Special report on the northern crisis - Continued

Operation Iron Fist News of the launch of a major military operation to eliminate the LRA, following an agreement signed between the Sudanese and the Ugandan government in March last year, initially raised hopes that the insurgency would be brought to an end and normal life would return to the 1.4 million residents of Acholiland. The operation, code-named “Operation Iron Fist”, prompted humanitarian agencies to make contingency plans to receive an estimated 3,000 children who were to be rescued by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) from LRA rear bases in southern Sudan. It was not until June, when Kony’s group sneaked back into northern Uganda and intensified attacks on civilians, that it became clear Operation Iron Fist had not succeeded in its mission. The group intensified its attacks on villages and camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), killing and abducting even more children. A child abductee who was in the bush under LRA control when Operation Iron Fist [www.updfironfist.co.ug] got under way told IRIN how Kony had ordered the rebels to step up attacks and kill as many civilians as they could. “We extended our operations in Kitgum and Pader. In Agoro, [a county of Kitgum District], we abducted 200 people. Kony ordered us to kill all of them. We did as we were told. After that, we split into smaller groups. Some went to Gulu, but mine stayed in Kitgum,” the boy said According to Oyen, there had been at least 6,000 abductions since the beginning of 2003. This rate, according to UNICEF is the highest since the insurgency in northern Uganda began. “The abductions that have taken place since the period after June [2002] are the highest levels of abductions ever,” Oyen said. Christopher Arwai believes that many more children have been abducted from northern Uganda during the entire period of the insurgency, most of who may never be accounted for. Humanitarian Overview Rebel activities in northern Uganda have forced up to 800,000 people to flee their homes and move into camps protected by the Ugandan army. Gulu hosts the bulk of the IDPs, estimated at about 400,000, and in Kitgum camps have spontaneously emerged to accommodate some 100,000 IDPs. The humanitarian situation in Pader District, where almost the entire population has been displaced and cut off from humanitarian access by insecurity, is considered most dire - an estimated 82 percent of the population in the district are now living in camps. In addition, cattle rustling by armed Karamojong ‘warriors’ launching raids from neighbouring Kotido district has increased insecurity still further. A visit to Awer camp, situated on the outskirts of Gulu town, revealed a critical situation. Although the camp’s official capacity is 11,000 IDPs, the actual number of displaced persons living in the camp has more than doubled in the past few months, currently standing at 24,000. Cases of malnutrition have also risen sharply in the region in the past few months, where the capacity of humanitarian agencies to provide emergency food, water, sanitation and health facilities has been overstretched. Attacks by rebels on food stores, who routinely empty granaries and steal domestic animals, only serve to aggravate food shortages further. Valerie Julliand, head of office for the UN-OCHA Regional Support Office for East and Central Africa, stressed that the special circumstances of children in the northern Uganda conflict required urgent international attention. .

Traditional dancing is used to aid rehabilitation at the KICWA centre.

“We get the feeling that the situation in northern Uganda is not getting its due attention and needs to be brought back into the international radar. The violence has no limit,” she said. Julliand pointed out that the devastation in Acholiland was already cancelling out much of the progress Uganda had made on the socio-economic front. “We know that wars produce lost generations. These ones are not only lost, they are completely ruined. It is devastating because of the deterioration of the human mind and spirit,” Julliand said. In addition, the nature of the LRA, being a fragmented rebel army made up largely of traumatised children, makes it exceptionally difficult for humanitarian actors to meet with, and to promote humanitarian principles with, the rebels. “It is the purest form of terrorism one can imagine. In some other countries, you can meet rebels and educate them on humanitarian principles, and somehow you don’t have the impression that these efforts are in vain,” Julliand said. On-off peace talks Although both the government and the LRA have expressed commitment to starting serious peace talks, the situation on the ground has often raised questions over the prospects for real progress. Even after declaring several cease-fires to pave the way for talks, the LRA has sustained attacks on civilians and increased forced recruitment of children into its ranks. For its part, the Ugandan government has indicated that it wants to bring an end to the insurgency by using both diplomatic and military means. Although parliament passed a law in 1999 offering amnesty to surrendering rebels, few hardcore LRA mebers have taken advantage of it. Most beneficiaries of the amnesty so far have been abducted children who have escaped from LRA captivity, with only a handful of commanders giving themselves up under the terms of the amnesty. Some observers believe the attitude of the Ugandan military is an obstacle to negotiating peace in northern Ugandan. Carlos Rodriguez, a Catholic missionary in Gulu and a member of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) [www.acholipeace.org], criticised the government’s military methods against the LRA which, he argues, have led to the deaths of innocent civilians and the abduction of children. “The army tells us that they have killed rebels. But when you look at the so-called rebels, most of them are women and children. We don’t think the solution is to kill the same people whom we have failed to protect from the rebels in the first place,” Rodriguez said. “You don’t use helicopter gunships to kill guerrillas. You end up killing many innocent people,” he told IRIN. Mistrust between the government and the rebels has frustrated efforts by the peace team appointed by Museveni to negotiate terms for peace talks, and even to make meaningful contact with the rebel commanders. Lt-Gen Salim Saleh, a former senior commander in the Ugandan army and currently head of the government’s peace team, said the rebels had failed to honour several agreements to meet with the team, but also expressed some concern over the approach of some elements within the Ugandan military. “The president is totally committed to peace. He does not fear to negotiate. The frustration I get is the big pressure from the military. They think they can end this conflict militarily,” Saleh told IRIN. Some aid agencies working in the north have criticised the international community for allowing Museveni’s government to keep the humanitarian crisis in the north on the back burner, partly because of his economic successes in other parts of the country. For example, they have expressed concern over the government’s recent decision to re-allocate 23 percent of funds from other ministries to defence, seen by some as indicating a preference for a military solution over a peaceful settlement in the north. “The government has put almost no resources to humanitarian response, leaving humanitarian organisations to fill the gap. The Ugandan government needs to be reminded of its responsibilities,” one aid worker told IRIN. [ENDS]