Okello Lucima
Protracted Conflict, Elusive Peace : Initiatives to End the Violence in Northern Uganda
(London: Conciliation Resources, 2002, 100pp.).

As Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative on children in armed conflict of the UN Secretary-General, has written "At the heart of this growing phenomenon of mass violence and social disintegration is a crisis of values.  Perhaps the most fundamental loss  a society can suffer is the collapse of its own value system.  Many societies exposed to protracted conflicts have seen their community values radically undermined if not shattered altogether.  This has given rise to an 'ethical vacuum,' a setting in which international standards are ignored with impunity and where local value systems have lost their way.

"Children represent the future of human civilization and the future of every society.  To permit them to be used as pawns in warfare, whether as targets or perpetrators, is to cast a shadow on the future.  From generation to generation, violence begets violence, as the abused grow up to become abusers.  Children who are thus violated carry the scars of fear and hatred in their hearts and minds.  Forced to learn to kill instead of pursuing education, the children of conflict lack the knowledge and skills needed to build their futures and the futures of their communities.  For a society, the lives destroyed and the opportunities lost could have a devastating effect on its long-term stability and development."

In the related civil wars of Liberia and Sierra Leone, children and young men and women were widely used.  It is estimated that 50 percent of Sierra Leone's fighters were under 18.  These young people were good in the use of ambush -  a common tactic.  There are many reports of the use of marijuana, amphetamines, crack cocaine and local substances which made the young fighters ferocious.

Many of the girls abducted by rebel and pro-government forces were frontline fighters, spies and commanders.  Some managed camps and planned raids; others were cooks, medics and diamond looters.  They were an essential labor pool; the armies could not have functioned without them.

One of the most difficult conflicts to resolve in which there are a very large number of child soldiers  is in northern Uganda where there is an 18-year long conflict between 'the Lord's Resistance Army' - a charismatic movement drawn largely from the Acholi people and the government forces.  This conflict, however, needs to be seen against the background of conflicts which began with the birth of post-colonial Uganda. 

Uganda has been a country of violence and political conflict at least since its independence in 1962.  First, it was the scene of a political conflict between the Prime Minister Milton Obote, leader of the pre-independence Uganda People's Congress and the President, who was also the King of the Buganda people, Kabaka Mutesa II.  By 1967, the Kabaka was forced into exile, and the country became a republic.  In 1971, the chief of the army, Idi Amin Dada took power in a bloody coup and began eight years of misrule which destroyed the economy by expelling the Asians, destroying the educational system, and executing people accused of plotting against his government.

In 1979, Tanzanian troops and Uganda exiles forced Amin Dada into exile.  From 1979 to 1986, there was a struggle for power among armed groups and which left many dead and the economy in an ever-deeper hole.  In 1986, Yoweri Museveni, a leader of one of the armed factions, won out and became President - a post which he still holds today.  His final term of office is set to expire in 2006.  Since 1986, there has been calm in the south of the country which is the economic heartland.  Thus, there has been a relative upturn of the economy.

Ogenga Otunnu sums up well this troubled history in an introductory chapter. "Contemporary violent conflicts in the country are directly related to the profound crisis in legitimacy of the state, its institutions and their political incumbents.  This crisis, in part, reflects the way the state was constructed through European expansionist violence, manipulation of pre-existing differences, administrative policies of divide and rule and economic policies that further fractured the colonial entity.  These policies did not only undermine the faltering legitimacy of the state, but also impeded the emergence of a Uganda nationalism and generated ethnic, religious and regional divisions that were to contribute in later years to instability and political violence."

However, in 1986, as Yoweri Museveni was consolidating his control in the south, in the north inhabited in large part by Acholi people, fighting continued and is still going on.  Otunnu continues "The war has lasted for nearly sixteen years because of a number of interrelated factors.  To begin with, the war in Acholi has become an extension of regional and international power struggles.  On the regional front, Uganda provided military hardware and sanctuary to the SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army - the southern Sudan armed movement against the northern Sudanese-dominated government).  In retaliation, the Sudan government provided sanctuary and military hardware to the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army).  On the international front, both the Uganda government and the SPLA received military and political support from the US, in part to curtail the influence of the Islamic government in Khartoum.  Another factor perpetuating the conflict has been that the war has become a lucrative source and cover for clandestine income for high-ranking military and government officials and other profiteers.  In addition, the unwillingness of the government and the LRA to genuinely pursue a negotiated settlement has sustained the war.  Lastly, atrocities committed by the LRA against unarmed civilians and the unwillingness of the rebel group to accept alternative political views on the conflict have prolonged the war…The war has also destabilized other parts of the country and contributed to other regional conflicts in the Great Lakes.  The multi-faceted and interrelated causes and consequences of the war should not, therefore, be seen as exclusively an Acholi issue.  Nor should the war be treated as merely a humanitarian crisis.  It has many dimensions: political, social, economic and humanitarian.  As such, durable solutions will need to respond to all of these challenges."

The bulk of the study concerns efforts to reach a ceasefire and then a more permanent settlement between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army, and at the same time to eliminate Sudanese-Ugandan tensions.  Peace efforts are made all the more difficult as the conflict is not only geographic and tribal but is made more complex by the north's religious-charismatic leadership of the armed groups.  In 1986, the Holy Spirit Mobile Force is created around Alice Auma Lakwena, a woman healer who combined Christian, Pentecostal elements, especially the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit with more traditional African beliefs in charms that can prevent being wounded.  In November 1987, Alice Lakwena left Uganda for Kenya, but the movement reformed itself under a cousin of Lakwena, Joseph Kony, and is renamed the Lord's Resistance Army.  Kony also believes that he is in direct contact with the Holy Spirit and considers himself as a medium - "God can confirm that I am an embodiment and the personification of the Holy Spirit."  He also couples Christian aspects with African traditions.  As the insurgency is "God-guided", it is difficult to find compromises on the human level.

One of the most interesting chapters by Billie O'Kadameri "LRA/Government negotiations 1993-94" concerns back channel negotiations carried on by a woman confidante of Museveni, Betty Bigombe, who was given the status of Minister of State but whose role was to try and contact Kony and see the possibility of a ceasefire.  Many, both among the military and among the Acholi, remained sceptical about the effort, and some of the higher military did all they could to have the contacts fail.  There were meetings with tribal elders and with religious leaders; prayers and rituals were carried out as confidence-building measures.  While these efforts came to no visible results, the chapter is a good description of African negotiations at a grassroots level, with the mixture of material demands and the intervention of spirits.

As of January 2005, there has been a peace agreement signed between the government of Sudan and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army.  While this agreement is fragile, hopefully, it will end the impact of Sudan's civil war in Uganda.  Thus, there is a door open for a settlement in Uganda and the start of a long process of post -conflict re-building and healing of the youth combatants.

René Wadlow