Category: Africa (vintage)

I have noted with great interest that, in his hosting and mediation of the peace talks for northern Uganda, the vice-president of Souther Sudan, Dr. Riek Machar, has been assisted by a practiced international mediator from Ethiopia called Hizkias Assefa.
When I was teaching at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute of Eastern Mennonite University last year, Dr. Assefa was also on the faculty there. (Though we were all so busy I didn’t get to spend much time with him at all.)
Anyway, I see that the website there at EMU has a little news item with some excerpts from emails Assefa has been sending to colleagues there. Including this, from late August:

“At this point my energy level has hit rock bottom,” Assefa said. “We had to work at times until 3 a.m. when we were drafting the latest agreement for signature. Although many of us feel it is time for a break, others feel that the momentum that is building in the peace process cannot be allowed to dissipate by taking a break, and we must push on.
“Some political mediations in large scale conflict have come to successful completion with peace agreements that have held,” he said. “One of the big challenges of this process is how the changes that come with the peace process get internalized in the society.

Meanwhile, I’ve just been checking the Kampala Daily Monitor website. They have a couple of interesting items related to the peace effort. One is this one, which is an account/transcript of a radio (or t.v.?) broadcast in which LRA vice-head Vincent Otti participated over a sat-phone. He was in a place called Ri-Kwangba, apparently in one of the two “assembly areas” in which the LRA fighters are supposed to be congregating under the terms of the recent ceasefire agreement.
Otti gives some useful background there about how the LRA earlier this year made the decision to get into the negotiations. He also says that he and LRA chief Joseph Kony will not “come out of the bush” until after the ICC has revoked its indictments against those two and two other LRA leaders. (The fifth indictee having recently been killed.)
Fascinating reading there, altogether, including the discussions among the other participants in the show. (More tomorrow.)
And in this other article, we learn this:

THE International Criminal Court will not act on “speculation” to revoke the indictments against the top leadership of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, a spokesman for the Hague-based tribunal said yesterday.

My goodness.
All power to the peacemakers. May their strength hold up.
The budget of the ICC for 2005 was, I believe, some $90 million. Wouldn’t it be great if, instead of going to international lawyers’ salaries and sleek office complexes in The Hague, that sum had been invested in peacebuilding? Wouldn’t it be great if Dr. Assefa and those like him who labor in the vineyards of peacemaking had assured salaries that were as high as those assured to lawyers at the ICC?
Dream on, Helena.

.. and Mozambique, and South Africa, and Rwanda, and …
(By the way, I’ve just put up a long new post about Uganda over at the Transitional Justice Forum blog. It presents more of the material from my trips last month to The Hague and Uganda, which I have been writing up these past few days… Including, more material from my interview with ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and more material from the short focus-group discussion I conducted in an IDP camp near Gulu.)
Anyway, back to why I like writing about Africa:

1. The developments in the African countries I’ve studied are extremely important in their own right– both for the large numbers of people who live in them, and for the political evolution of the world system as a whole.
2. Because studying these situations closely gives a useful comparative perspective to what happens elsewhere in the world, including in the Middle East. Want to know what the likely effects of trying Saddam Hussein will be on building a new political order while the inter-group conflicts within Iraq are still so deeply unresolved? Look at Rwanda! Want to know how to build a new, inclusive and democratic political order where previously there has been a dictatorial system of minority rule? Look at South Africa! And so on…
3. Because studying the truly devastating effects of European colonialism on the peoples of Africa can help us all understand other colonialist ventures much better– including the still-ongoing ones in the Middle East.
4. Because studying Africa helps to put the effects of colonialism and conflict in the Middle East into a different perspective. The harms being borne by the peoples of many of the conflict-torn nations in Central and West Africa are just as devastating as, if not worse than, the harms borne by any nation in the Middle East… and that includes, Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon. But where is the active global concern for the peoples of Africa? Where is the coverage of the MSM for what these survivors of colonialism are still forced to go through? I like to do what I can, however little, to keep these issues in people’s minds.
5. Because I have personally found many sources of real uplift and inspiration in Africa. In the countries I’ve worked in in Africa I’ve met scores of wise, creative, hardy people– many or most of them, I should add, also people of great spiritual strength. This is even true in Rwanda, though the general political situation there remains fairly stark. When events in the Middle East or the US or in other arenas of world affairs become too depressing, I nearly always find that reflecting on my experiences and the people I’ve encountered in Africa helps me regain my balance…

Anyway, head over to TJF if you can and read what I’ve been writing there. Post your comments there, not here.

I just heard from a friend in Europe that the Ugandan government and the LRA have agreed to a ceasefire in their long-running armed conflict in northern Uganda.
Thus far, the government had been refusing to commit to a ceasefire, perhpas hoping to be able to impose even greater military pressure on the LRA. The leaders and most of the remaining fighters of the LRA have been holed up in the bush on the South Sudan-DRC border, but last week one LRA leader ventured into Uganda, was caught in a firefight with the army there, and was reportedly killed.
Anyway, I just checked with the Kampala Daily Monitor, and they confirm the story. Writing with a ‘mixed’ dateline from Juba in S. Sudan (where the LRA-government peace talks have been going on), in the north Ugandan capital of Gulu, and the national capital Kampala, a team of DM reporters writes:

JUBA was gripped with excitement last night when word came through that the government in Kampala has finally agreed to a cessation of hostilities with the LRA rebels.
Sources inside the talks said the LRA delegation was pleased when the contents of an e-mail from President Yoweri Museveni to his South Sudan counterpart Riek Machar were communicated to them last evening.
“They found that the new conditions from the President were not so stringent and agreed unanimously,” said a government delegate. “We therefore expect to announce a bilateral ceasefire simultaneously in Juba and Kampala tomorrow (Friday) at 10.00 am.
Meanwhile the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels have demanded more cabinet portfolios for the northern and eastern regions…

If this ceasefire takes hold and the peace process then accelerates towards a sustainable peace agreement, that will be fantastic news for the peoples of northern Uganda, some 85 percent of whom have spent many years now confined by law in encampments described variously as “IDP camps” or “strategic hamlets”.
Anyway, it looks as though the LRA– which has committed some terrible atrocities against (especially) the people of northern Uganda– is now looking to discuss the political dimesntions of a peace settlement. Civilian leaders of the Acholi community there have, of course, been seeking politically inclusive reform measures for a long time now.
Please, let’s all hope and pray that this works out.
… Interestingly, if it does do so, this will also give a significant political boost to Dr. Riek Machar, the President of Southern Sudan who has convened and hosted the talks, and this in turn could lead to a new model of state and sub-state politics emerging in this part of Central Africa. Not altogether a bad possibility, given that the existing “international” borders there are all nearly completely dysfunctional, having been drawn up by European potentates in 1885 to satisfy their own balance-of-power and imperial interests, rather than the needs of the indigenous African communities concerned…
But that’s for the future. For now, remembering my recent visit to some people in the Inyama IDP camp and to others affected badly by the conflict in Gulu and Kampala, I’m just focusing on hoping that an intra-Ugandan peace agreement can be concluded. And quickly. (I think the farmers in the Inyama camp have already missed out on the current growing season in their lands– which surround and in many cases are easily visible from the sordid huts within the camp.)

Here‘s the second of my two columns in the CSM this month on the competition between the claims of peace and justice in northern Uganda.
The money quote there– from the (ethnic-Acholi) leader of the parliamentary opposition, Morris Ogenaga-Latigo– is:

Should we sacrifice our peacemaking process here so they can test and develop their criminal-justice procedures there at the ICC? Punishment has to be quite secondary to the goal of resolving this conflict.

Ah, I see from this August 24 story in the Daily Monitor, which is Kampala’s best independent newspaper, that Chairperson Norbert Mao– whom I interviewed when I was in Gulu last month and who is quoted in both my CSM columns on Uganda– has now been “cleared” by President Museveni to go and take part with other “community leaders” in the peace talks in Juba. That seems to me like good news. Mao is a very wise and far-thinking guy.
That report, by Samuel O. Egadu and Emmanuel Gyezaho, tells us that Museveni and Mao talked on the phone for two hours Sunday evening. Mao then led a 15-person team that met with Museveni in Kampala:

The group that met Museveni yesterday afternoon included MPs and stakeholders who visited Kony in Garamba Forest in the DR Congo and flew back from Juba on Tuesday.
Mao, who led the 15-member team, to meet Mr Museveni, said the community leaders would explain in detail the benefits of their participation at the talks in bridging the gap between Kampala and the LRA.
Mao said, Museveni accused the local Acholi leaders of having a blind spot for the atrocities committed by the LRA. But Mao said he vehemently denied the President’s allegations. “Our role is to ensure that there is reconciliation and accountability and there should be no condoning. I assured Museveni that as long ago as 1997, we stated that we are totally opposed to these atrocities,” he said.
It also emerged yesterday that Mr Museveni is expected in London this weekend, to attend a forum on the ongoing peace talks. Mao along with Security Minister, Mr Amama Mbabazi, are also expected to address the forum.

Interesting. Wish I could be there.

I’ve been in Gulu for around 28 hours now– and I’ve learned so much in
this time that my head almost aches! I had one piece of  great
luck shortly before leaving Kampala for here– I got an indirect
introduction to a talented younger broadcaster here called Arthur
Owor.  Arthur is also a lecturer in development studies, peace
studies, and gender studies at Gulu University.  Luckily the
university is on break; and unluckily, the government a few weeks ago
closed down the radio station– Choice FM– on which Arthur had been
doing a regular discussion and call-in show.  So he agreed to help
me set up some interviews, etc, in a way that would maximize the
effectiveness of my (admittedly short) time here.

(My other colleague, Corky Bryant, stayed in Kampala because of her
recent ankle injury.)

My most newsworthy interview was the one I conducted this afternoon
(Thursday) with the Hon.
Norbert Mao, the recently elected chairperson of the Gulu
District Council.  Prior to taking up his present, very important
post, Mao was in the national parliament for ten years.  During
the present peace process between the Government of Uganda and the
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Mao has played a crucial role in helping
to form and lead the “civil society component” of the peace
process.  For example, he told me that over the past few days he
has been receiving a phone call every day from LRA No.2 Vincent Otti,
in the course of which the two of them finalize the list of names of
people in the big civil-society delegation that is planning to go to a
remote location on the Sudan-DRC border early next week to go and
actually meet with Otti, LRA leader Joseph Kony, and the rest of the
LRA leadership there, in person.

The Gulu District Reconciliation and Peace Team, which Mao heads, is
organizing the whole of this civil society delegation.  This
delegation is a follow-up to the smaller group of northern Ugandans–
including many of Kony’s family members– who have been traveling
(slowly) to meet Kony and his group at the Sudan-DRC border area over
the past couple of days.

Did I mention that Kony, Otti, and three of their colleagues are the
five Ugandans against whom the ICC has issued indictments and arrest
warrants?

I’ll put more of Mao’s views on the viability of and expectations for
the current peace process later on here.  Bottom line: He told me
“The time is ripe for peace.”

In addition to seeing him this afternoon, since coming here I’ve
visited an IDP camp, Unyama,
and with Arthur Owor’s help held a group discussion with ten camp
leaders and camp residentsm and conducted interviews with five other
community leaders and activists in Gulu town, including Andrew Olweny, the head of
the NGO Forum, James Otto,
the head of Human Rights Focus, the Anglican Bishop of Northern Uganda,
and the Speaker of the Gulu District Council.  (I also took my
first-ever ride on a boda-boda
motorbike-taxi, to Corky’s horror when I told her about it on the
phone… However, the traffic here isn’t nearly as scary as the traffic
through which the boda-bodas
weave their way back there in Kampala.)

—————-

Here’s the interview with Chairperson Norbert Mao:

Continue reading “Notes from Uganda– Gulu”

Yesterday (Monday) we had a good, productive day.  Did I mention
earlier that my traveling/work companion here, Corky Bryant, sprained
her ankle last Wednesday?  It has slowed her down a lot, but it
has still been great being with her here.

In the morning, I was able to do a good, fairly long interview with Morris W. Ogenga-Latigo, 
the leader of the parliamentary opposition.  In the afternoon,
Corky and I were able to interview people at the national Amnesty Commission (founded
in 2001, and still very active) and the World Food Program. 
Both of these meetings were also very interesting.

Ogenga-Latigo is a leading member of the Forum for Demoicratic Change
(FDC), whose leader, Dr. Kizza Besigye was defeated by Pres. Museveni
in last February’s elections and has been the subject of some fairly
evidently politically motivated criminal charges (including treason
charges) by the state.

This year’s election was the first in which parties other than
Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) were allowed to run, and
the FDC put ina fairly good showing. Under some pressure from western
donor governments, Museveni allowed Besigye to run despite the charges
that were still outstanding against him.  (The two men have a long
history of political entanglement, much of it very cordial.) 

I am still trying to figure out the particular quality of Ugandan
politics.  The country is very evidently not the same kind of
brutal dictatorship that it was in Idi Amin’s time. The moves Museveni
has made toward political pluralism seem good, in general, though there
have been clear limits on such moves.  In addition, there are a
number of continuing concerns about his human-rights record– the
greatest of which would have to be in his use and running of the whole
system of IDP camps. (See the previous Uganda Notes post on JWN.) Some
90% of the people in the Acholi regions are in IDP camps, as too are
substantial  numbers of people in the Lango and Teso
regions.  Here are figures from a recent UNDP update:

Numbers of people in IDP camps (“2006, Preliminary Update”, rounded to nearest thousand):
Acholi Districts	1,098,000 people, in 104 camps
LangoRegion	442,000 people, in 58 camps
Teso Region	160,000 people, in 142 camps

————————–

Ogenga-Latigo told me that he had been an NRM member for 20
years.  He’s
the MP for Agago, and by profession a professor of entomology and
ecology at Makerere University.  He’s also an ethnic Acholi who
feels
the pain of his people very intensely.  I want to write up a lot
more of  the interview later.  But the most important thing I
got from him was his assessment that both the LRA and the NRM are
engaging seriously and in good faith in the current round of
peace talks, which are being hosted in Juba, South Sudan by South Sudan
President Dr. Riek Machar…

Continue reading “Notes from Uganda, part 2”