Tired of living in a camp

After living in a camp for displaced civilians in northern Uganda for 11 years, Simon Lakwonyero says he is tired of the squalid conditions and would rather return to his village where he can cultivate crops and live in dignity again. "People have overstayed in this camp. There is no economic activity here. Poverty is the order of the day," said Lakwonyero, a resident of Alero internally displaced persons' (IDP) camp in Gulu District, an area that has borne the brunt of violence perpetrated by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA has fought the Ugandan government for two decades, mainly targeting civilians in bloody attacks, and abducting children. With calm having returned to most parts of northern Uganda, many of the almost two million civilians who were forced into IDP camps for security reasons are increasingly eager to go back to their villages. "The people are cautious of the security situation, but access to land is the main motivation for the movement of people to areas closer to their original homes," said Charles Omona, vice-chairman of the Alero local council. Many people, he added, were moving to government-planned "decongestion camps" - smaller settlements closer to their original villages. There were also spontaneous movements of people from the camps to areas they considered secure, mostly with a military presence. LRA weakened According to Col (Rtd) Walter Ochora Odoch, the resident district commissioner of Gulu, the LRA's capacity to stage any significant attacks in the district had been significantly undermined in the past year. "The LRA’s capacity to attack is very minimal," said Odoch, adding that he was only aware of about three LRA commanders still 'loitering' in the Gulu district with units of 10 to 20 fighters each. He attributed the weakening of the LRA to sustained assaults by better-equipped government troops, good relations with the Sudanese government, which previously had been accused of backing the rebellion, and appeals by civil society to rebel commanders to abandon the insurgency. The situation has also been helped by an amnesty, which has made it possible for insurgents to come out of the bush without the risk of prosecution and pressure from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has indicted five rebel commanders on charges of war crimes. The prevailing calm in Gulu has enabled IDPs such as Betty Obote, a 28-year-old mother of three, who has lived in Alero camp for seven years, to start making arrangements to return home. "We have a lot of children here and we need more land to cultivate, the food rations are too meagre," said Obote as she fed her two-week-old baby. But before she returned home she needed reassurance from the army of the security situation, sufficient food rations to live on as she waited for her crops to mature, and access to water, health and schooling for her children. She urged the government and non-governmental organisations to give those intending to leave the IDP camps shelter material, such as tents, because roofing thatch was scarce. Obote said she supported the decision by the government to give amnesty to the LRA leadership if they renounced violence. "Those people in the bush are our children. They should stop the atrocities and we are ready to forgive them," she said. Amnesty for LRA fighters seems to have gained widespread support among the Acholi community of northern Uganda, most of whom feel that military action by the government against the rebels failed to end the war. According to Odoch, indictments by the ICC against rebel commanders had failed to end the conflict because the tribunal was unable to arrest the five leaders against whom it had issued warrants. "We had anticipated that they (ICC) would not be able to execute the warrants, therefore the arrest warrants would just be paper warrants," said Odoch. "If the United Nations cannot arrest them [LRA leaders] and people have been suffering for 20 years and today there is a window of opportunity for peace, these people will go for alternative justice," he added. But those returning to their villages spontaneously were being warned of possible unexploded ordnance and landmines, he added. The government was also planning to buy brick-making machines and provide those who wished to return to their villages with roofing sheets to build homes. "The budget for decongestion [of the camps] is available, so very soon we shall be very busy resettling the people," said Odoch. jn/mw