New peace efforts in Uganda

2005-10-19 08:56

Edith M Lederer

New York - The chief mediator trying to end Uganda's 19-year civil war urged the United Nations (UN) security council and the international community to join a new campaign to promote peace between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who have been accused of killing civilians and abducting children.

Betty Bigombe said international pressure needs to be brought on the Ugandan government to support a new peace effort, on Sudan to stop supporting the rebels, and on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where part of the LRA recently moved.

Bigombe came to the UN four days after the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal called on Uganda, Sudan and the DRC to help capture five top leaders of the rebel group known as the LRA, which has killed thousands of civilians and enslaved thousands of boys and girls.

Bid to resolve conflict peacefully

She joined other experts on the conflict to announce a campaign called Act for Stolen Children of northern Uganda. The campaign urged the International Criminal Court (ICC), to work with traditional Acholi leaders - including Bigombe - whose people have been the main victims of the war, to peacefully resolve the conflict.

The arrest warrants capped a nine-month investigation of more than 2 200 killings and 3 200 abductions in 850 separate attacks by the LRA between July 2002 and June 2004, said the ICC's chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Bigombe said the implications of the ICC indictments are just beginning to unfold and while they have been welcomed "there's also fear whether it will end the problem or this is going to close the door to any peaceful resolution to the conflict".

In September, the LRA's elusive leader, Joseph Kony, opened direct talks with Bigombe for the first time in 11 years. During two weeks of talks, she said Kony expressed a desire to negotiate an end to the conflict.

But Bigombe said the ICC indictments against Kony and four of his top commanders all but rule out their surrender. Nonetheless, Bigombe said she decided to continue her 11-year effort to end the civil war because there are so many other commanders and child combatants beside the five indicted leaders.

Widespread support needed

Bigombe said her goal now is "to repackage a new peace process" that is fully backed by the international community to lure the other commanders and children under Kony's influence away from the rebel group.

The two key elements must be a programme to reintegrate LRA members and kidnapped children back into society, including psychological counselling, and a reconciliation programme because people are deeply divided over the war, even within families, she said.

Olara Otunnu, the former UN special envoy for children in armed conflict, said the war in northern Uganda has "all the elements of genocide" because the goal is to destroy the Acholi. As many as 94% of the Acholi people have been forced to flee their homes and are now in camps living in conditions which Otunnu described as "worse than animals in a zoo".

- AP