Little Acholi gain from anti-LRA campaign

The situation of relative stability obtaining in northern Uganda - boosted by improved relations between Uganda and Sudan, and the Ugandan army's subsequent assault on the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) - has translated neither into reduced displacement in the troubled region nor the return of children abducted by the rebel group, according to a new donor update from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Almost 400,000 people were still living in "protected camps" for internally displaced persons in northern Uganda, and the anti-LRA campaign being conducted by the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) had not resulted in any significant increase in the numbers of returnees from the thousands of children abducted by the rebel group, it said. The UPDF have been in southern Sudan since April in pursuit of the LRA, with the permission of the Sudanese government, which at one time supported the rebel group. The Ugandan army on Wednesday claimed to have killed 67 LRA rebels, including a top commander Lt Otim Okello Lumumba, during a fierce battle at Owiny-Kibul in the Imatong Hills, some 50 km inside Sudan, the government-owned New Vision reported in Kampala on Thursday. The Ugandan army has estimated that about 1,000 LRA rebels are trapped in those hills. Mads Oyen, the UNICEF officer in charge of children in conflict in Uganda, told IRIN on Wednesday that although the Ugandan government was concentrating its efforts to contain the rebel group in Sudan, LRA splinter groups operating in northern Uganda were responsible for the "immediate threat" to security in northern Uganda. Last week alone, these splinter groups had abducted nine people in Pader District, he said. "Those attacking villages and abducting people are small LRA groups in northern Uganda," according to Oyen. "The group in Sudan doesn't have any immediate effect on villagers. LRA groups in Uganda are causing all the trouble." Only two infants - of some 3,000 LRA abductees whose return had been included in contingency plans prepared by humanitarian organisations - had been rescued by the UPDF since its "Operation Iron Fist" began in April, Oyen said. In mid-April, UNICEF flew home to Uganda some eight children, who had escaped from the LRA before the launch of the UPDF campaign in Sudan, according to Oyen. "There may be others [released], but that I don't know," he added. Latest humanitarian updates have noted an increase in border crossings by civilians and rebels due to clashes between the UPDF and LRA fighters inside Sudan, while LRA splinter groups in northern Uganda continue to "terrorise" civilians. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs April/ May 2002 humanitarian report said there is a broadly held belief that Operation Iron Fist has not improved security in southern Sudan, prompting civilian movements across the border. It cited reports of splinter groups operating separately from the LRA in northern Uganda, but continuing to maintain radio contact with the main LRA group in southern Sudan, contrary to official statements by the UPDF that there was no contact between these groups and the main rebel group. Recent media reports have suggested that about 80 Sudanese refugees are entering Uganda across its northern border every day. According to the independent Monitor newspaper, the new influx, which it attributed to the fighting in Sudan, was augmenting the 50,000 or so Sudanese already living in refugee camps in northern Uganda. Humanitarian sources in southern Sudan have also said that over 1,000 Sudanese civilians had been forced to live in displacement camps near Juba by LRA fighters inside Sudan. "It is important to note that as long as southern Sudan remains unstable, Iron Fist will not have achieved much," the Monitor stated in an editorial on Wednesday. "The instability in there provides a good breeding ground for elements seeking to destabilise Uganda for their own agenda." Meanwhile, religious leaders in northern Uganda have criticised the government for sending the army to Sudan, saying it was against the spirit of the amnesty which the government had offered the rebels and dissidents, The New Vision reported on Monday. The Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative (ARLPI) has also accused the UPDF of the forcible recruitment of young men, particularly in Kitgum, for its anti-LRA campaign in Sudan. Local community leaders had also been ordered to recruit at least five men from their wards, it said. [see: http://www.acholipeace.org/] In a 35-page report, entitled, "Seventy Times Seven", launched on 30 May, the ARLPI said that "the heavy UPDF deployment in Sudan and its all-out offensive against the LRA seems to have silenced anybody advocating dialogue and reconciliation, and given way to other voices", according to The New Vision. So far, a total of 372 people had applied for the amnesty, but only 24 had received any resettlement package, the paper said. "We seem to have entered a new phase in which amnesty as a means to ending the conflict in Acholiland [comprising Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts in northern Uganda] is not taken seriously, or, at most, looked upon as a dream too distant to become true," it added. The UK-based organisation, Conciliation Resouces, and the Acholi diaspora organisation in Britain, Kacoke Madit, recently co-organised a seminar on experiences from violent conflict and insurgency in northern Uganda in which participants emphasised that "military solutions are not enough". What Acholiland needed was real engagement, negotiated resolution of the conflict and significant development assistance. [see http://www.c-r.org/km/] "Fears that a military solution will be neither successful nor sustainable are widespread, and negotiations will eventually have to take place," they added.