against each other. The people being targeted are the children, women and the elderly. This is why we feel there is a need for the international community to put pressure on the Ugandan government and Sudan in order to give a break to the people," he told IRIN.
According to diplomatic sources in Kampala, Museveni's government has agreed in principle to the appointment of a third-party facilitator, who would contact the rebels and assist in mediation. "The international community has adequate willingness to provide such a third party. But for the moment, we haven't done much," one such source told IRIN.
"The principle of third party mediation has to come from both sides. We have not heard anything from the rebels. The problem in third-party facilitation is that we need both parties to agree," the source added.
This apparent reluctance by the rebel group to come out and talk has at times been used by the Ugandan government as justification for pursuing a military solution to the conflict. The army says the rebels have cancelled meetings with religious leaders and brutally murdered peace emissaries sent to Kony.
Continued?
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