I completely misread the thread title: I thought I was the one telling you guys to "Bring it On", which doesn't really make much sense

___________________
Indiana Clones Upcoming Sets
[ I May Upload Something Someday ]

If there's one conflict that I haven't followed, its this Ugandan one, I feel very ashamed. Truly an important one, but the oil trail doesnt lead there. I'm reading the article ...

___________________
Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

quote:

Originally posted by Magnetonium If there's one conflict that I haven't followed, its this Ugandan one, I feel very ashamed. Truly an important one, but the oil trail doesnt lead there. I'm reading the article ...

You're missing out! The LRA is one of the most intriguing political entities in the world right now. Atrocious, but very intriguing. Joseph Kony, their leader, is fascinating as well. He basically wants to institute a Christian theocracy not dissimilar to an Islamic state under Sharia law... but word on the street is that Kony is animist, so it could just be for mass consumption, who knows.

___________________

And I imagine if the US does get involved it actually will be at least somewhat because of oil reserves - there's quite a large supply in southern Sudan, where the LRA fighters often hang out and make their raids into Uganda from.

___________________

A little more on Kony:

quote:

Portrait of Uganda's rebel prophet, painted by wives Beatrice Debut | Gulu, Uganda 10 February 2006 06:00 His rebel group is one of world's most notorious, reviled for an incongruous mix of religion and brutality, but Joseph Kony, the chief of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), is a mystery to most. For nearly 20 years, the elusive guerrilla supremo's fighters have terrorised vast swathes of northern Uganda with an unholy blend of murder, mutilation, rapes, kidnapping and wanton destruction. Yet the self-styled mystic and religious prophet who claims to be waging war on God's direct orders to replace the Ugandan government with one based on the Biblical Ten Commandments is as unknown as he is feared. Wanted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court, Ugandan authorities say Kony has fled under pressure into the Democratic Republic of Congo and possibly to the Central African Republic from a base in south Sudan. But his whereabouts are impossible to confirm, pictures of him are rare and few outside the LRA have even met Kony, a 45-year-old primary school dropout who likes to be called "the teacher" by his family of 27 wives and 42 children. "I saw him for the first time when I was in the operations room," says one of those wives, Margaret, recalling how she met Kony as a teenage LRA abductee learning how to break down and assemble weapons at a guerrilla base. "Two of his wives were pregnant, he chose me," says the now 33-year-old woman who was freed from LRA captivity in an army raid last year after living in the bush since 1991. "I don't know why. I was a virgin." "It was a chance, because I was better treated than the others," she says, referring to horrific atrocities other abductees, mainly children, were subjected to. Ex-LRA abductees speak of being forced to brutally kill and maim friends and neighbours as well as participate in grotesque rites such as drinking their victims' blood. "I never killed," Margaret tells a reporter in this northern Ugandan town that has been at the epicenter of the fighting that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced nearly two million people. But according to other liberated Kony wives, concubines and nannies, the rebel chief who took over leadership of a two-year-old regional rebellion in 1998 is not a killer himself. "He doesn't kill, he gives orders to the commanders and the commanders give the orders to the small children," says Nancy (16) who served as a babysitter for Kony's prolific brood before being freed in an Ugandan army raid. Kony's hold over his largely uneducated and impoverished followers appears based on a combination of ruthless repression and alleged supernatural abilities. "He says he has spiritual powers and I believe it," says Nancy, who speaks with difficulty since being shot in the jaw during the attack that freed here. "Once, he spotted a person who talked to him while he was not even there." "He says he's doing God's will," says 23-year-old Evelyn who was "married" to Kony in 1994. "He says he's a prophet. He wants to overthrow the government [and] replace the Constitution with the Ten Commandments." "He had four palaces in southern Sudan," Evelyn says, recounting her day-to-day activities as one of Kony's wives as she suckles her youngest daughter, one of three children she has borne Kony. "I mopped the house, I prepared the breakfast, I prepared his bath." Margaret interjects. "He used to beat me with a stick or his fist if the bath wasn't ready or if the food wasn't ready," she says. The bizarre domestic life with Kony and the abuse he meted out, however, was not enough in itself to turn these women against him. "I grew a kind of love for him," says Evelyn. "But when I came back, I realised that a war took place in my village: two of my brothers, two aunties and my dad had been killed. I grew a lot of hatred." "He said that he would come back one day to take care of our three children, but I don't believe him," she says. "He only tells lies." Still, some wives remain convinced that Kony, now apparently on the run with a small group of die-hard loyalists, had some ability to predict the future. "He said that one day he would be alone without any children and wives, with only 300 fighters, and these things are happening," Margaret says.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=263835&area=/insight/insight__africa/

___________________

This article hits on a topic I've been dealing with a lot lately.

quote:

Justice or peace? By André-Michel Essoungou Friday, April 20, 2007 KAMPALA, Uganda: Jan Egeland, the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, had difficulty believing what he heard when he spoke with refugees during a visit last September in northern Uganda. "We don't want the International Criminal Court. We want peace," the head of a camp of 25,000 displaced people told him. "But you want justice to be done?" Egeland asked. "Of course," replied the camp's leader, "but how will the trial of five people bring us back those we have lost? Will the court really bring peace, or fuel the war again?" The Lord's Resistance Army's rebellion is part of the oldest conflict in Africa, a conflict that has defied some 40 mediation attempts. In 2003, Uganda asked the international court to investigate rebel atrocities. The court has since accused five rebel commanders of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet, despite tens of thousands of deaths over the past 20 years, the court's presence in Uganda is controversial. There are some, including the victims, who feel that court prosecutions will hinder peace negotiations that began last July. Uganda is a test case for the international court, based at The Hague, but progress has been slow. Wherever it goes in Uganda, the court has encountered doubts and criticism. Although progress was reported at the peace talks in Juba, southern Sudan, last summer, a new controversy flared in October when Vincent Otti, second-in-command of the Lord's Resistance Army, announced that there could be no overall agreement unless the international court dropped the prosecutions. He added that the rebels would prefer to be tried by a Ugandan court, if there ever was a trial. The threat was well timed, for a peace agreement had never seemed so close. Kampala's response was divided. Arguing that peace must be the priority, some supporters of President Yoweri Museveni, along with aid organizations like Save the Children, called for the international court to withdraw. But the court has insisted on continuing its efforts. People on both sides of the conflict are trying to use the international court's presence to their advantage. By insisting on pursuing its prosecutions, the court is affirming its independence, but it has become a target for manipulation by both the government and the rebels, who hold it responsible for the breakdown in negotiations. We may well see a peace agreement in the next few weeks, in exchange for an official request to abandon the prosecutions. The request would be hard to refuse. If the court were to insist on pursuing the judicial process, it would run the risk of prolonging the conflict. Uganda is committed to cooperating with the court and any request to drop the prosecutions would be poorly regarded under international law. Nevertheless, UN organizations and the major powers would still turn a blind eye, given the political and humanitarian circumstances. The criminal court's own statute could offer Uganda the strategy it may need to defend its position. Unlike the international tribunals for former the Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the International Criminal Court can cede jurisdiction to the national judiciary of the states concerned. It cannot intervene if the state itself engages genuine criminal proceedings against an offender, although the criteria for what constitutes "genuine" have not been defined. The international court may only step in if a state fails to take action. Despite its founders' intentions, the court seems to be facing the same problems as its predecessors: In its desire to do justice, it will have to come to terms with the complexities of its political and diplomatic environment. Meanwhile, in the camps in northern Uganda, there are huge numbers of refugees who would find it hard to understand why they are being made to suffer for so long. André-Michel Essoungou is a journalist in Kampala. This article was translated by Robert Corner. This article was distributed by Agence Global.

source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04...on/edessoun.php

It's possible that this argument is too intellectual for PDD, but it brings up an interesting conundrum: in a conflict-ridden society, what is more important? Justice? Or Security? Reconciliation? Or Peace? Because as time goes on in Uganda, it is becoming increasingly clear that it will be impossible to have both.

___________________

Fascinating read:

quote:

Freedom and the Individual: Existentialist Crisis in Acholiland By Okello Lucima MAKING AUTHENTIC CHOICES IN TIME OF CRISIS. Sverker Finnstrom’s recent work on northern Uganda picks up and continues a particular theme of existential inquiries that echo Shakespeare, de Sade, Tolstoy, Proust, Kafka and Moravia. Living With Bad Surrounding re-states the nature of daily human and individual struggles to live under turbulent circumstances (Piny Marac) in northern Uganda. Read in broad existentialist terms, the Ugandan State and regime are absurd worlds, from which its citizens in the north have been alienated from themselves and estranged from the popular view of national normalcy. Trumpeted NRM/A revolution, liberation, peace and prosperity, contrast very sharply with their lived realities of violence, abduction, murder, rape, diseases and social dislocation. The fish-bowl existence in the concentration camps, characterised by rights abuses, sexual violence, suicide, prostitution, idleness, and a host of other social ills and diseases, is for many individuals and families, not unlike living on the edge of a precipice, from where there is no margin for the slightest error in judgment. Aware of their problems and conscious of their fate and palpable possibilities of violent death, whether in the hands of the LRA, UPDF, Boo Kec-gangsters spawned by the fluid security situation- people in Acholi, surprisingly still demonstrate determined, consuming passion for survival (Cing Pe Tum) In Living With Bad Surrounding: War and Existential Uncertainty in Acholiland, Northern Uganda, Finnstrom convincingly demonstrates that, despite the LRA violence, UPDF abuses and oppression from local Acholi government eyes, ears and mouthpieces (Kadi ibut ki maru ite pii, wang ma owinye), the majority of Acholi people have rejected the loss of the self, and time and again, confounded the NRM government and its overzealous agents, by maintaining independence and conscientious resistance against intimidation and blackmail. The study also shows that there are those who have opted for surrendering the self and joining the movement (Rwot Ineka), thereby evading the difficult personal responsibility of making choices that originate from within the self, rather than imposed by an institution that one merely has to conform to in an automated fashion. Erich Fromm in his Escape From Freedom, calls such surrender to forces and circumstances outside of the individual as “escape from freedom”, because those who do so, lose their individuality, identity, freedom to choose or make their own decisions, and with it also the loss of the self. This is why, any statement from NRM leaders in and from Acholi, contrast very sharply with the realities of the lives of their people who lead sub-human existences in the concentration camps. In his inquiry, Finnstrom is one with traditional existentialist philosophy in suggesting that, one cannot escape oneself; for at the end of the tentative peace one professes to enjoy, the individual inevitably must come face to face with the essence one tries so hard to disguise-our mortality. Imperatively, the actions one takes must be authentic, because there can be no space for deception, and protective veils of illusions inevitably become too transparent. The implication for us is that, various Ugandan social and political groups need to shed the illusions and deceptions they have lived by, and examine themselves and their motives realistically. The imperative is compelling, knowing we must come to terms with our past and history in order to chart a meaningful future. This necessity cannot be overstated, as exemplified by the passionate debate and the he-said-he-said that greeted serialisation in The Monitor, of Milton Obote’s autobiographical reminiscences on our post independence social and political history. As the exchanges showed, our nationhood has been fragmented and indelibly scarred by our violent history, and the deception and illusions we have lived by have forced nationalities, regions and ethnic groups to turn inwards in search of support and meaning, against an increasingly acrimonious, meaningless, disordered, dysfunctional and alienating nation-state. The inevitable dialectic opposition between the aims of the state and that of individual or community existence, often have not been resolved dialogically and accommodatingly with intent to achieving a constructive balance and often ended disastrously. The NRM efforts to establish a one party state, by force of arms and to fancifully construct and practise a whimsical conception and brand of democracy, are the hallmarks of totalitarian ideological bankruptcy, which served to exacerbate national disintegration and further ethnic nationalism, bigotry, deceptions and illusions. Under such democratic façade, limited degree of freedom of expression in the press is allowed, but the fundamental question of individual freedom to think, self-determine and decide as an individual with unique and independent interests, is gravely degraded. Consequently, people are forced to chorus what Yoweri Museveni and the NRM thinks or says in the name of a fictionalised people. Such authoritarian perception of politics and power excises from the public policy process, the individual as a conscious, rational and self-interested being with particular needs and aspirations, which collectively constitute public interest, needs and aspirations. At the practical level, movement politics seeks to mould every Ugandan in its image, using Ofwono Opondo or Betty Akech Okullu as a prototype; a robotic, automated, unthinking, rabid running dog that will chew its own tail for ideological orthodoxy. Their politics eschews any difference, social and ideological diversity in favour of a monoculture of thought and ideology. Their limited success east of the Nile and north of Kafu , partly explains why the greater northern Uganda remains unstable, deprived and marginal in national politics. Because from day one, the northerners, particularly in Bukedi, Teso, Lango, Acholi and West Nile, dared to be different; to hold onto their individuality and independence, and reserve the rights to determine and choose what is best for themselves and resist attempts to degrade their freedom to make personal and authentic decisions in existential circumstances. Finnstrom’s subjects lucidly validate the existential thesis that left alone, people are bound to resist loss of self and struggle to affirm that, even though they suffer the virulence of the same pestilence, they do so as individuals and their experiences and responses are unique. Their existentialist narratives demonstrate that, in northern Uganda, where life seems to lack any purpose, a person must reach deep within oneself or turn outwards to find meaning, reason and purpose of life outside the familiar props of nation-statehood and degraded cultural and traditional social capital. It further attests to the existential and nihilistic axiom that as conscious beings, we do not submit willingly to losing our freedom and independence, and that sometimes we need to come face to face with death in order to affirm our faith in the values we stand for. The spirit of individual resistance and humanism we discern in Finnstrom’s informants, draw parallels with the themes of revolt and resistance in Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Malraux, Shakespeare, Moravia, Pavese, Satre and Beckett. Disorientation and despair pervade Living With Bad Surrounding. In northern Uganda, subjectivity, rather than objectivity and reason, is of primacy. Finnstrom persuasively depicts a tradition, customs, culture and beliefs that have disintegrated or under tremendous stress, leaving the individual isolated, to make his own judgement and seek his own truths. The sense of alienation from the Ugandan polity; the feeling that the gods have abandoned Acholiland, is pervasive and confusing; not unlike Kierkegaard’s depiction of the despair and dilemma of man in a technological civilization, and the primacy of one’s consciousness and preoccupation with his existence in a hostile environment. Since the gods seems to have abandoned Acholiland, the Acholi in Living With Bad Surrounding seem to respond to Nietzche’s admonition to grow up and take responsibilities for themselves. In the same manner that Nietzche suggests that science and technology stifle human passion and alienate man from himself, Living With Bad Surrounding seems to intimate that the extreme violence of the insurgency, counter-insurgency and government control of thought and freedom in northern Uganda, represses social diversities, individual freedom and alienate many Acholi from both themselves and the Ugandan polity. In other words, both the LRA and the movement have robbed people of the freedom of will and freedom to self-determine good from evil, which is a god-given moral right, for which individuals alone must be responsible. Alienation in the northern concentration camps parallel that in Leo Toltoy’s Memoirs of a Lunatic and The Death of Ivan Ilych, as eloquent statements of the estrangement of the individual from himself, resulting from his forcible containment within a society that is unresponsive to his greatest needs and aspirations. As Eric Fromm remarks, a good society should afford its members or an individual, opportunity for the greatest happiness. Once that is possible, the individual can meet his social roles, responsibilities and fulfil the expectations of his society, while at the same time maximizing his own individual development and happiness. However, there is always apparent opposition between the purpose of existing society and that of the aims of the maximum individual progress. Therefore, a healthy society does not necessarily mean its individuals are healthy and happy. But in our case, the movement does not even recognise the individual but constructs a straw man called “people”, in whose name it has arrogated to itself the right to speak, completely disregarding the fact that we individually, community by community, are part of “ the people”, and we have particular needs, feelings and aspirations as well as moral principles and choices to make and be met. Therefore, we have the right as members of society, as people, to choose our issues, priorities and platforms, and who and how to articulate these demands. We are neither nameless nor abstract, nor are we as people are outside and alien to those speaking out in UPC, DP, CP, FDC, and other political and social groups. Indeed we are the people, and NRM ideologues that claim to speak for the people, must recognise their theoretical falsities and conceptual limitations and begin to deal with the needs and interest of the integral parts and percentage of the Ugandan People represented by and in the various political and social groups outside of the NRM /& O. The drama of our struggle for democratic rights and individual freedom is consonant with Leo Toltoy’s Lunatic’s struggle for individual happiness and reason, which in turn is met by a meaningless world, whose celebrated normalcy is in fact disorder, deceit, absurdity and meaninglessness. This is because, as Eric Fromm observes, the health of society is prescribed by social necessity, while that for the individual is dictated by personal morality that defines the meaning of life for a person. Consequently, sycophants who tailor their behaviour with the expectations of societal orthodoxy are treated favourably as normal citizens, but those who reject the status quo, such as opposition to the movement, are labelled and dismissed as misfits and not part of “the people”. Those who conform gain acceptance by giving up their individuality and self in order to display character traits that satisfy those they must please. However, the misfit, the rebel, rejects and resists giving up his self and individual freedom to think and act according to the personal and individual need of a happy and moral existence. In Living With Bad Surrounding and in Escape From Freedom, we learn that when social, communal, cultural and customary and traditional relationships are broken down, and one left on his own to make decision about his own existence, the individual is left isolated, alone and insecure. In attempt to overcome his loneliness and powerlessness, one of two options or mechanisms of escape are open to him: to either surrender or choose positive freedom. Positive freedom means independence from external control and domination; ability to express and exercise genuine emotion and personal thoughts. In contrast, one who surrenders loses individual freedom and self, as the price he must pay to bring his alienated self in harmony with the needs and expectations of the world external to himself. Eric Fromm observes that, since the adverse condition that force the choice of surrender persists, the individual who surrenders his freedom does not gain any genuine happiness and his actions henceforth is compulsive, externally driven and inauthentic. A clear example of this is the recent flap and flip-flop of the Vice President, Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, and the external forces to which he surrendered his freedom and individuality. Even as Vice President of the State of Uganda, he cannot in his own right as deputy head of state and as a moral individual, meet certain members of certain ethnic groups; regardless of the fact these persons or groups are either servants of the state or private individuals. These are also the problems and dilemmas afflicting the characters and behaviour of NRM ideologues in Acholi, eg. Betty Akech Okullu or Henry Oryem Okello, whose sycophancy and reliance on external command, but not the needs and aspirations of Acholi constituents, is rationalised as nationalism and responsibility to the country, when in fact it expresses the loss of their freedom and integrity and surrender to external needs and commands. Without the LRA insurgency and without the UPDF carte blanche in northern Uganda, where army commanders supersede elected officials, leaders such as Akech Okullu or Henry Oryem Okello, would be nowhere in the centre of the narratives of Acholi social and political history.

___________________

From the same author, this is a very good synopsis of where the talks currently stand in Northern Uganda.

quote:

Why Museveni is undermining a negotiated settlement Garamba Sideshow: Divide and Conquer Dead or alive, the fate of Vincent Otti, if Joseph Kony is to be believed, may well have been foreshadowed a year ago (LRA leader speaks out on deputy Otti, Monitor 8 Nov. 2007). It was reported then that the Ugandan government had focused its efforts at a parallel contact with the LRA fighters, rather than the official Juba Talks, as a preferred means to ending the conflict (Kony wants to talk to Museveni, Monitor, 23-29 July 2006). Such a strategy aimed to achieve one or more of the following objectives: to avoid addressing the root causes of the conflict; to isolate the LRA military leaders and fighters from its political leadership; and also to pre-empt the risk of issues raised at the Juba talks cohering with grievances and concerns over abuses in northern Uganda, which had sporadically been raised by civil society, political leaders, opposition parties, the media and rights groups. The sideshow in Garamba, led by Walter Ochora, Gulu RDC, also aimed to sow discord, mistrust and suspicions among LRA military leaders. These were to be achieved by all means of enticements including money, promises of presidential amnesty to induce high level and mass defections. Achieving one or a combination of these possible objectives was hoped to effectively pre-empt and scuttle a possible comprehensive settlement at the negotiating table. Coming as it did, the rumours of Vincent Otti’s death, or a possible fall-out between him and Joseph Kony, therefore, would have unfolded along a script authored by the UPDF High Command, and stage-managed by Walter Ochora and the 4th division hierarchy in northern Uganda. Accordingly, Lt. Chris Magezi’s denial to the BBC, of a possible UPDF plot to foment unrest within or portray the LRA as defeated and disintegrated force without organisation and unified command with whom negotiations was no longer necessary, is at best disingenuous, and crocodile tears at worst (Uganda rebel deputy feared dead, BBC online, Wed. 7 Nov. 2007). Undoubtedly, it is in the express interest of Yoweri Museveni for the LRA to surrender (Talks resume tomorrow, Monitor, 6 August 2006). At the beginning of the talks-any change to the contrary is doubtful-defence minister Chrispus Kiyonga insisted that despite the talks in Juba, the UPDF would still attack the LRA. And indeed they did attack, resulting in the killing of Raska Lukwiya, one of the indicted LRA commanders. It is no secret that, for Museveni and the government, the preferred means to force LRA capitulation is first through military pursuit, psychological warfare and subversive counter-intelligence (ICC wants rebel’s corpse, Monitor, 13 Aug. 2006). Part of the determination to achieve military victory, is not simply to end the insurgency, but what Onyango Obbo’s inside sources revealed as Museveni’s unyielding mission to defeat and explode the myth of northern tribal martial invincibility (Who wins if peace comes-Museveni or Kony? Monitor 31 Aug. 20-06). This view is supported by Olara Otunnu, who shows that the war has provided a perfect cover for Museveni to pursue inexplicable agendas other than defend the human rights of the citizens of northern and eastern Uganda (A Nation in Crisis, allAfrica.com, 19 Sept. 2006). The second tier of preferences is threats with the sticks of ICC arrests weighed on the opposite end by carrots of presidential pardon. As far as Museveni and the government are concerned, it would be best if the LRA were decisively defeated or if the ICC warrant and military pressure could force a surrender or popular disaffection, mass defection and collapse of the LRA as an insurgent force in order to avoid the difficult and unpredictable prospects of a trial by the ICC or a special court in Uganda. This, for Museveni, would also mark his crowning as the indomitable southern military leader who brought the so-called insuperable martial tribes of the upper Nile to their knees. This sham goal matters to Museveni more than anything else he has ever accomplished in his career. Defeating and punishing northerners, for obscure reasons best known to Museveni, was the obsession that took him to Luwero in 1981. It will do anything to achieve something of a military victory. Therefore, suspicions that the UPDF has been investing heavily in convert activities to undermine LRA leadership and command, or cause rifts among senior LRA commanders for the insurgent organisation to implode, are not without merits (LRA leader speaks on deputy Otti, New Vision, 8 Nov. 2007). History punishes those who do not learn its lessons We will recall that, at the beginning of the Juba talks in 2006, Uganda tried and failed to alienate the LRA military leaders from their civilian delegation to the talks. A strategy of dividing and isolating insurgent fighters from their political leadership is not new. In 1988, the Museveni government did just that, in its negotiations with the UPDM/A (Reaching the 1988 Pece Agreement, Accord, No.11, 2002). Then UPDA insurgent forces were predominantly semi-literate and politically and socially unconscious, and without significant capacity to raise fundamental issues greater than their self-interests:limited concerns for their welfare and privileges. To such men, Museveni could posture with false empathy that the UPDM political leadership in exile was a breed of discredited politicians who messed up the country and were ensconced in foreign capitals sipping whiskey, while the fighters were suffering in the bushes. Essentially, the argument sought to exploit a supposed brotherhood between the NRA and UPDA fighters as soldiers first and foremost, and therefore, comrades- in -arms. The attractive yet deceptive logic it appealed to was that, as comrades, the NRA had no fundamental problems with the UPDA fighters, but the politicians who misled them; first to war in Luwero, and later hoodwinked them into rebellion after Museveni defeated them and seized power. Museveni feared to negotiate with the UPDM/A as a unified military and political organisation in 1988 for two principle reasons. First, he did not want to address the root causes of the rebellion and it was best if he avoided equally seasoned UPDM/A political leadership. Second, he did not know how to deal with the questions of trust and credibility arising from his unilateral abrogation of the 1985 Nairobi peace agreement and framework for national reconciliation and unity that had offered Uganda the best hope for peace and stability. After cheaply disposing of the fighters, it was no surprise that two years later in 1990, Museveni sought and concluded the Addis Ababa agreement with the political wing of the UPDM/A. At this time, the fighters were already demobilised. Some of its more politically conscious leaders, including but not limited to Kilama, Obote, and Ochero, were executed, imprisoned or forced to flee. In the end, UPDM/A political leadership had no strength to put up demands it could not back up with a fighting force strong enough to impose its will or engage in a contest of wills in case of NRM/A intransigence. As a result, UPDM leadership in exile had no choice but to capitulate and accept offers of personal gratification and privileges on Museni’s terms. In retrospect, it should be clear to those who should have learned from the histories of peace processes with Museveni that it is not for nothing that he would rather talk to the functionally illiterate former abducted children in Garamba. In addition, his initial criticisms and casting of the LRA delegation in Juba as non-authentic, aimed to remove a more enlightened group of players from the scene. This would have left him with people he could easily manipulate and dispose of without conceding anything he did not want to give. It did not matter to him that the team in Juba were appointed by Kony and mandated to speak for the LRM/A. However, our curiosity should be aroused at the new LRA Juba delegation that were disparaged by the Uganda government a year ago, but as late as this week, being embraced in Kampala, to do business with Museveni. This begs the question: Do they still represent the LRA and Kony? Sensing the need to answer that question, the permanent secretary, ministry of internal affairs, Dr. Stephen Kagoda, had to assuage the nation that the delegation was legit, to allay public scepticisms about plenipotentiary standing of the LRA delegation in representing Kony or the LRM/A (Kony backed Ojul, New Vision, 12 Nov. 2007). Public worries had been aroused by the rumours of Vincent Otti’s death. And we should all be worried over these inexplicable rumours and unexpected camaraderie that include bear hug embraces; when barely over a year ago, handshakes were taboo. Every Man has his price We should wonder what the nature of the business is that should have belatedly endeared the much maligned Juba delegation of the LRA to the Kampala regime. In our considered view, intrigue cannot be too far down the list. Intrigues and divide and rule tactics have worked well for Museveni over the years. It is possible that, after failing to create a rift between LRA military leaders and the peace delegation in Juba, in order to create opportunity of talking to semi-literate men as they did in 1988, the government set about to maximise potential for covert activities to set the LRA military hierarchy against each other. This strategy must have become a priority after the Juba talks took on a life of its own, and acquired a higher profile with the appointment of Joachim Chissano as UN Secretary General’s Envoy to the region and the talks. Coupled with the unexpected plenipotentiary suave and political astuteness of the LRA delegation, the government of Uganda lost control of the Juba talks agenda and process and needed to scramble a strategy and agenda it could control that could still undermine a possible comprehensive settlement reached by negotiations and a peace treaty in Juba. The motivation for this is that any settlement that leaves room for a trial of any kind, other than mato oput or Acholi traditional justice system, risks opening cans of worms that the Uganda government would rather avoid, if it could. It is therefore reasonable to ask: Have the people who are supposed to read the fine prints for the LRA military leadership and cut a good deal for Kony & Co., not been compromised to shove just anything under his nose for trinkets? Given the circumstances, such a question is not idle. Two critical events raised the stakes and forced active pursuit of option B. First, the Uganda government was taken off-guard by the LRA Juba delegation; virtually upstaged at the opening session of the talks. The LRA/M Juba delegation exploded on the scene as more sophisticated; politically conscious; articulate; world -wise; underestimated and capable of raising credible issues of the causes of the war and its impact on Acholi and other northern and eastern Ugandan communities (LRA opening address at the Juba Talks, 15 July 2006; LRA position papers on Accountability and Reconciliation, 20 June 2007; Peace talks need focus, New Vision, 26 June 2007; Will geographical north rally around political LRA? Monitor, 31 Aug 2006). In addition, goings-on in Juba had revealed that among the delegation, there were young and old alike; men and women who were ambitious and whose lifestyles and personal needs fortified the axiom that every man has his price. Second, the Ugandan delegation and government could not countermand the plausibility of the LRM/A delegation position, and chose the only defence that had often worked for them-to character assassinate and discredit its critics. For instance, in a lengthy guest column on allAfrica.com, Museveni attacked Olara Otunu as a supporter of former murderous regimes (Our People Embrace Peace, allAfrica.com, 19 Sept. 2006). This was in response to Otunnu's insistent campaign to draw national and international attention to the northern Uganda genocide, co-authored by Yoweri Museveni and Joseph Kony. Similarly, the LRA delegates in Juba mounted a strong contest to Uganda governmnet view that the LRA was the sole perpetrator of atrocities in northern Uganda. In response, the Uganda delegation and Museveni sought to question their credibility, authenticity and authority of non-combatant diaspora-based LRA spokespersons to speaking on behalf of the fighters in Garamba. LRA. Revealingly, the problem of the Uganda government did not seem limited to who was raising theses issues or that they were being raised at all. The regime was worried that it should be raised in a manner that echoes and integrates the concerns of the civil population in eastern and northern Uganda, the opposition parties, and rights groups with that of the rebel fighters. But the government opposition to and strategy to discredit the LRA delegates collapsed in the face of strong Kony and Otti backing of their team in Juba, even allowing them to shuttle between Garamba and Juba for consultations. It seemed that things were not going Museveni's way, even after he flew with a full military squadron to Juba to intimidate the delegates. The Uganda government was therefore scared and desperate to re-assert itself. Museveni was determined to undermine the talks and achieve LRA surrender under UPDF peace terms. And it was obvious that divide and conquer tactics would be used, among other things. Isolating one group from or setting one against the other has always been Museveni's grand political strategy, particularly in northern Uganda. For instance, Uganda is nominally operating under a parliamentary dispensation. One would think that parliament, incorporating government and opposition parties would be involved in a high national profile issue like peace talks to end insurgency that has devastated more than 27% of the country. That the opposition is not represented in Juba is no accident. The opposition has been raising the same issues of governance and human rights that the LRA delegation raised in Juba. Furthermore, the community and political leaders from eastern and northern Uganda have not been given a place at the Juba Talks as legitimate stakeholders and primary parties to the process and terms of agreements that arise from it. Instead, they are relegated to the sidelines as mere observers, not expected to present any grievances, articulate the urgent need for a just peace, or influence the outcome to include mechanisms that would ensure the kind of peace they want. In the NRM’s grand scheme of things, religious leaders, traditional leaders, district council political leaders and representatives of parliamentary groups from eastern and northern Uganda, must be kept at bay. It is necessary that they are not substantively involved, lest their respective knowledge and memory of the war, its causes, as well as their demands for its end, correspond with and reinforce some of the issues the LRA raised. It is feared that a possible confluence of demands, and a meeting of minds and hearts between opposition politicians and insurgents, would constitute an unacceptable and unsettling unity of northern and north-eastern grand political spectre and possibilities (Will geographical north rally around political LRA? Monitor 31 Aug. 2006). No one, including the government, has any illusion about the truth behind most, if not all of the issues the LRA raised at the Juba Talks regarding the history of the war and its origins; the brutal methods of counterinsurgency; forced movement of people into camps; shared culpability for abuses and atrocities committed; and the need for reparation and reconstruction of the region. As far as Museveni is concerned, a peace talk on the Juba framework is unacceptable, because its agenda must necessarily address the root causes of the conflict, which inevitably must highlight abuses and atrocities on both sides. But talking with the LRA directly, and without a mediator, would cut out pertinent accountability for war crimes and rights abuses as well as political and governance reforms questions. Consequently, this would then give Museveni and the LRA the opportunity to address only the basic needs and personal privileges and gratifications of the rank and file of the fighters with incentive for money, houses, ranks in the UPDF and amnesty from criminal prosecutions. Under such disguised surrender terms, Museveni and the UPDF are shielded from exposure and accounting for their own counter-insurgency strategies that harmed more than vindicated human rights of non-combatants in eastern and northern Uganda. This is precisely why mato oput or traditional justice is more acceptable to Museveni, not because he has recently had a revelation of and conversion to a newer and conciliatory self; but rather, he dreads the double-edged sword of the ICC that could cut both ways in an adversarial trial, testimony and cross examination of evidence and witnesses. Juba remains the best hope for a semblance of a just peace On balance, the prospect of a Museveni-Kony deal outside of the Juba Talks does not bode well for long term peace and stability for Uganda and particularly the eastern and northern communities. First, the need for peace, the conditions and mechanisms necessary for a comprehensive settlement and durable peace will have not been addressed at all. In other words, the plight and needs of the people in concentration camps at the centre of the Juba Talks will have been displaced by the needs of the LRA fighters and Museveni’s self-interested calculations as the impetus for ending the conflict. Second, the LRA fighters would be reintegrated into these societies and many others absorbed into the UPDF and deployed in eastern and northern Uganda. Such a course would forever make demobilised LRA combatants grateful and beholden to Museveni personally, and only too eager and willing to do his biddings. Fears for such prospects are not borne out of unfounded cynicisms but concrete experiences. Witness the pro-Museveni overzealousness of former UPDM/A commanders such as Col. Walter Ochora and Col. Otema Awany; the exploits of Maj. Okot Wiilit and Maj. Fearless Obwoya; and the activities of former LRA honchos Brig. Kenneth Banaya, Brig. Sam Kolo, Maj. Ray Apire, and Col. Onen Kamdulu, to mention but a few. It did not bother anyone in Uganda, and internationally, that this latter group returned from the bushes and kept as wives, girls they abducted, raped and used as sex slaves. Furthermore, a person like Brig. Banya, Brig. Kolo, and Maj. Apire are the original LRA. As officers and commanders, they should be more responsible for alleged abduction, extrajudicial execution and destruction in northern Uganda. But since their return and willingness to serve Museveni's whims, they are shielded and the ICC not bothered about them. This is despite the fact that while these three were not abducted but are former soldiers and adults who joined the LRA willingly, the other commanders such as Raska Lukwiya and Dominic Ongwen, who have been indicted by the ICC, were abducted as children and trained by the Banyas and Kolos in the trade they now stand accused of. For those interested in a negotiated settlement and a just peace through the success of the Juba Talks, there is need to understand the objective history of the war (Accord, No. 11, 2002) and not let the methods of the LRM/A insurgency and its alleged brutalities dim our own memory of the war or cloud our judgements on how best durable peace can be achieved. No doubt, there are enough evidence of atrocities on both sides to warrant summary, public executions of the highest ranking leaders and their generals on both sides. But what is needed now is a mechanism to bring the war and the suffering of the eastern and northern population to an end. This implies that, the Juba Talks, rather than some sideshow in Garamba, is the best framework and prospects for comprehensive ceasefire and the road to peace. Culpability for atrocities should be left to the next stage of the process, which must necessarily envisage addressing the inadequacy of the ICC indictments, and the preference for a UN Special Tribunal for Northern Uganda, to investigate and try all perpetrators guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the entire history of the war from 1986. As a meaningful way forward, and for a sustainable peace afterwards, the Juba Talks must also suppose the setting up of a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Anything short of an honest, just and equitable peace and settlement, will only act as a temporary band aid measure that is bound to rapture with irreparable consequences. There should be no shortcuts. And in keeping with our moral quest for a just and equitable peace, we must avoid falling prey to making a moral distinction between atrocities committed by non-state parties and that perpetrated by the state. Neither public tears of remorse nor wrapping oneself in the national flag should obstruct our perception and even-handed judgment of criminal acts and responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in northern Uganda.

The Ugandan government announced the mandatory closing of all IDP camps by the end of the year... which means that in the next month or so over 1 million people are returning to their homes with no viable economy intact and peace talks in a very fragile state.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by Magnetonium If there's one conflict that I haven't followed, its this Ugandan one, I feel very ashamed. Truly an important one, but the oil trail doesnt lead there. I'm reading the article ...

The oil trail does lead to the LRA but a bit indirectly.

The region that the LRA operates in is the North of Uganda and the south of Sudan. The south of Sudan has oil and is only barely holding on to a peace treaty with the central government. Recently the Economist reported (don't have a link sorry) that the tensions are mounting again.

Esentially it wouldn't take much to see Sudan erupt into an even more complicated mess and the LRA is right in the middle of it.

quote:

Originally posted by atbell Esentially it wouldn't take much to see Sudan erupt into an even more complicated mess and the LRA is right in the middle of it.

It's a very good point to talk about the regional implications. Uganda may not have any oil itself, but the conflict has destabilized parts of Southern Sudan as you mention, which does have fairly significant untapped reserves. Also, the LRA has been hiding out increasingly in the DRC, which has substantial deposits of diamonds, uranium, and other important metals and minerals. And right now destabilization is happening in all three places simultaneously.

The Ugandan government had its hand in the proverbial honeypot in the DRC once before, and there's really nothing to suggest that if the DRC continues to destabilize back into conflict in North Kivu, that Uganda would not seize the opportunity to chase the LRA and plunder mineral resources for profit, as they did in 1998.

And with the CPA peace agreement in Sudan on the verge of collapse, the threat of an inter-regional war is fairly significant, which would make Africa's first world war look small by comparison. Not to mention that Uganda's other neighbor, Ethiopia, is on the cusp of a two-front war against Islamic fundamentalism in Somalia and Eritrea. It's relatively quiet now, but I think Central Africa is headed for a world of trouble in the next 18 months.


EDIT: You're also seeing rebel fighters from Darfur getting pushed out of Sudan by the Janjaweed, expelled from Chad as enemy combatants, and then working their way south from Niger to join up with militias opposing the military junta in the Central African Republic, as well as militias such as the LRA that are in hiding in the DRC, before working their way back up to enter South Sudan and rejoin that struggle.

You could realistically see 7-8 governments and 10-12 rebel groups joined up in one massive conflict across the Sahel in the near future.

___________________

I completely agree that Central Africa isn't looking good, but what amazes me most is the thought that it could get WORSE