Focus on deepening crisis in the north

The humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda, which has since June seen fresh waves of displacements, this week appeared to deepen as the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) continued attacking and killing scores of civilians despite the arrival of government military reinforcements in the region. A number of incidents were reported this week, in which the LRA rounded up and killed unarmed civilians. On Tuesday, media reports indicated that the group had "executed" some 17 civilians, among them a teacher, in Apac and Lira districts. However, the style of LRA executions became even more worrying with reports that the group had rounded up and killed 56 unarmed civilians in the Agago sub-county of Pader District. According to The New Vision government-owned newspaper, the group locked the civilians in four huts, which it then set ablaze. Norbert Mao, the MP for Gulu, who along with other northern MPs has been pressing for talks between the government and the rebels to end the 16-year insurgency in northern Uganda, admitted that such atrocities committed by the LRA were "unfortunate", and undermined not only its credibility but also the "work of those of us who wanted a peaceful end to the conflict". Mao and other regional analysts view the escalation of the conflict in northern Uganda not only as a proxy war with neighbouring Sudan but also the a direct result of the restricted political space induced by the constraints imposed by President Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Movement system on the activities of opposition political parties. "Conflicts are caused by people who see no space for expressing themselves," Mao said. "If we had political institutions capable of allowing people to express themselves, then there would be no war." Prospects for holding talks, which Museveni hinted at in August, also appeared dimmer as the government began launching massive military offensives against the LRA in the north. Moreover, Museveni has now stated that the army will intensify operations against the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, and his fighters "until they are finished", according to The New Vision. Museveni himself has since last month been camping in Gulu, to personally supervise the war, which he has publicly stated will end by early 2003. On 4 October, the Ugandan army ordered all internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northern Uganda to return to government-protected camps within 48 hours, and for the first time began attacking LRA positions using helicopter gunships. However, the agreement between the Ugandan and Sudanese governments in March this year under which the Ugandan army was authorised to pursue the LRA in southern Sudan expired in September, and has not been renewed. Both governments have stated that they are still negotiating the terms of the protocol, in the light of intensified fighting in southern Sudan between the government and troops of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). The fighting followed the SPLM/A's capture on 1 September of Torit, a key garrison town in southern Sudan, from government troops. The capture prompted Khartoum, which claimed that the SPLM/A had received help from "outside", to pull out of talks then being held in Kenya. In a statement it released last week, the SPLM/A, for its part, claimed that the LRA had been involved in the government's recapture, on 8 October, of Torit, thereby raising speculation over possible tensions emerging between Uganda and Sudan. Although both Uganda and Sudan have stated that their relations are still cordial, and even announced that they had upgraded diplomatic representation in their respective capitals to ambassadorial level, the Torit incident has aroused suspicion between their governments over their commitment to the Nairobi Declaration, which they both signed in 1999, according to regional analysts. Among other things, the two governments had agreed to stop supporting each other's rebels, and to resume diplomatic relations, severed in 1995. "The recent capture and recapture of Torit have resurrected suspicions that the Nairobi accord is not being honoured. And for so long as Uganda believes in supporting the SPLM/A even to the extent of sacrificing the northern Uganda population, then the war with the LRA can never end," Mao told IRIN. As a result of the LRA insurgency, the number of IDPs in northern Uganda dispersed by the LRA insurgency has nearly doubled. In Lira District alone, the number of IDPs had risen to 70,000 from earlier estimates of 37,000, Radio Uganda reported on Thursday. A number of NGOs operating in northern Uganda last week expressed grave concern over the escalating humanitarian disaster due to the deteriorating security in the Acholi subregion, which comprises Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts, but which in recent weeks spilled over into neighbouring Lira and Adjumani districts. According to a joint statement released on 11 October, the NGOs said the current armed conflict in the region was destroying the gains made from years of rehabilitation, with communities previously self-sufficient now once again unable to cope. "The population of the subregion is deprived of a life of security and dignity," the statement said. "Since June 2002, hundreds of civilians - Ugandans and Sudanese refugees in Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Lira and Adjumani - have been killed. Thousands have suffered displacement, injury, and loss of property. Tens of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons have been re-displaced due to insecurity and fear," it added. Furthermore, the statement said, insecurity was preventing humanitarian access to needy populations, and prohibiting farmers from accessing their fields, thereby creating a humanitarian crisis in the region. The LRA also have on several occasions attacked Sudanese refugee settlements and IDP camps, sparking fresh waves of displacement in northern Uganda. Refugees International said on Tuesday that intensified insurgent activities in northern Uganda, characterised by attacks on civilians, abductions, looting and burning of property, had undermined the self-reliance strategies of the Sudanese refugees by making it difficult for them to cultivate and produce their own food. "Camps of Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda and aid agencies providing assistance in the area have been targeted by the rebels," the agency said. "These attacks have disrupted camps that were models of self-sufficiency, and forced the refugees to flee for safety to other parts of Uganda," it added. Meanwhile, the Ugandan army claimed significant gains against the LRA this week, killing about 10 rebels, and rescuing over 100 captives. The army had also captured a number of guns and satellite chargers from the LRA, Radio Uganda reported. Ugandan opposition and religious groups, however, remain firmly opposed to the military approach to ending the conflict, and vowed to continue pressing for talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA despite the presidential order preventing them from making further contact with the rebels. In late September, Museveni wrote a letter to John Baptist Odama, the Roman Catholic archbishop who chairs the Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative, instructing him to stop visiting the LRA, because the group had threatened to kill him. The religious leaders and the opposition find the military option unacceptable, especially with the knowledge that 80 percent of the LRA force is composed of children, who are forcibly held by the LRA after being abducted. Local communities and refugees are, however, not the only groups affected by the intensified fighting in northern Uganda. Last week, Uganda's leading independent Monitor newspaper ran into trouble with the army for reporting that a government helicopter gunship had been shot down by the LRA. The Ugandan authorities denied that any such thing had happened. About 50 police and intelligence operatives reportedly raided the paper's offices in the capital, Kampala on 10 October and scrutinised electronic and written material. They reportedly ordered staff to leave and disconnected the telephones. The Monitor argued that the raid was "the first step by the government towards shutting down" the paper. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the move as "a blatant attack" on press freedom. "Just when independent reporting is most necessary - in wartime - the Ugandan government has silenced one of the country’s most respected journals," Juliane Kippenberg, HRW's researcher in its Africa division, said. Maj Shaban Bantariza, the Ugandan army spokesman, told IRIN that the paper had on several occasions violated sections of Ugandan law cautioning the media against publishing or broadcasting "false information", especially on state security. In May, Uganda enacted a new anti-terrorism law, which, among other things, provides for the death penalty for anyone publishing news "likely to promote terrorism". "They [the Monitor] have published several items that are not correct. They got false information originating from enemies of Uganda's security forces, and went ahead and wrote false stories. We think there should be a limit," Bantariza said. Bantariza stressed, however, that the police had not stopped the paper from publishing, but had only gone to its premises to obtain "vital information". He said the paper was "free" to continue publishing. The newspaper resumed operations on Thursday, after the police withdrew from its offices.